The European Union’s next meetings of foreign and defense ministers scheduled in August will be moved from Budapest to Brussels, the bloc’s top diplomat announced Monday, in the latest escalation of a spat between the union and Hungary over its prime minister’s stance on the war in Ukraine.

Hungary’s far-right Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has ruffled feathers among EU leaders by claiming recently that the union has a “pro-war policy.”

Borrell responded to Orban’s comment during a press conference in Brussels, saying, “I understood that we have to send a signal, even if it is a symbolic signal, that being against the foreign policy of the European Union and disqualifying the policy of the European Union as the ‘party of war’ has to have some consequences.”

“We analyzed the statements and the actions implemented” by the Hungarian prime minister and foreign minister, the chief diplomat of the EU said. “I can say that all member states, with one single exception, were very much critical about this behavior,” he added.

“European Union policy is not a pro-war policy. We strongly rejected that,” Borrel said, adding, “the only one who is pro-war is Putin.”

The informal EU Council meetings of foreign and defense ministers were due to take place in Budapest from August 28 to 30, according to the EU council website, with Hungary currently holding the rotating European Union presidency.

Borrell’s decision comes after European Council President Charles Michel firmly hit back at Orbán’s claim that the EU has led a “pro-war policy” in a letter published last week.

“Russia is the aggressor and Ukraine is the victim exercising its legitimate right to self-defense. Russia is leading a war of aggression in blatant violation of international law, Ukraine’s territorial integrity and sovereignty in accordance with the UN Charter,” Michel wrote.

Orbán further upset EU lawmakers with his recent so-called “peace missions” at the beginning of July – meeting Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow, Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Beijing, and most recently former US President Donald Trump at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida.

The authoritarian Hungarian leader has sought to cast himself as a peacemaker in the Ukraine conflict, but his stance is at odds with most EU leaders, who have pledged unequivocal support for Ukraine as it attempts to repel Russia’s military effort.

In his letter to those leaders, Orban said that during the meetings there was a “general observation” that “the intensity of the military conflict” in Ukraine “will radically escalate in the near future.”

A letter signed by over 63 European lawmakers, addressed to the three EU chiefs, said Orban had “caused significant damage” through his meetings. They called on the bloc’s leaders to suspend Hungary’s voting rights in the European Council, arguing that “mere verbal condemnation” of Hungary has “no effect.”

With additional reporting from Niamh Kennedy, James Frater, Amy Cassidy and Jennifer Hansler

Uganda’s hardline President Yoweri Museveni has warned citizens planning anti-corruption protests Tuesday that they are “playing with fire.”

The upcoming protests come after a wave of deadly anti-government demonstrations that rattled neighboring country Kenya where at least 50 people were killed in clashes with security forces, according to figures released by the National Commission on Human Rights.

Museveni, 79, who has ruled the East African nation with an iron fist for nearly four decades, said in a televised address on Saturday that the anti-corruption march will not be allowed.

“What right… do you have to seek to generate chaotic behavior? … We are busy producing … cheap food, other people in other parts of the world are starving… you here want to disturb us. You are playing with fire because we cannot allow you to disturb us…”, Museveni said in the three-hour-long wide-ranging address.

Many young Ugandans say on social media they plan to go ahead with the march to the country’s parliament despite the country’s police refusing to grant a permit for the protest.

The Uganda Police Force described the planned protests as “potentially anarchic” in a statement on Monday, warning it “shall not tolerate disorderly conduct.”

Some defiant youth protesters who plan to join the march on Tuesday have begun sharing their photos on social media, urging fellow citizens to remember them if they don’t make it home alive.

“Just in case I get abducted or I die in the march, you can use this (photo) for creating awareness. Otherwise, tell mum I played a fundamental role in saving my country! I know she will be happy!”, said one activist Ashiraf Hector on X.

Another wrote: “Tomorrow, very early in the morning, I will join my fellow young people as we march to parliament against escalating corruption in Uganda. We will come face to face with murderers and in case things go south for me, this is my official portrait.”

