All The International Politics!

Francília Costa and Luiza Silvério, known online as ‘Double Wow’ (Dupla Oxiuai), first met in a convent in Brazil back in 2019. Costa had been raised by deeply religious grandparents and was encouraged to join the convent, while Silvério joined as a teenager while searching for purpose, according to the Daily Star. The pair initially didn’t like each other, with Silvério admitting that she thought Costa was “an unbearable and stuck-up little nun.” Costa shared that she also didn’t like Silvério, but for no particular reason.

Former foreign affairs minister Stéphane Dion says Canada needs to substantially staff up its embassies in Europe and set deadlines for following through on the flurry of agreements Brussels has signed with Ottawa. Dion’s comments come after Canada’s former military chief said Ottawa must stop cutting back on diplomats to boost defence spending. “These agreements and partnerships must not remain on paper. They must be fully implemented,” Dion told the Senate foreign affairs committee on Wednesday.

Prime Minister Mark Carney is heading to Europe on Thursday, visiting Ireland and France for the G7 summit. The summit is running from June 15 to June 17 in Evian-les-Bains and France says the focus will be on reducing global inequalities. The summit was delayed by a day after U.S. President Donald Trump announced that the White House would host a UFC fight on June 14, which is Flag Day in the United States and Trump’s 80th birthday.

China’s Xi Jinping was given a grand welcome ceremony by North Korea’s Kim Jong Un in Pyongang on Monday. President Xi arrived in the DPRK capital earlier on Monday to begin a two-day state visit at the invitation of Kim, marking his first trip to the DPRK in seven years. Kim along with his wife gave Xi and his wife a warm welcome. The national flags of both countries flew high as portraits of the top leaders of the two parties and the two countries were hung at the centre of the square. Dressed in festive attire, people from all walks of life in Pyongyang, along with children and teenagers, holding flags, flowers and balloons, extended their sincere welcome to the distinguished Chinese guests with warm applause and cheers.

The Israeli ambassador to France has been accused of "foreign interference" after saying he would prefer "anyone rather than Jean-Luc Melenchon" to win the 2027 presidential election. Speaking in a television interview on Thursday, Ambassador Joshua Zarka said he would rather see any candidate elected to the Elysee Palace than Melenchon, the leader of the left-wing party La France Insoumise (LFI), a strong supporter of Palestinian rights. Zarka also added that he met last month with Marine Le Pen, the leader of the French far-right National Rally. His remarks triggered an immediate backlash from across the French political spectrum.

Andy Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester, has declined to describe Israel's actions in Gaza as genocide. Burnham, who is standing to be the MP for Makerfield in the by-election on 18 June and intends to replace Sir Keir Starmer as British prime minister, was asked about foreign policy an interview with the Guardian on Thursday. According to the news outlet, Burnham declined to say Israel has committed genocide, explaining: "I can’t judge things of that enormity from where I am as mayor of Greater Manchester."

A US-backed proposal to halt fighting between Israel and Lebanon has been met with immediate uncertainty, with Lebanese officials saying its implementation depends on Hezbollah’s approval and lacks a clear enforcement mechanism. It followed two days of US-brokered direct talks between Lebanese and Israeli representatives, the fourth round of such negotiations to be held in Washington. The talks produced a declaration calling for the implementation of a ceasefire and the creation of pilot zones in south Lebanon where the Lebanese Armed Forces would assume exclusive control, excluding all non-state actors. But a senior official close to Lebanese President Joseph Aoun told Middle East Eye that the text “has no implementation mechanism” and that the entire process now hinges on Hezbollah’s response.

Christian pastor Joel Webbon has sparked backlash after claiming in a video posted on X that smoking marijuana makes men “spiritually gay”, urging Christian men to embrace tobacco and nicotine as a route back to “masculinity”. In the clip, Webbon links cannabis use to gender stereotypes and uses “gay” as a pejorative. He says marijuana “makes you less masculine, more feminine, soft, gay, at least spiritually gay”, before arguing it leaves men unfocused and unambitious. “Marijuana causes you not to focus, not to lock in, not to be ambitious. It makes you cloudy, fuzzy, lazy, unambitious.” Webbon also dismisses public health messaging around smoking, describing anti-smoking efforts as a conspiracy.

Hungarian authorities have dropped charges against Budapest mayor Gergely Karácsony over organising the city’s 2025 Pride march, citing a landmark European Court of Justice ruling against Hungary’s anti-LGBTQ laws, according to a statement from prosecutors issued on 4 June. The event went ahead in June 2025 despite warnings of potential legal repercussions from Viktor Orbán’s government, which passed a law banning public events involving the LGBTQ+ community. Karácsony said at the march: “Neither freedom nor love can be banned in Budapest.”

A new poll released by GLAAD on 1 June suggests that many Americans are far more concerned about the rising cost of living than political attacks on transgender people, despite efforts by some Republican politicians to make trans rights a major issue ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. According to the survey of more than 5,000 US adults, just 8% of voters identified transgender issues as a top concern. By comparison, 44% said inflation and the rising cost of living were their number-one priority.

Trump walks out of NBC interview after ‘heated and volatile exchange’ with reporter CTV News U.S. political analyst Eric Ham says the NBC reporter was challenging Trump at the time he walked out of the interview.

An offshore earthquake with a magnitude of 7.8 hit the southern Philippines on Monday, killing at least 35 and injuring dozens more. One of the hardest hit cities was General Santos City, with a population of over 700,000 people. Most of Joy Love Silla’s family lives in the city, including her husband and two kids. She was horrified when she saw the footage coming out of her hometown.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford is halfway through a two-day trip to Washington, D.C. to talk trade, with no events open to the media Monday and limited visibility as to exactly what he’s up to beyond a few social media posts. The Premier posted a photo of himself with Canada’s ambassador to the U.S., Mark Wiseman, on the rooftop of the Canadian embassy with the U.S. Capitol building in the background, along with Ontario Trade Minister Vic Fedeli. The post said he “kicked off” the D.C. trip speaking to Wiseman about “how we can work together to make the case for a tariff-free trade in North America.”

When Karolina Pakėnaitė trekked to the Mount Everest base camp three years ago, she met a group of climbers who were aiming to become the first deaf climbers to summit its peak.  Pakėnaitė, who is deafblind because she has Usher syndrome — a genetic condition that causes hearing and vision loss — realized that no deafblind person had ever summited the mountain.  “I started to ask myself, what if? I never imagined myself summiting Everest, but that question never left me to this day,” she told CBC Radio’s Metro Morning Wednesday.   “That question changed everything.”

"The $368 million network of instruments collecting data in both the Atlantic and Pacific has been critical to climate and ocean research." "The Trump administration is dismantling a $368 million deep-ocean observation system that was put in place a decade ago to monitor coastal environments, marine ecosystems and powerful currents that affect the global climate.

WARNING: This story contains details of experiences at residential schools.

Roberta Hill remembers being sent to the Mohawk Institute Indian Residential School in Brantford, Ont., when she was six years old. Although she attended with five of her siblings, including her youngest sister, they were separated upon arrival. "I never saw her again for years after," Hill said. "She was my favourite little sister. So that was the start of the separation and the trauma."