World
Georgian PM praises country's protest crackdown despite US condemnation
Facing condemnation from the United States and defiance from his own president, Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze praised police on Sunday for cracking down on protesters who he said were acting on foreign orders to undermine the state.
Georgia, a country of 3.7 million people that was once part of the Soviet Union, has been plunged into crisis since the governing Georgian Dream party said on Thursday it was halting European Union accession talks for the next four years.
The EU and the United States are alarmed by what they see as Georgia’s shift away from a pro-Western path and back towards Russia’s orbit. Big anti-government protests have taken place in the capital Tbilisi for the past three nights, and police have fired water cannon and tear gas into the crowds.
‘PRO-RUSSIAN INTERFERENCE NETWORKS’ EXIST IN EUROPEAN COUNTRIES, BELGIAN PM SAYS
Georgia’s Prime Minister Kobakhidze attends a press conference in Tbilisi, Georgia, on Nov. 28, 2024 (Irakli Gedenidze)
More protests are planned in Tbilisi for Sunday night, and local media reported demonstrations were taking place in towns and cities throughout the country.
Russian security official Dmitry Medvedev said on Sunday that an attempted revolution was taking place in Georgia. The former Russian president said on Telegram that Georgia was “moving rapidly along the Ukrainian path, into the dark abyss. Usually this sort of thing ends very badly”.
Medvedev, once seen as a modernising reformer, has reinvented himself as an aggressive hawk since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, often hurling dire warnings at Kyiv and its Western supporters.
The Kremlin has yet to comment on the latest events in Georgia, but it has long accused the West of fomenting revolutions in post-Soviet countries that Moscow still regards as part of its sphere of influence.
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‘Foreign Instructors’
Georgian Prime Minister Kobakhidze dismissed criticism by the United States, which has condemned the use of “excessive force” against demonstrators.
“Despite the heaviest systematic violence applied yesterday by the violent groups and their foreign instructors, the police acted at a higher standard than the American and European ones and successfully protected the state from another attempt to violate the constitutional order,” he told a press conference, without providing evidence of foreign involvement.
Kobakhidze also shrugged off Washington’s announcement on Saturday that it was suspending its strategic partnership with Georgia. He said this was a “temporary event”, and Georgia would talk to the new administration of President-elect Donald Trump when it takes office in January.
Deepening the constitutional crisis in the country, outgoing President Salome Zourabichvili – a critic of the government and a strong advocate of Georgian membership of the EU – said on Saturday that she would refuse to step down when her term ends later this month.
Zourabichvili said she would stay in office because the new parliament – chosen in October in elections that the opposition says were rigged – was illegitimate and had no authority to name her successor.
Kobakhidze said he understood Zourabichvili’s “emotional state”.
“But of course on December 29 she will have to leave her residence and surrender this building to a legitimately elected president,” he said.
Georgian Dream has nominated Mikheil Kavelashvili, a former soccer star with a record of hardline, anti-Western statements, as its candidate for president. The head of state will be chosen on Dec. 14 by an electoral college consisting of members of parliament and local government representatives.
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‘Foreign Agents’
For much of the period since the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, Georgia has leaned strongly towards the West and tried to loosen the influence of Russia, to which it lost a brief war in 2008. It has been promised eventual NATO membership, and became an official candidate for EU entry last year.
But domestic opponents and Western governments have become alarmed by what they see as increasingly authoritarian and pro-Russian tendencies by the Georgian Dream government.
In June, it enacted a law obliging NGOs to register as “foreign agents” if they received more than 20% of their funding from abroad. In September, parliament approved a law curbing LGBT rights.
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The government says it is acting to protect the country from foreign interference and avoid suffering the fate of Ukraine by being dragged into a new war with Russia.
New EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas voiced solidarity on Sunday with the demonstrators.
“We stand with the Georgian people and their choice for a European future,” she posted on X.
“We condemn the violence against protesters & regret signals from ruling party not to pursue Georgia’s path to EU and democratic backsliding of the country. This will have direct consequences from EU side.”
World
Nigeria killed more than 13,000 ‘terrorists’ in past year, president says
President Tinubu takes victorious tone despite recent mass kidnappings by armed groups across the country.
Published On 12 Jun 2026
Nigeria’s military has “neutralised” more than 13,000 “terrorists” in the past year, the president says, as armed groups and criminal gangs continue to carry out mass attacks and kidnappings in the country.
In a televised national address on Friday, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu said the death toll from Nigeria’s fight against armed rebels is down 81 percent since he took power in 2023.
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Tinubu added that “124,000 fighters and dependants have laid down their arms since 2023 through Operation Safe Corridor,” a programme aimed at rehabilitating repentant armed group members who voluntarily lay down their arms.
Tinubu’s speech was in commemoration of Nigeria’s Democracy Day, which marks the end of several years of military rule and the restoration of democracy in 1999.
However, despite the victorious tone of his speech, Africa’s second-biggest economy is in the throes of a spiralling insecurity crisis that has seen armed groups linked to ISIL (ISIS) and al-Qaeda, as well as criminal gangs, abduct citizens for ransom money.
Soft targets, including schools, churches and mosques, particularly in vulnerable rural communities with limited state security presence, have been particularly at risk.
