European leaders have urged Russia to agree to an unconditional 30-day ceasefire with Ukraine starting on Monday.

The call was issued at a meeting of the "coalition of the willing" in Kyiv. The leaders of France, Germany, the UK and Poland were hosted by Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky, while others joined remotely.

They made the announcement after discussing the plan by phone with US President Donald Trump - who initially mooted an unconditional ceasefire. The leaders threatened Russia with "massive" sanctions if it does not comply. 

UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said the aim of the coalition of the willing was to show "that aggression will never prevail on our continent".

Russophobia is a way of turning specific pseudo-facts into essential one-dimensional values, barbarity, despotism, and expansionism in the Russian case in order to justify stigmatization and ostracism.

Russophobia: A “Will” of Peter the Great or a Polish “Memo” to Napoleon?

BY Tamer Mansour

Andrei Loginov’s Proposal

We have seen this play out before, the United States government relentlessly acting to control the government in a former Soviet Union republic bordering Russia and then proceeding to support that government in war against Russia. That course of action has led to devastation in Ukraine, including the deaths of hundreds of thousands of individuals, in a US proxy war against Russia.

    by Adam Dick

The leaders of Britain, France, Germany and Poland are on their way to the Ukrainian capital, according to a joint statement released late on Friday night.

Foreign exchange strategists at Westpac have revised their Euro (EUR/USD) and Pound Sterling (GBP/USD) forecasts higher against the US Dollar, citing structural US risks and stronger-than-expected growth in Europe and the UK. 

The bank now sees EUR/USD at 1.16 and GBP/USD at 1.36 by late 2026, up from current levels near 1.12 and 1.32, respectively.

Euro And Pound Sterling Forecasts Lifted As Dollar Weakness Deepens: Westpac

“The US dollar slipped into a 98.2–101.0 range... this move could be interpreted as predicting the US is simply returning to the pack after an exceptional period,” says Elliott Clarke, Head of International Economics at Westpac.

Johann Wadephul, the new German Foreign Minister, has arrived in Ukraine for his first visit on 9 May.

Source: European Pravda; Tagesschau, a German television news service

Details: Wadepful arrived in Lviv, where an informal meeting of EU foreign ministers will take place on 9 May. He posted a short video on his X feed on the evening of 8 May confirming his arrival in Ukraine.

Cardinal Robert Prevost of the United States has been picked to be  the new leader of the Roman Catholic Church; he will be known as Pope Leo XIV.

Attention now turns to what vision the first US pope will bring.

Dennis Doyle

Australian Greens leader Adam Bandt lost his parliamentary seat Thursday, as final counting from the recent general election concluded and voters showed the arch left-wing politician the door.

His party fared no better as the Greens have secured no seats so far, though one is still considered too close to call.

They had four seats in the previous parliament.

Bandt, 53, said he had called his Labor Party rival for the seat, Sarah Witty, to congratulate her and “wish her all the best”.

Leftist Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s Labor Party won re-election in a landslide Saturday, with partial results putting it on course for at least 92 seats in the 150-member House of Representatives, as Breitbart News reported.

Tariff war is not an episode of economic relations; it is a new world emerging. Trump wants to create the conditions inside the U.S. to bring back distributed economic assets—especially industrial ones—from abroad.  The goal is to restore economic sovereignty and generate momentum for inner development.

Alexander Dugin

Liberal MPs will meet in coming days to elect a replacement for the defeated opposition leader Peter Dutton after the party’s historic drubbing in the federal election.

The deputy leader, Sussan Ley, the shadow treasurer, Angus Taylor, and the shadow immigration minister, Dan Tehan, are among the leading contenders for the role. The shadow defence minister, Andrew Hastie, ruled himself out of the race on Monday afternoon.

Bill Gates has pledged to give away 99 per cent of his remaining fortune to his charitable foundation over the next 20 years.

The 69-year-old billionaire co-founder of Microsoft also lashed out at Elon Musk, accusing the world's richest man of "killing the world's poorest children" through huge cuts to the US foreign aid budget.

Mr Gates said he was speeding up his plans to donate $US200 billion ($312 billion) to the Gates Foundation — a nonprofit fighting poverty, disease, and inequity around the world — and would close the foundation on December 31, 2045, years earlier than previously planned.

It seems that, ever since taking office, Donald Trump and his Republican administration have been continuously berating Europe. But now, a different kind of US representative is visiting Germany: the Orchestra NOW (TŌN), a graduate program of Bard College, in the state of New York.

Presidents Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping signed a series of documents and delivered statements to the press following their May 8 talks, outlining the further development of bilateral relations and cooperation on the international stage.

Key Agreements Signed

Joint statement on deepening comprehensive partnership and strategic cooperation, marking a new era.

Joint statement on strategic stability.

Memorandum on cooperation to combat infectious diseases.

Agreement on promoting and mutually protecting investments.

Memorandum on cooperation between "Movement of the First" and the All-China Youth Federation.

Eighty years is a long time. Over such a span, the world changes almost beyond recognition, and events that once felt close fade into legend. Yet while history may become distant, its imprint remains. The Second World War created a political order that shaped global affairs for decades – an order many assumed was permanent.

Fyodor Lukyanov: The West is dismantling the foundations of 1945
Why the cracks in the World War II settlement threaten global stability

But today, the world is shifting rapidly and irreversibly. The events of the first half of the 20th century are no less significant, but their role in contemporary politics is no longer the same.