00:00German Chancellor Friedrich Mertz said that his country will take part in a French nuclear exercise later this year.
00:07The announcement came after a meeting of the Franco-German Ministerial Council,
00:11where high-level officials of both governments convened to discuss their cooperation across all sectors, namely defense.
00:32French President Emmanuel Macron says the goal is to boost continental security against threats in an increasingly uncertain geopolitical climate.
00:49The two allies discussed ways to boost their cooperation in the fields of manufacturing, trade,
00:55and even ways to prop up Europe's efforts in the U.S. and China-dominated AI space.
01:00Mertz and Macron also agreed to co-create a roadmap to address China's unfair trade practices,
01:06causing an ever-growing EU trade deficit with Beijing, which they plan to tackle by September.
01:16Andy Burnham has been named as the Labour Party's new leader
01:21and is set to take over as the U.K.'s seventh prime minister in a decade on Monday.
01:27Burnham was announced as the new head of the party at a special press conference on Friday.
01:33Burnham voted to sweep changes to British politics
01:36and criticised his generation of politicians for not doing enough for working-class people across the U.K.
01:43We are united and we put the power that comes from that unity
01:48at the service of people and places who have been waiting too long for politics to let them hope again.
01:57And that's what we're going to do, everybody.
01:59We're going to give them hope back.
02:02Burnham has focused on the idea of devolution,
02:05pledging to help power flow into other parts of the U.K.
02:08He also said he would put an end to trickle-down economics and neoliberalism
02:13and undertake the largest council house-building programme since World War II.
02:22Poland's Conservative President Karol Nawrowski on Friday
02:25vetoed a bill to legalise civil partnerships.
02:29The legislation had been proposed by Prime Minister Donald Tusk's centrist government
02:33ahead of last year's parliamentary elections in Poland.
02:36In a statement on social media platform X,
02:40Nawrowski said, quote,
02:41Nothing that is a quasi-marriage can count on my support.
02:44He added that in his capacity as the guardian of the constitution,
02:48he cannot accept a solution that would lead to the loss of the special status of marriage,
02:53which is defined as a union between only man and woman.
02:56The bill, first submitted to Parliament last December,
03:00aimed to establish a status of the closest person for unmarried partners,
03:04including same-sex couples.
03:05The unions would grant some of the rights currently reserved for married couples under Polish law,
03:11such as joint property rights, access to each other's medical information, and burial rights.
03:17To ease conservative opposition,
03:19leaders of the ruling coalition have stressed that closest person unions
03:22do not exclusively have to be between romantic partners,
03:26but could also be neighbours or family members.
03:29Tusk criticised President Nawrowski following his veto,
03:32noting that it's, quote,
03:34An expression of contempt towards people,
03:36their right to happiness and a normal life.
03:42Overnight strikes on Ukraine have killed seven people over the last 24 hours,
03:47according to officials, and injured dozens more.
03:50Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the Kremlin targeted a number of areas across the country.
03:55Local officials reported attacks in the northern Sumi and Kharkiv regions,
04:01the southern Odessa, Herson, and Zaporizhia regions,
04:04as well as Donetsk, part of the industrial Donbass region.
04:08Zelenskyy says Russia fired more than 130 strike drones,
04:13most of which were intercepted,
04:14and eight missiles across the border into the early hours of Friday.
04:18The strikes targeted civilian areas as well as energy infrastructure,
04:23causing power outages in several regions.
04:26Meanwhile, Kiev has been conducting strikes of its own,
04:29targeting Russia's energy sector,
04:31which it says has been the financial arm of Moscow's war.
04:34The Russian Defense Ministry says its forces intercepted 243 drones
04:39fired from Ukraine early on Friday,
04:42targeting oil facilities and energy grids.
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