00:00Benjamin Netanyahu says he has ordered his cabinet to open direct talks with Lebanon
00:05as attacks on the country continued after his announcement.
00:10The European Union has strongly condemned Israel's wave of strikes against Lebanon,
00:15saying it's threatening the US-Iran ceasefire.
00:20The European Commission has rejected any attempt by Iran or the United States
00:25to charge vessels for crossing the Strait of Olmos.
00:30The president of the European Commission plans to raise the issue of Hungary's alleged practice
00:35of leaking information to Russia at the highest level of EU's leadership.
00:42Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement that he has ordered his cabinet
00:47to open direct talks with Lebanon to disarm Hezbollah
00:51and establish what he called peace relations between the two countries.
00:55He said the announcement comes after repeated calls from the Lebanese government
01:00to open direct negotiations with Israel.
01:04Israeli attacks on Lebanon continued after the announcement,
01:08which comes on the same day that the Israeli military warned residents of Beirut's southern
01:13suburbs of imminent strikes and called for them to evacuate.
01:18The search efforts are still ongoing in central Beirut after Israel carried out its largest wave of strikes
01:25since the start of its war with Hezbollah on Wednesday, killing over 300 people.
01:33There has been confusion about whether the ceasefire deal with Iran,
01:37which came into force in the early hours of Wednesday, includes Lebanon.
01:41Both Netanyahu and US President Donald Trump say it doesn't,
01:46contradicting an announcement by the Pakistani Prime Minister,
01:49who has been acting as mediator.
01:58The two-week ceasefire deal to pause the war in Iran appears uncertain to hold
02:02after Tehran closed the Strait of Ormuz in response to ongoing Israeli attacks on Lebanon.
02:09Early on Thursday, US President Donald Trump said that a surge of US warships and troops
02:15would remain around Iran until it complied with what he called the real agreement.
02:20The latest developments in the war come after the US and Iran both claimed victory
02:25after they reached an agreement on Tuesday night with ongoing violence threatening to scuttle of the deal.
02:32For its part, the European Union has strongly condemned Israel's wave of strikes against Lebanon.
02:38As European Union, we firmly condemn the recent attacks launched by Israel against Lebanon,
02:44which have caused a large number of casualties among the civil population
02:50and extensive, extensive destruction of civilian infrastructure.
02:55French President Emmanuel Macron condemned the Israeli bombardment in the strongest possible terms,
03:01describing them as a direct threat to the sustainability of the ceasefire.
03:05Italian foreign minister warned of a second Gaza.
03:09His Belgian counterpart, who was in Lebanon at the time of the strikes,
03:14said the Israeli action was disproportionate.
03:18Germany's foreign minister urged Israel to limit itself to the necessary self-defense against Hezbollah
03:24and not to go beyond that, a spokesperson said.
03:27Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez went even further,
03:30pointing the finger directly at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu,
03:35saying his contempt for human life was intolerable.
03:39The barrage of Israeli strikes on Wednesday killed at least 254 people,
03:44according to Lebanese authorities.
03:52The European Commission has firmly rejected any attempt by Iran or the United States
03:57to charge vessels for crossing the Strait of Hormuz while admitting the final decision
04:03on whether to pay a fee is entirely at the discretion of affected companies.
04:08The Strait line and the Strait of Hormuz, like any other maritime lane,
04:14is a public good for all humanity.
04:17Which means what?
04:18Which means that the navigation must be free.
04:22Again, freedom of navigation must be ensured.
04:25We can turn it in any way that you would appreciate.
04:29But again, the law is clear.
04:31Freedom of navigation is a public good and needs to be ensured.
04:35The pushback comes after U.S. President Donald Trump steered concern across Europe
04:40by suggesting a joint venture with Tehran to impose a pay-to-pass system on the waterway,
04:46which is vital for the transit of oil, gas and fertiliser supplies.
04:50On Thursday, confusion continued to reign over Hormuz,
04:54with traffic data showing that only a handful of ships had managed to sail through.
04:58An estimated 2,000 ships and 20,000 seafarers remain trapped in the Persian Gulf.
05:09Ursula von der Leyen plans to raise the issue of Hungary's alleged practice of leaking information to Russia
05:15at the highest level of Europe's leadership.
05:18Five European media described how Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter C. Harto
05:23stepped out of an EU summit to call his Russian counterpart
05:27to brief him about a high-stakes debate on whether to open accession talks with Ukraine.