A group of lawyers and activists said in a letter on Sunday that the police could not, by law, stop peaceful protests.

“The police cannot prohibit a demonstration from proceeding but have powers to regulate it to ensure it takes place within confines of the law,” the letter said while urging President Museveni to “ensure that the constitutional right to assemble, demonstrate peacefully … is not violated with impunity by security agencies.”

Crackdown ahead of protests

Ugandan opposition leader Bobi Wine said on Monday he supported the protest which he clarified was “organized by the young people of Uganda” and not his NUP party.

Wine raised the alarm that his party’s secretariat had been cordoned off by security forces and some party leaders had been “violently arrested” ahead of the Tuesday march.

“The effort by the regime to clamp down and make it (the planned protest) look like an NUP initiative is meant to weaken it because they want to make it appear like a partisan matter,” he said in a statement on X.

Uganda grapples with widespread government corruption with an estimated Sh. 10 trillion ($2.7 billion) in public funding diverted each year, according to its anti-graft body, the Inspectorate of Government (IGG).

Last year, it scored 26 on Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index which ranks countries on a scale of zero to 100, with zero meaning “highly corrupt” and 100 signifying that a country is “very clean.”

“The thieves are parasites that must be stamped out,” Museveni said about his administration’s fight against graft last month, adding that his ruling NRM party “does not victimize anybody without proof (of corruption).”

“That is why some people think that the NRM is soft on corruption,” he said, stating that some corruption cases against public officials were being decided in court.

However, those agitating for a protest are unimpressed with the government’s handling of corruption, urging Ugandans to “#March2Parliament” on July 23 to “#StopCorruption.”’.

Some have also called for the speaker of the parliament, Anita Annet Among, to resign. She was among high-profile Ugandan politicians sanctioned by the United States and the United Kingdom for corruption earlier this year.

“Among is designated due to involvement in significant corruption tied to her leadership of Uganda’s Parliament,” according to the US State Department.

Among has pushed back against the sanctions, calling them “politically motivated” and claiming they were triggered by Uganda’s defiance of international pressure after passing a strict anti-LGBTQ law last year.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will land in Washington on Monday to far less fanfare than he would have expected just a day earlier.

His highly-anticipated visit – chock-full of meetings with top US officials and a prized address to Congress – will now undoubtedly be overshadowed by US President Joe Biden’s stunning decision to drop out of the presidential race. But as detailed ceasefire negotiations aimed at turning a framework agreement into a final deal stretch into their third week, Netanyahu’s visit will still be critical to the prospects of a ceasefire in Gaza.

Senior US officials say a deal is within reach, but the prospects of a deal may hinge on the answer to one key question: Does Netanyahu actually want a deal?

The conventional wisdom in Israeli media, politics and on the streets of Tel Aviv would tell you that the answer to that question is no – that Netanyahu has much more to gain by prolonging the war and much more to lose by ending it.

The war has allowed Netanyahu to delay his share of accountability for the failures leading up to the October 7 attacks, rebuffing calls for new elections with stiff wartime resolve. His party’s prospects in the next election have actually improved in recent months. And the right-wing coalition partners keeping him in power have threatened to bolt if Netanyahu cuts a deal that ends the war.

Even Biden has said “there is every reason” for people to believe Netanyahu is prolonging the war in Gaza in order to stay in power.

There are also indications that Netanyahu is throwing up eleventh-hour obstacles to reaching a deal. He reneged on a key Israeli concession regarding allowing Palestinians unrestricted access to northern Gaza that was included in Israel’s latest ceasefire proposal and now appears to be insisting on Israel maintaining control of the Philadelphi Corridor, a 14km strip of land that serves as a buffer zone on the border between Egypt and Gaza. And publicly, his rhetoric has undermined confidence in Israel’s commitment to reaching a deal that could end the war.

And yet, Netanyahu and his negotiating team have also steadily engaged in negotiations, exchanging proposals with Hamas and bringing the two sides closer than ever to a potential deal. A growing share of the Israeli public, led by hostage families, is demanding the government strike a deal. And Netanyahu’s allies insist he is earnest in his desire to strike a hostage release deal – just the right deal, one that could allow Israel to resume fighting in Gaza.

