Europe Sees China-Russia Threat as World's ‘Greatest Challenge'
European leaders headed to Asia this week with a key message: We need to work closer together to preserve the rules-based order against threats from China and Russia.
Kaja Kallas, the European Union's top diplomat, and French President Emmanuel Macron emphasized the links between Vladimir Putin's war against Ukraine and Russia's deepening relationship with China during a range of appearances in Southeast Asia in recent days.
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32 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Europe stocks stage world-beating rally as trade war backfires
(Bloomberg) — Europe's equities have emerged clear winners worldwide as the region's economic outlook brightens at a time when President Donald Trump's trade war hobbles US financial markets. Billionaire Steve Cohen Wants NY to Expand Taxpayer-Backed Ferry Now With Colorful Blocks, Tirana's Pyramid Represents a Changing Albania Where the Wild Children's Museums Are The Economic Benefits of Paying Workers to Move NYC Congestion Toll Brings In $216 Million in First Four Months Five months into the year, eight of the world's 10 best-performing stock markets are in Europe, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. That list features Germany's DAX Index with a rally of more than 30% in dollar terms, as well as peripheral markets such as Slovenia, Poland, Greece and Hungary. The pan-European Stoxx 600 Index is beating the S&P 500 by a record 18 percentage points in dollars, powered by Germany's historic fiscal spending plans and a stronger euro. Market participants say there's more to come as resilient corporate earnings and attractive valuations make the region a safer bet when concern over trade and fiscal debt grips the US economy. 'Europe is back on the map,' said Frederique Carrier, head of investment strategy for RBC Wealth Management in the British Isles and Asia. 'We are getting more questions about Europe now over the last two months than we did over the last 10 years.' The outperformance, if it lasts, will mark a turnaround from years of sluggishness for European markets. And the rally may just feed on itself: As stocks on the continent rise, they're likely to attract fresh assets from around the world, equity bulls say. UBS Group AG analysts said in a recent note that investors' shift away from US assets will channel €1.2 trillion ($1.4 trillion) into Europe's stock market over the next five years. An early impetus for this year's gains came from the proposal by Berlin — famous for its fiscal austerity — to spend hundreds of billions of euros on infrastructure and defense. Citigroup Inc. economists expect the reform to boost growth across the euro area from the second half of 2026. On the other side of the Atlantic, investors are on recession watch again amid concerns around inflation and America's fiscal deficit. Sentiment toward Treasuries took a hit in May after Moody's Ratings stripped the US of its top credit grade, with bond yields also climbing in response to Trump's tax-cut proposals. And in a blow to the president's trade agenda, a US court has issued a rare rebuke blocking many of the import taxes he has threatened and imposed on key partners. A proposed tax measure is also raising alarm on Wall Street as it would increase tax rates for individuals and companies from countries with 'discriminatory' tax policies, potentially driving away foreign investors. The S&P 500 rebounded in May, but remains a laggard for the year. The index has gained only about 0.5% in 2025 compared with a 12% jump in the MSCI All-Country World Index excluding the US. It also ranks 73rd among the 92 indexes tracked by Bloomberg. Beata Manthey, head of European and global equity strategy at Citigroup, said the euro area is in 'a relatively good place' as the European Central Bank has room to reduce interest rates further, while equity valuations aren't stretched. 'Of course if there's a US recession, no market would go unscathed, but the lack of exuberance in Europe makes it more resilient to a deeper selloff,' Manthey said. 'Investors had shunned the region for so long that inflows are still tiny compared with outflows of the past few years.' A slate of Europe's smaller markets is dominating the leader boards this year. Slovenia's blue-chip SBI TOP Index is the world's second-best performing gauge with a rally of 42% in dollar terms, behind Ghana's benchmark. 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Yahoo
32 minutes ago
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Hansi Flick's coaching staff believe Marc-Andre Ter Stegen should leave Barcelona