05:33The alleged revelations highlight the alarming possibility of a member states government
05:43coordinating with Russia, thus actively working against the security
05:50and the interests of the EU and all its citizens.
06:06The direct involvement of the President of the European Commission
06:10exposes the widespread outrage and unease triggered by Budapest's exceptionally close ties with Moscow,
06:17which are increasingly seen as a security threat from within.
06:21It was not immediately clear when von der Leyen would raise the sensitive issue,
06:25given that Hungarians are heading to the polls on April 12th,
06:29in an election where the incumbent, Prime Minister Viktor Orban, trails in opinion polls.
06:35Hungarian Foreign Minister had not denied the content of the revelations.
06:39Instead, he has depicted the cascade of reports as an undercover attempt to meddle in the elections.
06:46The revelations come at a time of high tensions between Orban and his fellow leaders
06:51over his decision to veto a 90 billion euros loan to Ukraine at the last stage of the process.
07:02The UK and Norway say they have led an operation to deter Russian submarines
07:08suspected of malicious activity in the North Atlantic.
07:13Planes and hundreds of personnel monitored a Russian attack sub and two spy submarines
07:18near undersea infrastructure north of the UK for more than a month,
07:23said British Defence Minister John Healey on Tuesday.
07:27And because we were watching them,
07:31we wanted to ensure that we could warn them that their covert operation had been exposed
07:38and reduce the risk that they may attempt any action that could damage our pipelines or our cables.
07:49Healey issued a warning to Russian leader Vladimir Putin,
07:53saying that any attempt to damage the UK's underwater infrastructure will, quote,
07:57have serious consequences.
08:00British officials have tried to keep Russia in the international spotlight,
08:04even as the world's attention is focused on the conflict in the Middle East.
08:09They have also stressed the overlap between wars there and in Ukraine,
08:14saying Russia has supplied Iran with drone parts and other support.
08:24U.S. President Donald Trump's threats to leave NATO,
08:28as well as confrontations with America's European allies over their refusal to join the Iran war,
08:34have created the worst crisis NATO has ever faced.
08:38Former U.S. Ambassador to NATO, Ivo Dalder, told Euronews.
08:42to continue their protests.
08:43What's happened over the last six weeks has been extraordinarily damaging to NATO,
08:49coming on top of the extraordinarily damaging episode of agreements.
08:53And I think the three months that have just passed,
08:57we will look back at it as the worst crisis that NATO has had in 77 years.
09:04Dalder said Trump's statement suggesting the U.S. might not defend NATO allies
09:09against a future Russian military aggression have destabilized the alliance.
09:14He added that the six-week war against Iran has depleted U.S. military resources.
09:20We see a divide at NATO, which has been the goal of first the Soviet Union and then Russia,
09:25for the better part of 80 years.
09:27A NATO that is truly at loggerheads.
09:30A NATO in which the President of the United States says,
09:33I'm not going to defend you, don't count on me, as he put it,
09:36or bye-bye, as he said on his press conference on Monday.
09:41It is a good time to test NATO if you are sitting in Moscow.
09:46Meanwhile, NATO Secretary General Mark Reuter is in Washington, D.C.
09:51to try to ease the tensions between the U.S. and its European allies.
10:01After decades of construction, the world's first facility for permanently disposing radioactive waste
10:08is set to begin operations in Finland.
10:11The site is located near three of Finland's five nuclear reactors.
10:15It was chosen for its bedrock known for its high stability and low risk of earthquakes.
10:19The isolation from the civilization and mankind on the surface is important
10:26because of course the radiation caused by the waste.
10:31But the thing is that by doing this final disposal,
10:36we can safely, we can dispose of the waste more safely than by storing it on facilities located on the
10:45ground surface.
10:46Onkalo can store 6,500 tons of spent nuclear fuel buried deep in tunnels over 400 meters underground,
10:54according to the company POSIVA.
10:56The geologic disposal of nuclear waste is still fraught with uncertainties.
11:01There are still risks.
11:03So we have had Chernobyl, we have had Fukushima, and obviously the nuclear waste.
11:11We are perhaps somewhere close to a solution for that.
11:17Nobody else in the world is anywhere near in solving this problem.
11:23There is currently no permanent underground disposal facility
11:26for commercial nuclear waste operational anywhere in the world.
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