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- Bosnia vs Italy & more — Tuesday’s 24th Mar fixtures
- Australia police confirm shooting death of fugitive Desmond Freeman after standoff
- Young voters in Hungary back opposition party over Fidesz amid election interference claims
- Russia expels British diplomat accused of subversive intelligence activities
- Ukraine signs 10-year defence deal with Bulgaria for drone production
- Four masked men steal £7.8 million in artworks from Italian museum
- US president Donald Trump faces growing protests from European activists
- Brits stuck in Tenerife flood break bus sunroof with hammer to escape
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Bosnia vs Italy & more — Tuesday’s 24th Mar fixtures
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Catch all the action from the World Cup Qualification UEFA and the UEFA Nations League with exciting matches scheduled today.
World Cup Qualification UEFA |
UEFA Nations League
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Matchday 1
Bosnia and Herzegovina 19:45 Italy
Czechia 19:45 Denmark
Kosovo 19:45 Türkiye
Sweden 19:45 Poland
UEFA Nations League
Matchday
Latvia 17:00 Gibraltar
Luxembourg 17:00 Malta
Australia police confirm shooting death of fugitive Desmond Freeman after standoff
11:00 pm
Get you up to speed: Australia police confirm shooting death of fugitive Desmond Freeman after standoff
Desmond ‘Dezi’ Freeman, 56, was shot dead by police in Thologolong after a three-hour stand-off. He was accused of shooting two police officers, Detective Leading Senior Constable Neal Thompson and Senior Constable Vadim de Waart-Hottart, in Porepunkah last August.
Desmond ‘Dezi’ Freeman, 56, was shot dead following a three-hour stand-off in Thologolong, with police suspecting the body to be his after he allegedly shot two officers, Detective Leading Senior Constable Neal Thompson and Senior Constable Vadim de Waart-Hottart, last August. State police chief commissioner Mike Bush stated, “this brings closure to what was a tragic and terrible event.”
Desmond ‘Dezi’ Freeman has been shot dead following a three-hour stand-off with police in Thologolong, Australia, after being on the run for seven months. State police chief commissioner Mike Bush indicated that there will be a professional standards command and a coroner’s hearing into the incident.
Fugitive Dezi Freeman shot dead by police after seven months on the run | News World
A fugitive who has been on the run for seven months has been shot dead in Australia.
Desmond ‘Dezi’ Freeman, 56, allegedly shot two officers at Porepunkah, a town in northeast Victoria last August.
He was discovered in a building in Thologolong yesterday morning, sparking a three-hour stand-off that ended with him being shot dead.
While the authorities have yet to identify the body, they suspect it to be that of Freeman.
He was armed at the time of the gunfire, the force said, though cautioned that the exact details of the incident were unclear.
State police chief commissioner Mike Bush told reporters: ‘Whilst there will be a professional standards command and a coroner’s hearing into this matter, everything I know at this point tells me that this shooting was justified.’
Dezi Freeman was accused of shooting two police officers dead and wounding another (Picture: Nine)
Detective Leading Senior Constable Neal Thompson had served with Victoria Police for nearly 40 years (Picture: Victoria Police)
Senior Constable Vadim De Waart-Hottart was killed last year (Picture: Victoria Police)
Bush said the man was found in a property that was a ‘a cross between a [shipping] container and a very long caravan’.
The armed man, he added, came out of the building wrapped in a blanket.
Bush said he was ‘sure’ people assisted him while he was on the lam.
Freeman is accused of killing Detective Leading Senior Constable Neal Thompson, 59, and Senior Constable Vadim de Waart-Hottart, 35, on August 26.
A third officer was injured after being shot in the lower body during the incident at the Rayner Track.
The 10-strong team were carrying out a search warrant as part of an investigation by the sexual offence and child abuse team.
Freeman had been on the run for seven months (Picture: Reuters)
Desmond fled into the bushes following the shooting and was not seen again until yesterday’s stand-off at about 8.30am.
Thompson, who had served with Victoria Police for nearly 40 years, was close to retiring and had built a home to spend it with his wife before being killed.
