Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said on Friday he had received signals that Ukraine is looking for ways to ease tensions with Poland following talks between Polish Foreign Minister Radoslav Sikorski and Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha.
"I have signals that the Ukrainian side has realized that it's worth seeking ways to have an honest conversation, including about the past, and that there's no point in escalating this tension," Tusk said. He added that he expects "de-escalation" resulting from "a change in attitude on the part of some Ukrainian politicians."
Last month, Polish President Karol Nawrocki revoked the Order of the White Eagle previously awarded to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky after Ukraine named a Special Operations Forces unit after the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), a World War II-era group linked to the killings of Poles.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on Friday that the European Union is prepared to impose measures against China if bilateral trade talks do not progress by fall. Last week, EU Trade Commissioner Maros Sefcovic said he expects "tangible results" by October, after hisnext visitto Beijing.
Von der Leyen said the EU must be "very clear" about the issues in its trade relations with China, including overcapacity, lack of EU market access to China and unfair competition due to subsidies. "We are basically prepared for everything, and we have all instruments on the table, and we are thinking about other possibilities if necessary," she told reporters.
The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) issued a joint statement on Friday slamming "in the strongest terms" a deadlybomb explosionat a cafe in the Syrian capital, Damascus.
"GCC Secretary General Jasem Mohamed Albudaiwi underlined the GCC's full solidarity with Syria in maintaining its security and stability. He reiterated the GCC's unwavering stance rejecting all forms of violence, terrorism, and acts aimed at undermining security, peace, and stability," the council said in a statement.
Earlier, Syria's Health Ministry said that an explosive device was detonated on Thursday inside a cafe on Al-Nasr Street near the Justice Palace in the Syrian capital of Damascus, killing at least nine people. Jordan, Qatar, Egypt, and Iraq also condemned the incident.
Newron Pharmaceuticals thinks it may have reached an agreement with the FDA on a way to get the development of its schizophrenia candidate evenamide back on track, after it was placed under a clinical hold earlier this year.
The Italy-headquartered company said it has held a meeting with the FDA that discussed changes to the ENIGMA-TRS 2 trial of evenamide in treatment-resistant schizophrenia that could allow US patient enrolment to start again.
In April, the FDA placed a block on recruitment into ENIGMA-TRS 2 in the US after a sudden death in an overseas study subject, despite Newron's protestations that the fatality appeared to be unrelated to the drug treatment and against the conclusions of the trial's independent safety monitoring board that it should continue as planned.
When the FDA announced its clinical hold, Newron's chief medical officer, Ravi Anand, said: "In the evenamide development program, to date, there is no increase in the risk of mortality between evenamide and placebo-treated patients based on the duration of treatment."
He added: "Sudden death is not uncommon in patients with schizophrenia."
In its new statement, Newron said: "The face-to-face meeting was constructive, and the parties discussed potential actions toward the resolution of issues that led to the hold. Newron, as agreed with the agency, plans to propose changes to address the agency's concerns" that may allow it to consider restarting enrolment, it added.
Evenamide is a glutamate modulator acting on sodium channels that Newron hopes could become the first add-on therapy for treatment-resistant schizophrenia and for patients with schizophrenia who can't control their symptoms using current atypical antipsychotic drugs.
ENIGMA-TRS 2 is designed to enrol around 400 patients in the US and other countries, and Newron is also running another international study, ENIGMA-TRS 1, which is recruiting around 600 subjects in Europe, Canada, Latin America, and Asia, due to generate results before the end of the year.
Evenamide has had a long route through clinical development – the FDA previously delayed the start of phase 2/3 testing with a query about safety data from animal studies – but Newron has high hopes for the programme, given the limited improvement in schizophrenia treatment in recent decades.
That optimism is shared by analysts at Edison, who wrote in a research note last year – albeit ahead of the FDA hold – that it was modelling 2034 sales of €1.7 billion ($1.95 billion) for the drug in the US, Europe, and Japan, assuming it launches in 2028.
Patients are being recruited into a clinical trial of two potential therapies for the Bundibugyo species of Ebola in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
The PARTNERS trial is testing two out of three drugs previously identified by the WHO as "priority" candidates for Bundibugyo – Mapp Biopharmaceutical's MBP134 and Gilead's remdesivir – to see if they can improve survival among people diagnosed with the virus, either alone or in combination. The first patient was enrolled yesterday.