That tension will be inescapable as Netanyahu heads to Washington, where he has often sought to bolster Israel’s standing in the US as well as his own political standing at home.

While Netanyahu will look to showcase the support he still has in Washington (and a standing ovation from a majority of lawmakers in Congress should do the trick), his visit will also be an opportunity for top US officials and lawmakers to push, prod, nudge and cajole him toward a deal – in both public and private.

Chief among those eager to make that case will be the US president, who will meet face-to-face with Netanyahu this week for the first time since Biden flew to Israel in October in a dramatic show of wartime support.

The warmth and sympathy that filled the air during that October visit is likely to be replaced by something much frostier.

Biden has grown steadily more critical of Israel’s war in Gaza – where more than 39,000 Palestinians have been killed, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health – and Netanyahu has resisted US pressure, often publicly thumbing his nose at the White House.

Even as he has maintained strong support for Israel, Biden became the first president since Ronald Reagan to withhold some US munitions to Israel – suspending shipments of 2,000-pound bombs in May amid concerns about civilian casualties in Gaza.

Netanyahu, meanwhile, has not only resisted US calls to rein in Israeli military operations in Gaza, but has used his defiance of the White House’s calls for restraint to bolster his political standing in Israel – including in a speech just days before his trip to the US in which he talked up his refusal to bow to Biden’s pressure to wind down the war and abandon a planned offensive in Rafah.

Biden’s decision to drop out of the presidential race just two days before he sits down with Netanyahu will unquestionably shift the dynamic between the two men even further – exactly how remains to be seen.

Netanyahu will be the first foreign leader to sit down with the now effectively lame duck president – albeit one who still has six months in office during which he will continue to steer US foreign policy.

Loosened from the constraints of electoral politics and with a keener eye on his legacy, how will Biden now approach Netanyahu, the future of the war in Gaza and US policy toward Israel? And to what extent will Netanyahu feel compelled to heed Biden’s pressure?

As the Israeli prime minister weighs that new dynamic, Netanyahu – a keen observer of US politics – may be looking to someone else as he decides whether to take a leap toward a ceasefire: former US President Donald Trump.

Trump has a track record of unflinching support for Israel and has been critical of Biden’s efforts to rein in Israel’s conduct in Gaza. During his speech at the Republican National Convention, he warned that the hostages “better be back before I assume office, or you will be paying a very big price.”

But Trump in April also urged Israel to get its war in Gaza “over with, and get it over with fast.”

And Netanyahu no longer enjoys the cozy relationship he once had with Trump.

Netanyahu will have plenty of opportunities to assess whether that sentiment still stands as he meets with Trump allies in Washington this week. There are currently no known plans for him to meet with Trump.

Eight activists were participating as part of a Palestinian grassroots campaign called Defend Palestine, which calls on international volunteers to travel to the Israeli-occupied West Bank to protect Palestinians from Israeli settler attacks.

Two Americans and a German national were taken to hospital with suspected fractures after the attack, their campaign said, adding that another American volunteer suffered minor injuries. One of the Palestinian farmers was hospitalized.

They said they were accompanying Palestinian farmers to their olive fields, which they haven’t been able to access since October because of attacks by Israeli settlers. At some point, the group was approached by several young settlers on a hill.

“They sort of stood there for a while and then they came up to our group of international volunteers and they started hitting us with these thick wooden sticks almost like baseball bats,” Chen said.

Videos recorded by the activists show them trying to retreat as they were attacked. One of them immediately falls to the ground, another tries to shield himself with his arms as he is struck, and at least one is kicked in the leg and hit with a rock hurled by an attacker.

“We were doing nothing,” the Hummel said. “Our hands were up and we were backing up and trying to protect each other. So eventually, we tried to keep moving back because we had been hit so many times.”

Israel captured the West Bank from Jordan in the 1967 war and soon started settling Jews on the land. There are currently more than 700,000 Jewish settlers in the West Bank. The international community however considers the area to be occupied and Israeli settlements there illegal. The Palestinians want the territory for a future independent state.