Colleague De Waart had a passion for scuba diving and motorcycling, an obituary released last year said.
Bush said: ‘Should it be confirmed that the deceased is Freeman, this brings closure to what was a tragic and terrible event.’
He added that the first people told of Desmond’s possible death was the families of Thompson and De Waart.
Officials say Desmond was part of the conspiratorial anti-government sovereign citizen movement.
Sometimes calling themselves ‘freemen’, they believe corporations hijacked the government and sold the people out to shady bankers.
Officers did not confirm they tracked Desmond down after receiving a tip-off from a local that he was at the remote building.
Officers from every Australian state as well as New Zealand were involved in the manhunt.
Bush said: ‘It’s been the number one focus for Victoria police since the 26th of August.
‘Everyone has been absolutely committed to bringing this to some conclusion.’
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Young voters in Hungary back opposition party over Fidesz amid election interference claims
10:00 pm
Young voters in Hungary back opposition party over Fidesz amid election interference claims
Election Dynamics
In Hungary’s upcoming election, over 60% of voters under 30 support the opposition Tisza party, while only 15% back Viktor Orbán‘s ruling Fidesz.
In Hungary’s upcoming election, over 60% of voters under 30 support the opposition Tisza party, while only 15% back Viktor Orbán‘s ruling Fidesz.
Voter Engagement
More than 60% of voters under 30 support the opposition Tisza party, while Fidesz only gains 15%, indicating a shift in youth political alignment.
More than 60% of voters under 30 support the opposition Tisza party, while Fidesz only gains 15%, indicating a shift in youth political alignment.
Youth Engagement
“This may be the first election in Hungary where young people will play a decisive role in determining the outcome,” said Andrea Szabó, a leading sociologist.
“This may be the first election in Hungary where young people will play a decisive role in determining the outcome,” said Andrea Szabó, a leading sociologist.
Key developments
Recent polls indicate that over 60% of voters under 30 support Magyar’s party, in stark contrast to the 15% backing Viktor Orbán’s ruling Fidesz. This demographic shift could alter the election landscape.
Fidesz’s campaign targets older voters with promises such as a 14th month pension, where they enjoy substantial support among citizens over 64. Young voters, meanwhile, are showing increased political engagement, raising the chances of higher turnout.
Hungary’s upcoming election and the effects of the generation gap
Most independent polls show that more than 60% of voters under 30 support Magyar’s party while only 15% support Viktor Orbán’s ruling Fidesz.
Orbán’s campaign appears to be speaking to older voters. One campaign promise is a 14th month pension, promising security for Hungary’s older citizens where Fidesz has a definite lead among voters over 64.
Based on earlier elections, young voters are harder to mobilise, so the generation issue might become one of the decisivce factors according to one of Hungary’s leading sociologists.
“This may be the first election in Hungary where young people will play a decisive role in determining the outcome. If voter turnout among them is indeed high, this could largely offset the generally higher turnout among older voters,” Andrea Szabó said.
But there are signs that this time younger generations are more interested in politics, as previously apolitical young influencers weight in.
Alleged election interference
This year’s election will determine whether the Fidesz party, which has been in power for 16 years, remains at the top of Hungarian politics or if the opposition Tisza party forms a government.
Critics of Fidesz see it as moving closer to Russia, which, under Vladimir Putin, has been waging a full-scale invasion of Ukraine since 2022.
They also claim that Fidesz is slowly moving away from the European Union, which has led Brussels to withhold trillions of euros of EU funds due to the dismantling of the rule of law.
The report focuses on 12 areas of concern. In a statement, the European Parliament said MEPs condemned the fact that Hungary’s Supreme Court for reviewing EU court rulings before applying them. They also criticised threats to judicial independence and Hungary’s systematic refusal to implement judgments of the European Court of Human Rights.
EU News, citing the investigative portal VSquare and journalist Szabolcs Panyi, wrote that Russian military intelligence agents may be interfering in the election process.
The government has dismissed these claims as fake news but VSquare reports observing patterns of interference comparable to those seen in elections in Georgia, Moldova and Romania, in which Russia was also accused of meddling.