The third priority drug, Regeneron's maftivimab, is part of the company's three-antibody Ebola cocktail Inmazeb. Because the WHO wants to test it as a monotherapy, work is ongoing to generate and validate stocks of the maftivimab component on its own for testing, and PARTNERS' adaptive trial design means it can be included at a later date.
On 1st July, DRC said it had recorded 1,406 confirmed cases of Ebola, with 438 deaths and 609 patients hospitalised, while Uganda said it had 20 confirmed cases and two deaths. There has also been one case in France and another in a US citizen medically evacuated to Germany that are believed to be imported from areas affected by the ongoing outbreak.
"Even without approved therapeutics, people are recovering from this disease, but, of course, we could save many more lives with safe and effective therapeutics in our toolkit," said Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General.
"The PARTNERS trial, established with national authorities and scientific partners in record time, offers real hope that we can deliver concrete results for – and with – the communities at the heart of the outbreak."
MBP134 is an antibody billed as a 'pan-Ebola' candidate that is designed to target the four species that are known to infect humans. Remdesivir, an antiviral, was an important part of the response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
PARTNERS is expected to include more than 1,000 patients, and sufficient stocks of MBP134 and remdesivir are already in place to complete the study, according to the WHO.
"One of the key lessons from recent outbreaks is that research needs to happen alongside the response, not after it,” commented Prof Amanda Rojek, operations lead for the PARTNERS trial, who is associate professor of health emergencies, at the University of Oxford's Pandemic Sciences Institute in the UK.
"The PARTNERS trial gives us an opportunity to evaluate potential treatments during the outbreak itself, so that the evidence generated can help inform patient care when it is needed most – in months, rather than years," she added.
The study is sponsored by the WHO and is being coordinated by the Institut National de Recherche Biomédicale (INRB) in DRC, the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Belgium, and the University of Oxford.
Japan sharply reduced natural gas-fired power generation last month, instead relying more on coal, as disruptions around the Strait of Hormuz tightened supplies of the cleaner-burning fuel.
The country produced about 17.3 terawatt hours of electricity with gas in June, down 16% from last year, according to data compiled by Japan’s nine largest utilities. Coal generation rose by 4.6%, the data shows.
The move highlights how Asian countries are continuing to turn to alternatives, like coal, to reduce dependence on liquefied natural gas — as the conflict in the Middle East chokes about a fifth of global exports. Asian LNG spot prices are about 70% higher than pre-war levels, making the fuel less attractive to Japanese utilities.
Japan — the world’s second largest LNG buyer — has cut back imports since the war started in late-February. March to June imports are down about 7% compared to the same period last year, ship-tracking data shows.
While higher demand from Northeast Asian countries pushed Australian benchmark coal prices to the highest since 2023 in early June, futures have since dropped around 15%.
In the latest sickening example of two-tier policing under Keir Starmer's government, a female officer in Birmingham charged straight into a street attack, shielded the three black aggressors, and then turned her aggression on their white British victim - an inebriated teenager who had just been randomly assaulted.
While the attackers dispersed without consequence, multiple officers swarmed the white lad, barked obscenities at him, shoved him into a police car the wrong way round, and then dragged him back out again.
A bystander who tried to explain that the white kid was the victim was completely ignored.
This is not policing. This is ideological enforcement, where native Britons are treated as the problem and mass migration's imported violence gets a free pass.
The main footage of the attack and the officer's intervention spread rapidly on X.
Further clips reveal the tone of the encounter. One officer is heard snarling at the restrained teen: "You're going to walk to the car you fucking dick." The contrast with how such language would be deployed against anyone else is glaring.
Another angle captures officers trying to force the handcuffed lad into the back seat the wrong way round while yelling "Get in the fucking car."
When that fails, reinforcements arrive - another eight officers in total - and they drag him out again because of the botched seating.
A witness wearing glasses can be seen on camera telling officers that the white lad had just been randomly attacked by the group. The officers brush past the information and continue processing the victim as the aggressor.