The International Court of Justice (ICJ), the United Nations’ top court, said Friday that Israel’s presence in the West Bank and East Jerusalem is illegal, in an unprecedented opinion that called on Israel to end its occupation. It called on Israel to cease new settlement activity, evacuate settlers and make reparations for the damage caused.

‘Dire need’ for international protection

The IDF said it condemns any acts of violence, adding that its soldiers were sent to the scene and that it will operate to maintain security in what it considers its jurisdiction. It added that soldiers were dispatched to the scene and fired warning shots into the air, causing the attackers to flee.

But the activists said that when the soldiers arrived, they immediately pointed their guns at a Palestinian man who was accompanying the volunteers and fired shots in his direction.

The injured activists were taken for treatment by the Palestinian Red Crescent to a hospital in Nablus.

Pictures taken at the hospital showed the victims with multiple cuts and bruises across their bodies. The face of Hummel, the German activist, was severely swollen on the right side.

Mohammed Khatib, an organizer with the Defend Palestine campaign, said: “The attack today, not even 24 hours after the ICJ ruled that Israeli occupation is illegal and that settlers enjoy impunity when exercising violence, serves as further proof for the dire need for international civil protection in Palestine.”

Chen said the group didn’t expect to encounter violence but was “aware of settler violence” against Palestinians.

“Our injuries are very minor compared to what the Palestinians face every day,” she said.

Five people were killed after a gunman entered a home for the elderly in Croatia on Monday and opened fire, according to the country’s public broadcaster.

A man with a firearm entered a private home for the elderly in the town of Daruvar, about 75 miles east of the capital Zagreb, and opened fire on the people who were present, Croatian Radiotelevision (HRT) reported.

Five of the victims died immediately and the number of injured is still unknown, according to HRT. State news agency HINA has reported that some of those injured are still receiving medical assistance.

The gunman ran away but was later arrested near a cafe, according to HINA.

The investigation is ongoing and police have not provided additional details, HRT said.

“We are appalled by the murder of five people” in the home for the elderly, Croatia’s Prime Minister Andrej Plenković said in a post on social media.

“We express our condolences to the families of the victims and hope for the recovery of the wounded. I expect the competent authorities to determine all the circumstances of the terrible crime,” Plenković said.

Croatia’s Deputy Prime Minister Davor Božinović, Minister of Health Vili Beroš, and social policy minister Marin Piletić are travelling to Daruvar, the prime minister added.

This story has been updated.

A British-Canadian couple who were attempting to sail across the Atlantic have been found dead on an island off the east coast of Canada.

Brett Clibbery, 70, and his wife, Sarah Packwood, 60, had been sailing on their 42-foot sailboat the SV Theros, but their bodies were found in a lifeboat that washed up on Sable Island, Nova Scotia, according to a statement from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), published July 12.

The couple left Halifax Harbour, Nova Scotia on June 11 en route to the Azores, a group of Portuguese islands in the mid-Atlantic, around 2,000 miles away.

They were reported missing on June 18 and their bodies were found on July 10.

It is not clear why the couple abandoned the Theros and got into a lifeboat. An investigation is ongoing, the RCMP said.

Sable Island is a 27-mile long sandbar around 186 miles southeast of Halifax. It is known as “the graveyard of the Atlantic” and there have been more than 350 recorded shipwrecks there since 1583, according to the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic.

Clibbery’s son James paid tribute to his father and Packwood in a post on Facebook.

“They were amazing people, and there isn’t anything that will fill the hole that has been left by their, so far unexplained passing,” he wrote.

“Living will not be the same without your wisdom, and your wife was quickly becoming a beacon of knowledge, and kindness. I miss your smiles. I miss your voices. You will be forever missed.”

Clibbery and Packwood described themselves as adventure travelers and documented their trips on a YouTube channel named Theros Adventures.

The ill-fated voyage was part of what the couple called their “Green Odyssey,” which Clibbery said was intended to show that it is possible to travel long distances without burning fossil fuels.