While armed groups initially limited their operations to the country’s north, they have begun spreading through thick forest corridors to attack targets in the country’s southwest.
Officials say the groups are shifting base because of military pressure on their locations.
Following unfounded allegations of a “Christian genocide” in the country by US President Donald Trump late last year, the United States military has since begun supporting Nigeria in conducting precision strikes on armed group locations. In February, 100 American soldiers were deployed to Nigeria.
Scores of people have been abducted since January alone, including teachers and pupils as young as four years old. The latest incident in May saw 46 people kidnapped from a school in southwest Oyo state.
On Monday, the Nigerian military said it rescued 360 people kidnapped by ISIL-linked Boko Haram and held in a remote mountain hideout in northern Borno State.
World
Video: 13 Civilians Killed in Pakistani Airstrikes in Afghanistan
new video loaded: 13 Civilians Killed in Pakistani Airstrikes in Afghanistan
By Alisa Shodiyev Kaff
June 11, 2026
World
Starmer in ‘seismic’ crisis, UK defense chief quits before high-stakes Trump NATO summit
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U.K. Defense Secretary John Healey resigned Thursday after clashing with Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s government over military spending, dealing the British leader a setback weeks before a critical NATO summit to include President Donald Trump.
Healey’s departure stemmed from a dispute over the delayed Defense Investment Plan (DIP) — the government’s long-promised roadmap for military investment and readiness — and as NATO allies face renewed pressure from Trump to boost defense spending.
“John Healey’s resignation is a seismic moment for the government and the Ministry of Defense,” Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) Senior Associate Fellow Ed Arnold told Fox News Digital.
“For the government, it creates a sequence of political headaches in terms of a replacement, and trying to get the Defense Investment Plan published.”
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Britain’s Defence Secretary John Healey speaks with British and Norwegian naval personnel at the unveiling of the Atlantic Bastion programme in Portsmouth, Britain, on Dec. 4, 2025. (Peter Nicholls/Pool via Reuters)
Healey had been in intense, late-stage negotiations with Starmer and Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves over the scale and timelines of the DIP.
Starmer reportedly refused to set out a timeline to reach 3.5% of gross domestic product (GDP) on defense by 2035 — a promise he made to Trump at last year’s NATO summit — and would not commit to a firm date for reaching 3%.
Instead, Starmer offered Healey a deal to spend 2.68% of GDP on defense by 2030, up only marginally from 2.6% next year, Reuters reported.
“You have been unable, and the Treasury has been unwilling, to commit the resources that the nation needs to defend the country,” Healey wrote to Starmer in his resignation letter, warning that the financial constraints would “make the country less safe,” the outlet reported.
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NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, U.S. President Donald Trump and Britain’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer pose with NATO country leaders during the NATO Heads of State and Government summit in The Hague, Netherlands, on June 25, 2025. (Ben Stansall/Pool via Reuters)
“If the delay to the Defense Investment Plan was already undermining the government’s credibility on defense, John Healey’s resignation has blown a hole in its side,” Professor Kevin Rowlands of the RUSI defense and security think tank told Fox News Digital.
“The immediate consequence is not just political embarrassment for No. 10, but a significant loss of planning certainty at a time when the British Armed Forces, the Ministry of Defense, and industry really need clarity on what will be funded, and when,” he added.
The political fallout is expected to reverberate across the Atlantic, where Washington has increased pressure on European allies to fulfill their defense obligations. Trump has frequently criticized NATO alliance members as “free riders.”
On June 3, Secretary of State Marco Rubio also told the House Foreign Affairs Committee that the upcoming Ankara summit would be the “most important meeting” in NATO’s history because there are some things “that need to be cleared up and fixed.”
He added, “The United States is still in the NATO alliance, and we’ll be there.”
TRUMP EFFECT FORCES GERMANY TO REPRIORITIZE DEFENSE AS NATION PLAYS CATCH-UP IN MILITARY SPENDING
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer increased the military presence in Cyprus following an Iranian drone strike early Monday, Feb. 24, 2026. (Kin Cheung / POOL / AFP via Getty Images))
However, U.S. officials have made it clear that patience is wearing thin.
“Ahead of next month’s NATO summit, POTUS has been clear: Allies must fulfil their commitment to spending 5% of GDP on defense,” U.S. Ambassador to NATO Matthew Whitaker posted on X this week.
Furthermore, a U.S. official noted that a U.K. funding package far lower than 18 billion pounds ($23 billion) would send a highly “negative” signal to Trump ahead of the Ankara meeting, according to The Times.
Starmer has pledged to lift spending to 3% in the next Parliament but Healey’s exit has exposed that the current strategy leaves the U.K. lagging behind key allies. By comparison, Germany plans to spend 3.7% of its GDP on defense by 2030.
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“Healey knows the threats we face, he knows the capabilities and shortfalls the armed forces have, and if he believes that the financial settlement is not enough to keep the country safe — to the extent that he cannot honorably stay in post — then we are in trouble,” Rowlands added.
“While the impact will mainly be felt on Whitehall, the international implications are severe with a NATO summit just three weeks away,” Arnold noted.
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