Public reaction has been swift and unforgiving. One observer captured the robotic programmed nature of the response:
The handling shows a blatant failure of duty, with the arresting officer targeting the white male despite clear evidence he was not the agressor. It is impossible the officer did not see the two black males actively attacking him.
West Midlands Police have reportedly asked people to stop sharing the footage. Of course they have.
This is not an isolated lapse. It fits a documented pattern of selective enforcement and excessive force against native Britons while authorities tiptoe around minority perpetrators.
Earlier this month, outrage erupted over South Yorkshire Police officers filmed shoving, baton-wielding and Tasering teenage girls during a dispersal in Rotherham.
The footage showed male officers brutally shoving small teenage girls flying onto the concrete like ragdolls. These are young girls, not hardened criminals. One wrong landing and they could have smashed their heads open.
South Yorkshire Police later acknowledged: "The short clip on social media of the police response to an incident in Rotherham over the weekend appears nothing short of shocking." The force's Professional Standards Department said it was reviewing all available footage, including body-worn video, and that officers are expected to act in a "lawful, proportionate, and fair" manner.
The Rotherham location itself sharpened the hypocrisy. It remains the epicentre of the grooming gangs scandal in which authorities failed for years to protect an estimated 1,400 young victims from predominantly Pakistani Muslim gangs. Political correctness and fears of racism accusations paralyzed police and social services. Now the same forces apply heavy-handed tactics to young British girls celebrating a school leavers' event.
Similar incidents piled up around the same period. Footage emerged of officers manhandling a five-year-old boy - nearly yanking his arms from their sockets while forcing him into a police car - while pepper-spraying his father and confronting his mother who was holding a baby.
Another clip showed officers smashing a man's head into a metal bollard, then handcuffing and dragging him while threatening the person filming.
A further video captured police slamming Siobhan Whyte to the ground during a protest linked to the Henry Nowak case. Her daughter had been murdered by an illegal migrant, stabbed 23 times in the head with a screwdriver.
A 50-year-old military veteran and father of three with 13 pins in his right ankle was struck with riot shields and kicked in the head four times while sitting on a wall filming and stating he was doing nothing wrong.
These episodes form part of a growing catalogue of police interactions with native British citizens that many describe as disproportionately aggressive. The common thread is eroding public trust.
The Henry Nowak case stands as the starkest recent precedent. On 3 December 2025, 18-year-old Henry was fatally stabbed five times in Southampton. His attacker, Vickrum Digwa, convinced arriving officers he was the victim and claimed racial abuse.
Police arrested and handcuffed the dying Henry instead of providing immediate aid. It took eight minutes for officers to discover the stab wound even though Henry repeatedly told them he had been stabbed and could not breathe.
Digwa was never handcuffed during his time in custody before being charged.
The Independent Office for Police Conduct confirmed it is investigating two Hampshire officers for potential gross misconduct. The evidence indicates both officers may have breached standards of duties and responsibilities, use of force, and discreditable conduct.
These relate to potential failures to recognise that Henry needed urgent medical attention, to immediately act after he said he had been stabbed and could not breathe, and the decision to arrest and handcuff Henry rather than provide immediate first aid.
There is also an indication one officer may have breached the standard relating to authority, respect and courtesy for appearing to dismiss Henry saying he had been stabbed.
The officers face investigation but have not been suspended. Adam Brooks stated on GB News: "I don't just want these officers under investigation, I want them arrested!"
The Birmingham incident follows the same script. The white victim is processed aggressively while the actual attackers are permitted to leave. West Midlands Police have reportedly moved to limit circulation of the footage rather than address the conduct on camera.
This suggests the same institutional reluctance to confront anti-white bias that has already been admitted in training contexts around the Nowak case.
Britons pay for policing through their taxes. They have every right to demand officers who de-escalate rather than escalate against teenagers, who protect the vulnerable instead of dismissing them, and who operate without the stain of two-tier standards.
When footage repeatedly shows the opposite - and when legacy media largely ignores it until social media forces the issue - the contract between police and the public frays further.
Accountability mechanisms exist. Body-worn video exists. The public expects both to deliver transparency and consequences where warranted. Without that, resentment will only deepen.