“We have an electric boat,” said Clibbery in a video posted on YouTube on May 13. “We charge the engine with solar panels.”

The couple met by chance at a bus stop in London in 2015 when Clibbery was in Britain to donate a kidney to his sister, they told The Guardian newspaper in an article published in 2020.

The pair met every day for the few weeks after their first encounter, before Clibbery helped Packwood to care for her dying mother and she then looked after him after his kidney operation.

They stayed in touch after Clibbery moved back to Canada and Packwood visited him in Salt Spring Island near Vancouver, where the Theros was docked, in spring 2016.

“He took me on my first ever yacht trip and I loved it,” Packwood told The Guardian. “Brett proposed to me in the main cabin of the boat.”

Prince George has turned 11, and as per tradition his proud parents have released an official portrait to mark the occasion.

The young prince, who is second in line to the throne, is shown smiling and looking relaxed – though dressed smartly in a suit and shirt, accessorised with a friendship bracelet.

Taken by the Princess of Wales, the black and white image was published on Kensington Palace’s official social media channels.

It is captioned: “Wishing Prince George a very happy 11th birthday today!”

The latest photo follows the release of a family shot of George, his siblings and his father last month to mark Prince William’s 42nd birthday. Meanwhile, earlier this month, Kensington Palace released an image of George’s brother and sister, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis, shot from behind in England soccer kits after the Euros final against Spain.

The Prince and Princess of Wales have made it a tradition to release photos on landmark family occasions, like birthdays, Father’s Day, Mother’s Day and wedding anniversaries. Like this one, many of the pictures have been taken by the princess, who’s a keen amateur photographer.

Another recent pic of Charlotte, this time with George and her father, was tweeted by Taylor Swift on June 22. It showed the singer with the royals and her boyfriend, American football star Travis Kelce, backstage in London during her Eras tour. This may explain the significance in the official portrait of George’s friendship bracelet – a must-have accessory for all Swifties.

Kate stepped away from public duties in January, following what Kensington Palace said at the time was surgery for a non-cancerous abdominal condition. In March, amid speculation about her wellbeing, she revealed she had been diagnosed with cancer after the operation, and was undergoing treatment.

She gave an update on her health on June 14, saying she had made “good progress” in her recovery. But she said she expected her treatment to last for a few more months and was “not out of the woods yet.”

Veteran environmentalist Paul Watson was arrested in Greenland on Sunday and faces possible extradition to Japan allegedly over anti-whaling activities in the Antarctic years ago, his organization said in a statement.

The 73-year-old Canadian-American dual national was detained by police when his ship docked in the Greenland capital Nuuk to refuel, according to the Captain Paul Watson Foundation (CPWF) and Greenland police.

The ship John Paul DeJoria and a 25-member crew were en route from Dublin, Ireland to the North Pacific to intercept Japan’s newly launched $48 million factory whaling ship the Kangei Maru, CPWF said.

“We were immediately boarded by a SWAT team and … police who wasted no time in cuffing Paul Watson, our founder, and arresting him on a decades old Red Notice at the request of Japan,” Ship Operations Director Locky MacLean said in a video message onboard the John Paul DeJoria.

Police can be seen boarding the vessel and leading Watson away in handcuffs in the video.

In a statement, Greenland police said they arrested Watson upon his arrival in Nuuk due to a Japanese arrest warrant. He will be brought before a district court with a request to detain him while a decision is made on his possible extradition to Japan, police added.

His foundation believes the arrest “is connected to a previous Red Notice issued for Watson’s anti-whaling activities in the Antarctic.”

“This development comes as a surprise since the Foundation’s lawyers had reported that the Red Notice had been withdrawn. However, it appears that Japan had made the notice confidential to facilitate Paul’s travel for the purpose of making an arrest,” the statement continued.

CPWF said it “believes the reactivation of the Red Notice against Captain Watson is politically motivated, coinciding with the launch of the new factory ship.”