How many young people will vote?
On the day of the 2022 parliamentary elections, 231,000 first-time voters could have gone to the polls, and approximately 90,000 went to vote. In 2026, the number of first-time voters is expected to be between 220-250,000, but there is no reliable data yet.
Young people are an important base for both Tisza and Fidesz and it matters how many of those 220-250,000 they can persuade to vote. Viktor Orbán has repeatedly hinted in his speeches over the past six months that Fidesz needs to convince young people to vote for them.
Some of the founders held responsible public administration positions under right-wing and other left-wing governments during the two decades after the change of regime.
As they write in their introduction, they are “all citizens who consider Hungary’s European development and the preservation of the rule of law to be more important than anything else.”
Seasoned politicians such as Péter Balázs or Géza Jeszenszky, former foreign ministers, Attila Holoda, former deputy state secretary and energy expert, Péter Bárándy, former justice minister, and Ákos Péter Bod, former central bank governor, all support the V21 initiative.
Campaign running on TikTok
The two most important faces of the campaign are Oszkár Kállai, whose TikTok name is “Oszikaaa,” and LázaDóra.
Oszkár Kállai is 21 years old, a first-time voter, and has been waiting for the time to come to vote since he was a child.
“I’ve been interested in politics since I was 10,” he told EU News, adding that he grew up in child protection, where he didn’t have much say in what happened to him.
“The people working in the home talked about politics a lot and I found it very interesting even then.”
Oszkár says he owes a lot to his educators and that he grew up in a good home “in a scandal-free environment,” he sums up, adding that “there were a few mishaps, but not the kind that the media is buzzing about these days.”
Kállai is currently studying social pedagogy and when he graduates he will be a manager in a children’s home and later wants to do a master’s degree. He still works in a children’s home, as a child supervisor.
This is his fifth profile on TikTok and his channel has been blocked on several occasions. “I express my opinion and if anyone doesn’t like it, they report it, and I’ve been blocked a couple of times,” he says.
When asked how long viewers watch the sequences, he says that viewers usually continue to watch his latest, nearly five-minute video beyond the fourth minute.
“After all, I’m not talking about nothing,” he explains.
Oszkár Kállai’s channel features a significant amount of political content but he says his long shifts at work prevent him from attending protests or demonstrations.
A different age group
LázaDóra is from a different age group, has been voting since 2006, and she has never missed an election.
“I was born in 1987 and Viktor Orbán gave his famous speech at the funeral of Imre Nagy in 1989. He has been one of the most influential figures in Hungarian politics for as long as I can remember,” explains Dóra.
Russia expels British diplomat accused of subversive intelligence activities
9:00 pm
Get you up to speed: Russia expels British diplomat accused of subversive intelligence activities
Russia has told a diplomat at the British Embassy in Moscow to leave within two weeks after accusing him of ‘subversive intelligence activities’. The FSB spy agency stated that a decision had been made to revoke his accreditation and ‘order him to leave Russia within two weeks.’
Russia has accused a British diplomat of ‘subversive intelligence activities’ and ordered him to leave the country within two weeks, as stated by the FSB spy agency. A spokesperson for the Foreign Office described the accusations as “completely unacceptable” and asserted that the UK does not tolerate harassment of its diplomatic staff.
Russia’s FSB spy agency has ordered the British diplomat, the second secretary at the embassy, to leave the country within two weeks due to allegations of providing false information and attempting to obtain sensitive details. This incident marks the second expulsion of a British diplomat from Moscow over spying accusations, following the expulsion of an ‘undeclared British intelligence officer’ in January.
Russia expels British diplomat after accusing him of spying | News World
Russia has told a diplomat at the British Embassy in Moscow to leave within two weeks after authorities accused him of ‘subversive intelligence activities’.
The diplomat, described as the second secretary at the embassy by Russian state-owned media, is alleged to have provided fake details when applying for entry to the country.
He was also accused of trying to obtain sensitive information in unofficial meetings with economic experts.
A statement from the FSB spy agency said a decision had been made to revoke his accreditation and ‘order him to leave Russia within two weeks.’