Marc-Andre Ter Stegen has been first-choice goalkeeper at Barcelona for a decade, but that is expected to change from next season onwards. The Germany international has generated doubts in recent years, and having missed the vast majority of the 2024-25 campaign due to injury, it now appears that he will be replaced. Espanyol goalkeeper Joan Garcia is being pursued by Barcelona, who are hopeful of completing a deal in the coming weeks. And the expectation is that he will replace Ter Stegen in between the goalposts, with Wojciech Szczesny to act as backup upon signing a new deal. Advertisement Despite this, Ter Stegen has no plans to leave Barcelona, and his plan is to continue as the club's starting goalkeeper for another season. But things could change now that an insight in Hansi Flick's thinking has been revealed. Hansi Flick sees Joan Garcia as Barcelona starting goalkeeper Image via Getty Images According to MD, Flick's coaching staff see Garcia as the starting goalkeeper if he joins Espanyol this summer. Barcelona's commitment to the 24-year-old is strong, with the technical staff sharing the same view as the board and the sporting management in that he will be first-choice 'keeper from next season onwards. Ter Stegen would need to leave to ensure Germany spot Because of this, it is seen as very difficult for Ter Stegen to play if he stays at Barcelona next season. And the view of the first team coaching staff is that the 33-year-old should leave if he is to play regular football ahead of next summer's World Cup, foe which he is projected to be Germany's starter – but that would only be the case if he is playing. It certainly feels more and more likely that Ter Stegen's time at Barcelona will be coming to an end this summer. And it is the right time, considering that he has dropped off. The club will be desperate for him to go, so that they can save his lucrative salary – and in the process, ease their financial woes.
Associated Press
37 minutes ago
- Associated Press
Ukrainian POWs die in Russian prisons; autopsies reveal brutality
Over 200 Ukrainian soldiers have died in Russian prisons. Autopsies reveal rampant abuse 'Everything will be all right.' Ukrainian soldier Serhii Hryhoriev said this so often during brief phone calls from the front that his wife and two daughters took it to heart. His younger daughter, Oksana, tattooed the phrase on her wrist as a talisman. Halyna Hryhorieva of Pyriatyn, Ukraine, shows her tattoo of words often spoken by her husband, who was a prisoner of war in Russia: 'Everything will be all right,' on March 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Alex Babenko) Even after Hryhoriev was captured by the Russian army in 2022, his anxious family clung to the belief that he would ultimately be OK. After all, Russia is bound by international law to protect prisoners of war. When Hryhoriev finally came home, though, it was in a body bag. A Russian death certificate said the 59-year-old died of a stroke. But a Ukrainian autopsy and a former POW who was detained with him tell a different story about how he died – one of violence and medical neglect at the hands of his captors. Hryhoriev is one of more than 200 Ukrainian POWs who have died while imprisoned since Russia's full-scale invasion three years ago. Abuse inside Russian prisons was likely a contributing factor in many of these deaths, according to officials from human rights groups, the U.N., the Ukrainian government and a Ukrainian medical examiner who has performed dozens of POW autopsies. The officials say the prison death toll adds to evidence that Russia is systematically brutalizing captured soldiers. They say forensic discrepancies like Hryhoriev's, and the repatriation of bodies that are mutilated and decomposed, point to an effort to cover up alleged torture, starvation and poor health care at dozens of prisons and detention centers across Russia and occupied Ukraine. Russian authorities did not respond to requests for comment. They have previously accused Ukraine of mistreating Russian POWs — allegations the U.N. has partially backed up, though it says Ukraine's violations are far less common and severe than what Russia is accused of. 'Alive and well' Hryhoriev joined the Ukrainian army in 2019 after he lost his job as an office worker at a high school. When the war began three years later, he was stationed with other soldiers in Mariupol, an industrial port city that was the site of a fierce battle — and far from his home in the central Poltava region. On April 10, 2022, Hryhoriev called his family to reassure them that 'everything will be all right.' That was the last time they ever spoke to him. Two days later, a relative of a soldier in Hryhoriev's unit called to say the men had been captured. After Mariupol fell to Russia, more than 2,000 soldiers defending the city became Russian prisoners. Soon his family got a call from the International Committee of the Red Cross, which confirmed he was alive and officially registered as a POW, guaranteeing his protection under the Geneva Conventions. 