An early member of Greenpeace, Watson went on to found the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, an environmental group famous for tracking, exposing and occasionally ramming Japanese whalers. His attempts to disrupt Japanese whalers at sea gained him fame through Animal Planet’s “Whale Wars” TV show.

His activities have also previously landed him in legal trouble. In 2012, he was detained in Germany on an international arrest warrant issued by Costa Rica, which accused him of endangering a fishing vessel off the coast of Guatemala in 2002. He skipped bail but denied wrongdoing in that case.

In 2013, the Japan’s Institute of Cetacean Research and the Japanese firm Kyodo Senpaku Kaisha secured a US District Court injunction against Watson and Sea Shepherd, which prohibited him and his group from coming within 500 yards of the plaintiffs on the open sea.

Due to the injunction, Watson resigned as president and executive director of the conservation society in the United States and as president of the society in Australia.

In June, Kyodo Senpaku launched a brand-new whaling “mothership” – the Kangei Maru – a 370-foot, 9,300-ton vessel equipped with state-of-the-art drones able to travel a reported 100 kilometers (62 miles) to allow crews to quickly locate and kill whales.

The new ship replaces the Nisshin Maru, the infamous whaling factory vessel dubbed by activists as a “floating slaughterhouse” that was decommissioned in 2020 after more than 30 years of service, during which it frequently clashed with anti-whaling activists.

Japan is one of three countries, along with Norway and Iceland, that continues to hunt whales, and officials argue that the industry is an important part of its culture and history – and also provides food security.

The Kangei Maru boasts a slipway large enough to haul 85-foot whales from the sea that leads to an indoor flensing deck the size of two basketball courts.

There, workers will strip away the blubber before cutting up the whale flesh on enormous cutting boards, before vacuum-packing and storing the meat in 40 industrial freezers, ready for sale.

Commercial whaling was banned under a 1986 International Whaling Commission moratorium. But Japan has used a loophole to continue hunting whales legally for what it claims is scientific research.

In 2018, it announced its withdrawal from the IWC and resumed commercial whaling months later in defiance of international criticism.

“We are proud of catching whales and are very proud of this ship which will allow us to begin offshore mothership-style whaling this year,” Tokoro told reporters in June.

A US Navy fighter pilot has become the first American woman to score a victory in air-to-air combat, the service has revealed.

The female pilot, who was not named in the Navy release, was flying an F/A-18 Super Hornet off the aircraft carrier USS Dwight D Eisenhower as part of Strike Fighter Squadron 32, nicknamed the “Flying Swordsmen.”

The aerial victory came against a one-way Houthi attack drone, one of dozens the Yemen-based group has deployed against civilian merchant ships in the Red Sea and nearby waters in reaction to the destruction in Gaza during Israel’s war against Hamas, a release from Carrier Strike Group 2 said.

The squadron amassed more than 3,000 combat hours in flying almost 1,500 combat missions as part of operations Inherent Resolve and Prosperity Guardian, the former targeting ISIS and the latter stood up in December 2023 to respond to the Houthi-led attacks on international shipping.

The Swordsmen, one of four strike fighter squadrons that deployed on the Eisenhower, fired more than 20 air-to-air missiles against the Houthi drones during those missions, the Navy said.

“During one mission, VFA-32 became home to the first American female pilot to engage and kill an air-to-air contact,” it said.

The first air-to-air victory by a female pilot comes 30 years after Lt. Kara Hultgreen became the first carrier-based female fighter pilot in the Navy, flying the F-14 Tomcat off the USS Abraham Lincoln that year. Female aviators also joined the Eisenhower in 1994.

The Eisenhower-led carrier strike group returned to US bases on July 14 after a nine-month deployment, an exceptionally lengthy deployment for a carrier. Normal deployments last about six to eight months.

Cmdr. Jason Hoch, commanding officer of VFA-32, praised the squadron’s performance in “incredibly demanding conditions” during the deployment.

Besides the air-to-air encounters, the Swordsmen led two of seven strikes against Houthi ground targets in Yemen, destroying munitions and command and control facilities, the release said.