It is the second time a British diplomat has been told to leave Moscow after being accused of spying by officials.
An ‘undeclared British intelligence officer’ was expelled from the embassy in January.
A spokesperson for the Foreign Office said: ‘The accusations made today by Russia against our diplomats are completely unacceptable.
‘Russia has pursued an increasingly aggressive and coordinated campaign of harassment against British diplomats, pumping out malicious and completely baseless accusations about their work.
‘The UK does not stand for intimidation of British embassy staff and their families.’
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Ukraine signs 10-year defence deal with Bulgaria for drone production
8:00 pm
Ukraine signs 10-year defence deal with Bulgaria for drone production
Defence Agreement
Ukraine signed a 10-year defence agreement with Bulgaria, focusing on the joint production of various types of weapons, including drones, announced President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Ukraine signed a 10-year defence agreement with Bulgaria, focusing on the joint production of various types of weapons, including drones, announced President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Strategic Defence Pact
The 10-year defence agreement with Bulgaria highlights a significant commitment to enhancing Ukraine’s military capabilities through joint production, particularly in drones, amid ongoing hostilities.
The 10-year defence agreement with Bulgaria highlights a significant commitment to enhancing Ukraine’s military capabilities through joint production, particularly in drones, amid ongoing hostilities.
Bulgaria’s Commitment
“This is not a mere formality, but a joint commitment to our Euro-Atlantic security,” said Gyurov during the press conference with President Zelenskyy.
“This is not a mere formality, but a joint commitment to our Euro-Atlantic security,” said Gyurov during the press conference with President Zelenskyy.
Key developments
Ukraine has signed a 10-year defence agreement with Bulgaria to facilitate joint production of drones and various weapons, enhancing security cooperation amid ongoing conflict with Russia.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy confirmed that the pact will enable more efficient collaboration in light of rapid technological advancements in drone warfare, crucial for Ukraine’s defence.
Additionally, government data indicates that nearly 4% of Bulgaria’s GDP is derived from its defence industry, highlighting the significance of the agreement for both nations’ military capabilities.
Ukraine signs 10-year defence deal with arms producer Bulgaria, Zelenskyy says
Ukraine signed a 10-year defence agreement with Bulgaria, a major arms manufacturer, covering production of drones and other weapons, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced on Monday.
The agreement covers “joint production, on the territory of our countries, of various types of weapons, including drones,” Zelenskyy said at a press conference.
The length of the accord should make it possible to “systematise” security cooperation, Zelenskyy said, in particular keeping up with the rapid pace of technological change in the drones, a key weapon in Ukraine’s fight against Russia’s full-scale invasion.
According to government data, nearly 4% of Bulgaria’s GDP comes from the defence industry, which has thrived since Russia started the war in Ukraine in 2022.
Sofia has sent large quantities of weapons to Kyiv and Gyurov hailed the new accord as the “result of long preparation.”
“This is not a mere formality, but a joint commitment to our Euro-Atlantic security,” he said at the press conference alongside Zelenskyy.
The two leaders also said they are working together on the creation of a gas corridor, called the Vertical Gas Corridor, to link Greece with several countries in southeastern Europe.
Gulf deals
The agreement with Bulgaria comes hot on the heels of a raft of similar deals Zelenskyy inked with partners in the Gulf.
Ukraine agreed to provide Gulf states with its complete air defence system — including maritime drones, electronic warfare and interception technology — to fend off Iranian drones, Zelenskyy said on Monday after a tour of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Jordan.
“Not just interceptors alone, but also defence lines, software, electronic warfare systems, and so on. In other words, we are taking a systemic approach to this,” Zelenskyy said.
Speaking in a WhatsApp chat with journalists, he also confirmed that Ukraine’s maritime drones are part of the deals made with Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar.
Kyiv’s naval drone fleet has been expanding in recent years, and Ukrainian sea drones have proven effective in inflicting heavy losses on Russia’s military sites and ships in the Black Sea, such as the Magura-V5 drones, which have been used to target the Russian fleet.