'We were told: 'that means everything is fine … Russia has to return him,'' Hryhoriev's wife, Halyna, recalled. In August 2022, she received a letter from him, that addressed her by a nickname. 'My dear Halochka,' he wrote. 'I am alive and well. Everything will be all right.' Desperate for more information, his daughter Oksana, 31, scoured Russian social media accounts, where videos of Ukrainian POWs regularly appeared. Eventually, she saw him in one — looking gaunt and missing teeth. His gray hair was cropped very short, framing gentle features now partially covered by a beard. In the video, likely shot under duress, Hryhoriev said to the camera: 'I'm alive and well.' 'But if you looked at him, you could see that wasn't true,' Oksana said. The truth was dismal, said Oleksii Honcharov, a 48-year-old Ukrainian POW who was detained with him. Ukrainian soldiers sit in a bus in the Sumy region of Ukraine after returning from captivity in Russia, May 31, 2024. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka, File) Honcharov lived in the same prison barracks as Hryhoriev starting in the fall of 2022. Over a period of months, he witnessed Hryhoriev absorb the same severe punishment as every other POW at the Kamensk-Shakhtinsky Correctional Colony in southwest Russia. 'Everyone got hit -- no exceptions,' said Honcharov, who was repatriated to Ukraine in February as part of a prisoner swap. 'Some more, some less, but we all took it.' Honcharov endured months of chest pain while in captivity. Even then, the beatings never stopped, he said, and sometimes they began after his pleas for medical care, which were ignored. 'Toward the end, I could barely walk,' said Honcharov, who was diagnosed with tuberculosis once back in Ukraine – an increasingly common ailment among returning POWs. A 2024 U.N. report found that 95% of released Ukrainian POWs had endured 'systematic' torture. Prisoners described beatings, electric shocks, suffocation, sexual violence, prolonged stress positions, mock executions, and sleep deprivation. An injured Ukrainian soldier who was a prisoner of war is placed on a stretcher after being returned to his home country by Russia, April. 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka) 'This conduct could not be more unlawful,' said Danielle Bell, the U.N.'s top human rights monitor in Ukraine. The report also said some Russian POWs were mistreated by Ukrainian forces during their initial capture -- including beatings, threats and electric shocks. But the abuse stopped once Russian POWs were moved to official Ukrainian detention centers, the report said. Hryhoriev was physically strong and often outlasted younger prisoners during forced exercises, Honcharov recalled. But over time, he began showing signs of physical decline: dizziness, fatigue and, eventually, an inability to walk without help. Yet despite his worsening condition, prison officials provided only minimal health care, Honcharov said. Piecing together how POW s died In a bright, sterile room with the sour-sweet smell of human decomposition, Inna Padei performs autopsies on Ukrainian soldiers repatriated by Russia, as well as civilians exhumed from mass graves. Hundreds of bodies zipped up in black plastic bags have been delivered in refrigerated trucks to the morgue where she works in Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine. Those who died in battle are still wearing military fatigues and often have obvious external wounds. The bodies of former POWs are dressed in prison uniforms and are often mutilated and decomposed. It is the job of Padei and other forensic experts to piece together how soldiers like Hryhoriev died. These reports are often the only reliable information the soldiers' families get — and they will be used by Ukraine, along with testimony from former POWs, to bring war crimes charges against Russia at the International Criminal Court. The body of a former POW recently examined by Padei had an almond-sized fracture on the right side of its skull. That suggested the soldier was struck by a blunt object – a blow potentially strong enough to have killed him instantly, or shortly after, she said. 