Finland votes in a run-off for a new President

Finns are headed to the polls to choose between two experienced politicians in a presidential election run-off.
More than four million people are eligible to vote on Sunday for a new head of state, whose main task will be to steer foreign and security policy. This has taken on new significance after the Nordic country joined NATO in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The vote pitches conservative former prime minister Alexander Stubb, 55, against 65-year-old Pekka Haavisto, a former foreign minister from the Green League.
Both largely agree on Finland’s foreign policy and security priorities. These include maintaining a hard line toward Russia – with which the country shares a 1,340km (832-mile) border – strengthening security ties with Washington, and support for Ukraine.

Greece is on the brink of legalising same-sex marriage

Parliament will vote on the bill, introduced by Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, on Thursday. Facing dissent from members of his own centre-right party, he will need to rely on support from the left-wing opposition to get it through.
Fifteen of the European Union's 27 members have already legalised same-sex marriage. It is permitted in 35 countries worldwide.
Greece has lagged behind European neighbours largely because of opposition from its powerful church. If the law passes this week, it would become the first Christian Orthodox-majority country, and the first in Europe's southeast, to have marriage equality.

Moscow has put the Estonian prime minister, Kaja Kallas, and other Baltic states officials on a wanted list, as Tallinn warns of an imminent Russian military buildup along its border.
The Russian foreign ministry spokesperson, Maria Zakharova, said the Estonian state secretary, Taimar Peterkop; the Lithuanian culture minister, Simonas Kairys, and Kallas were accused of “destroying monuments to Soviet soldiers”, a reference to the removal of Soviet-era Second World War memorials

Russia accused the West on Monday of sabotaging agreements that would have prevented the war in Ukraine – but the U.S. and its allies put the blame squarely on Moscow, saying there is no escaping that President Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion of its smaller neighbour.
Days before the second anniversary of Russia’s invasion on Feb. 24, 2022, Russia’s U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia again put the cause of the war down to the failure to implement the 2015 Minsk agreements, which he blamed on “Kyiv’s sabotage” supported by the West.

Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk has promised to keep supporting Ukraine against Russia’s invasion and to resolve differences between Warsaw and Kyiv over grain shipments and trucking that soured ties between the neighbours.
“Poland will do everything to increase Ukraine’s chances of victory in this war,” Tusk said at a joint media briefing with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv on Monday.
“I am not ashamed to use these big words: it is here, in Ukraine, that the world front between good and evil runs,” he added.
Tusk and Zelenskyy also hailed plans between their countries for joint arms production.
On the social media platform X, Zelenskyy said that they had discussed “a new form of cooperation aimed at larger-scale arms purchases for Ukrainian needs.”

Hungarian President Katalin Novak, a close ally of Prime Minister Viktor Orban, announced her resignation Saturday following outrage over a pardon granted to a man implicated in a child sexual abuse case.
The announcements followed growing pressure from opposition politicians and protests outside the presidential palace Friday evening.
Novak became the first woman to hold the essentially ceremonial role of president in March 2022.

Czechia has announced that it will abstain in the vote on an EU migration and asylum pact expected to take place later this month.
According to government officials, the new draft of the proposal would reduce the possibility of effectively preventing illegal migration on the EU’s external borders.
A badly needed overhaul of the European Union's asylum and migration system was years in the making as member states struggled with the practical impacts of several large waves of migrants from the Middle East and Ukraine.
The first comprehensive draft of the pact was proposed in September of 2020 and it was not until December of last year that the EU reached a major breakthrough in the quest of a new common system for managing migration.

Moldova’s ruling pro-European party has lost a bid for the mayorship of the country’s capital and other key cities despite victories in many areas in local elections that were overshadowed by accusations that Russia was meddling to undermine the vote, according to preliminary results.
Lilian Carp of the Party of Action and Solidarity, or PAS, lost out to incumbent Chisinau mayor, Ion Ceban, who won just over 50% of the capital’s vote, according to the Central Electoral Commission.
Sunday’s elections in the country of about 2.5 million people, situated between Romania and Ukraine, were under the spotlight because of ongoing accusations by Moldovan authorities that Russia was meddling to influence the outcome of the vote.

As Ukraine approaches the second anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion, it plans to produce more of its own ammunition and key weapons systems.
The goal of greater self-sufficiency comes as Ukraine’s Western allies meet increasing political resistance to military aid and Russia ramps up Ukraine’s defense industry that has already begun to expand. Strategic industries minister Oleksandr Kamyshin said Ukraine last year doubled its ammunition production for NATO-caliber artillery systems.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said it had produced three times more equipment and weapons than in the first year of the war. That included armored vehicles and anti-tank missile systems.

News bits proofread by:

Drafted by:

Jiah Malik (B.A. I.R. 1st Year)

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