Zelenskyy also said that Ukraine is willing to share its expertise in unblocking maritime trade routes with the naval drones.
What is Ukraine getting in return?
For Ukraine the deals with the Gulf states are an opportunity to open its arms exports on a global scale.
Zelenskyy announced back in September that Kyiv was ready to take this is much anticipated step, which would transform the country’s defence industry and allow Kyiv’s partners to access the rarest type of weapons – those tested on the battlefield.
And this is why it is important that the deals have been signed for 10 years, Zelenskyy said.
“It is about exports and about opening up exports. But it the right kind of opening, where we understand that we are not selling our experience for nothing.”
Kyiv’s top priority is Ukraine’s air defence from Russia’s ballistic missiles. Zelenskyy said his country is feeling the shortage of PAC-3 missiles for Patriot air defence systems.
With only around 60 of those produced per month, many are supplied to the Middle East.
“All anti-ballistic packages – we can see how partners are directing as many of them as possible to where things are most intense today, primarily the Middle East.”
He confirmed that the issue had been raised during his visit to the Gulf but refused to provide further details.
“Of course, this issue was raised in Middle Eastern countries. I will not go into details. We will continue working to ensure that Ukraine is supplied in this area.”
Additional sources • AFP
Four masked men steal £7.8 million in artworks from Italian museum
7:00 pm
Get you up to speed: Four masked men steal £7.8 million in artworks from Italian museum
On 22 March, four masked men stole paintings from the Magnani Rocca Foundation in Parma, Italy, including ‘Les Poissons’ by Pierre-Auguste Renoir and ‘Still Life with Cherries’ by Paul Cézanne. The theft reportedly took place in just three minutes, with the stolen artworks valued at approximately £7.8million.
Four masked men executed a heist at the Magnani Rocca Foundation in Italy on 22 March, making off with paintings valued at an estimated £7.8 million, according to TGR. The Cultural Heritage Protection Unit of Bologna is now investigating the incident.
The theft of four valuable paintings from the Magnani Rocca Foundation, including works by Renoir, Cézanne, and Matisse, is currently under investigation by Italy’s Carabinieri and the Cultural Heritage Protection Unit of Bologna. The artworks were taken in a three-minute heist valued at approximately £7.8million (€9million).
Thieves steal £8,000,000 worth of paintings in just three minutes | News World
‘Cup and Plate of Cherries’ by Paul Cezanne was one of the acclaimed artworks taken (Picture: via REUTERS)
A three-minute heist cost an Italian museum millions in stolen artwork.
Four masked men made off with paintings by Renoir, Cézanne and Matissebeing kept near the Italian city of Parma.
The raid on 22 March began when the gang forced their way through the main door of the Magnani Rocca Foundation at the Villa dei Capolavori, according to Italian media outlets.
They took four paintings from the French Room on the building’s first floor – Les Poissons by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Still Life with Cherries by Paul Cézanne and Odalisque on the Terrace by Henri Matisse.
‘The Fish’ by Pierre-Auguste Renoir is worth £5.2million alone (Picture: via REUTERS)
The balaclava-clad gang were descibed as an ‘organised group’ and appeared intent on stealing more items before the collection’s alarm system went off.
The thieves then escaped by climbing over a fence, according to broadcaster TGR.
In only three minutes, the criminals had nabbed an estimated £7.8million (€9million) worth of art from the foundation, which was set up in the family home of art collector Luigi Magnani after his death in 1984.
The Les Poissons by Pierre-Auguste Renoir alone was worth £5.2million.
The theft is now being investigated by Italy’s Carabinier and the Cultural Heritage Protection Unit of Bologna.
The thieves were inside for villa for just three minutes (Picture: Roberto Serra – Iguana Press/Getty Images)
The heist is the latest in a series of costly break-ins targetting major museums in Europe.
In October last year, Robbers broke into the Louvre in Paris in broad dayllight and took $102million worth of jewellery in just eight minutes.
The gang dressed in hi-vis jackets rode a basket lift up the Louvre ‘s facade, forced a window open before smashing into display cases and fleeing with priceless Napoleonic jewels.
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