'These injuries may not always be the direct cause of death,' Padei said, 'but they clearly indicate the use of force and torture against the servicemen.' Fingerprints taken from the body of a Ukrainian prisoner of war returned by Russia, at a morgue in Kyiv, Ukraine, June 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Alex Babenko) Earlier this year, Amnesty International documented widespread torture of Ukrainian POWs in Russia. Its report was especially critical of Russia's secrecy regarding the whereabouts and condition of POWs, saying it refused to grant rights groups or health workers access to its prisons, leaving families in the dark for months or years about their loved ones. Of the more than 5,000 Ukrainian POWs who were returned in prisoner exchanges with Russia, including more than 50 when an explosion ripped through a Russian-controlled prison barracks, according to the Ukrainian government. An additional 245 Ukrainian POWs were killed by Russian soldiers on the battlefield, according to Ukrainian prosecutors. Associated Press reporters spoke to more than 50 Ukrainian families who received their relatives back in body bags from Russian captivity. The toll of dead POWs is expected to rise as more bodies are returned and identified, but forensic experts face significant challenges in determining causes of death. In some cases, internal organs are missing. Other times, it appears as if bruises or injuries have been hidden or removed. Ukrainian officials believe the mutilation of bodies is an effort by Russia to conceal the true causes of death. Extreme decomposition is another obstacle, officials say. 'They hold the bodies until they reach a state where nothing can be determined,' said Petro Yatsenko, a spokesperson for the Ukrainian government agency in charge of POW affairs. A forensic worker in Kyiv, Ukraine, examines the body of a prisoner of war repatriated by Russia, June 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Alex Babenko) Workers change clothes at a morgue in Kyiv, Ukraine, June 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Alex Babenko) Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said the prompt exchange of POWs must be part of any ceasefire agreement, along with the return of thousands of Ukrainian civilians, including children forcibly deported to Russia. A major prisoner exchange between Russia and Ukraine took place over the weekend. The Associated Press interviewed relatives of 21 Ukrainian POWs who died in captivity. Autopsies performed in Ukraine found that five of these POWs died of heart failure, including soldiers who were 22, 39 and 43. Four others died from tuberculosis or pneumonia, and three others perished, respectively, from an infection, asphyxia and a blunt force head wound. Padei said cases like these — and others she has seen — are red flags, suggesting that physical abuse and untreated injuries and illness likely contributed to many soldiers' deaths. 'Under normal or humane conditions, these would not have been fatal,' Padei said. In one autopsy report, coroners said an individual had been electrocuted and beaten just days before dying of heart failure and extreme emaciation. Other autopsies noted that bodies showed signs of gangrene or untreated infections. 'Everything the returned prisoners describe … we see the same on the bodies,' Padei said. 'Angel in the sky' Months into Hryhoriev's detention at the Kamensk-Shakhtinsky prison – and after his daughter saw him in the Russian army's social media video -- his health deteriorated significantly, according to Honcharov. But instead of being sent to a hospital, Hryhoriev was moved to a tiny cell that was isolated from other prisoners. Another Ukrainian captive, a paramedic, was assigned to stay with him. 'It was damp, cold, with no lighting at all,' recalled Honcharov. He died in that cell about a month later, Honcharov said. It was May 20, 2023, according to his Russian death certificate. The Russian and Ukrainian autopsy reports of Serhii Hryhoriev The Hryhoriev family didn't learn he had died until more than six months later, when a former POW reached out. Then, in March 2024, police in central Ukraine called: A body had arrived with a Russian death certificate bearing Hryhoriev's name. A DNA test confirmed it was him. An autopsy performed in Ukraine disputed Russia's claim that Hryhoriev died of a stroke. It said he bled to death after blunt trauma to his abdomen that also damaged his spleen. Hryhoriev's body was handed over to the family last June, and soon after he was buried in his hometown of Pyriatyn. Halyna Hryhorieva, the wife of Serhii Hryhoriev, a prisoner of war who died in Russia, sits at home in Pyriatyn, Ukraine, March 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Alex Babenko)