“We proved over and over again that the flexibility a carrier strike group brings to the fight is unmatched,” Hoch said.

Overall, Carrier Strike Group 2, which besides the Eisenhower included the guided missile cruiser USS Philippine Sea and the destroyers USS Mason and USS Gravely, hit more than 460 Houthi targets in Yemen, according to the Navy.

The group’s warships fired 155 standard missiles and 135 Tomahawk land-attack missiles during those strikes, while the strike group’s aircraft fired 60 air-to-air missiles and released 420 air-to-surface weapons, the Navy said.

The Houthis are an Iran-backed Shia rebel group that controls swathes of Yemen, one of the poorest countries in the Middle East and a nation that has been ravaged by years of civil war.

Since Hamas’ attacks on October 7 and Israel’s subsequent ground and air offenses in Gaza, the Houthis say they have been seeking revenge against Israel for its military campaign by targeting Red Sea shipping as well as Israel itself with drones and missiles.

Both the United Kingdom and the United States have responded to the attacks on shipping by carrying out strikes on Houthi targets in Yemen. Over the weekend, Israel struck inside Yemen for the first time following a deadly drone attack launched by Houthi rebels on Tel Aviv.

Messages of gratitude and support for US President Joe Biden poured in following his stunning announcement Sunday that he is exiting the 2024 presidential race and endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris as the next Democratic nominee.

It was the second seismic moment in US politics in just over a week, following the assassination attempt against former president Donald Trump at a Pennsylvania rally on July 13, which saw global leaders rally around him as the Republican nominee.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who met with Biden this month in Washington, said he respects the president’s decision and looks forward to working together for the remainder of his term.

“I know that, as he has done throughout his remarkable career, he will have made his decision based on what he believes is best for the American people,” Starmer wrote on X.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau thanked Biden for being a “true friend” to his country. “He’s a great man, and everything he does is guided by his love for his country,” he said on X.

In a news conference, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said Biden deserves to be recognized for “once again not putting himself forward first, but giving his first consideration to being what he believes is in the interests of the United States of America, as he has done his whole public life.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky thanked Biden for his “unwavering support” in his country’s war against Russia, which the US has backed with weapons, military aid and diplomatic support, despite backlash from Republicans.

“Many strong decisions have been made in recent years and they will be remembered as bold steps taken by President Biden in response to challenging times,” Zelensky said on X. “We will always be thankful for President Biden’s leadership.”

In Israel, President Isaac Herzog described Biden as a “true ally of the Jewish people,” while Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said the US president’s “steadfast backing, especially during the war, has been invaluable,” both in posts to X.

Biden has been one of the biggest supporters of Israel’s war in Gaza since Hamas’ October 7 attacks. But he has increasingly clashed with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over humanitarian aid and the mounting civilian death toll of the conflict.

There was no immediate word Sunday from Netanyahu, who is expected to visit Washington this week.

Irish Taoiseach Simon Harris called Biden “a proud American with an Irish soul,” and thanked him for his “global leadership” and “friendship.”

Other leaders commended Biden for making what must have been a tough decision to drop out of the race.

Speaking at a rally Sunday, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said Biden made the “correct” decision and put his family and health first. He wished him “health and a long life.”

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk wrote on X that Biden had made difficult decisions “thanks to which Poland, America and the world are safer, and democracy stronger.”

“I know you were driven by the same motivations when announcing your final decision. Probably the most difficult one,” Tusk said.

There was no official word from Chinese leader Xi Jinping as of Monday morning local time.

But “Biden dropping out of the election” was the top trending topic early Monday on Weibo, China’s X-like social platform, with five more related topics including discussions of Kamala Harris and Trump’s assassination attempt together accumulating more than 400 million views.

Some Chinese social media users excitedly speculated about the prospect of a woman becoming US president, while others said they believe Trump will win no matter the Democratic candidate.

“The shot was definitely a good deal for Trump!” one Weibo user wrote.

One user remarked, “that one shot didn’t kill Trump but dropped Biden,” while another described the political situation in the US as “a total mess.”