Politics
Before being named Pope Leo XIV, he was Cardinal Robert Prevost. Who is he? – National TenX News
Robert Prevost, the choice of the world’s Catholic cardinals to serve as leader of the 1.4-billion-member Church, is the first pope from the United States and a relative unknown on the global stage.
Aged 69 and originally from Chicago, Prevost has spent most of his career as a missionary in Peru and became a cardinal only in 2023. He has given few media interviews.
He takes the papal name Leo XIV, and succeeds Pope Francis, who had led the Church since 2013.
Rev. Mark Francis, a friend of Prevost since the 1970s, told Reuters the cardinal was a firm supporter of his predecessor’s papacy, and especially of the late pontiff’s commitment to social justice issues.
“He was always friendly and warm and remained a voice of common sense and practical concerns for the Church’s outreach to the poor,” said Francis, who attended seminary with Prevost and later knew him when they both lived in Rome in the 2000s.
“He has a wry sense of humor, but was not someone who sought the limelight,” said Francis, who leads the U.S. province of the Viatorian religious order.
Prevost first served as a bishop in Chiclayo, in northwestern Peru, from 2015 to 2023, and became a Peruvian citizen in 2015, so he has dual nationalities.
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Pope Francis brought him to Rome that year to head the Vatican office in charge of choosing which priests should serve as Catholic bishops across the globe, meaning he has had a hand in selecting many of the world’s bishops.
FILE – New Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops, stands for a portrait at the end of the consistory where Pope Francis elevated 21 new cardinals in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican, Sept. 30, 2023. (AP Photo/Riccardo De Luca, File).
Jesus Leon Angeles, coordinator of a Catholic group in Chiclayo who has known Prevost since 2018, called him a “very simple” person who would go out of his way to help others.
Leon Angeles said Prevost had shown special concern for Venezuelan migrants in Peru, saying: “He is a person who likes to help.” More than 1.5 million Venezuelans have moved to Peru in recent years, partly to escape their country’s economic crisis.
In a 2023 interview with the Vatican’s news outlet, Prevost focused on the importance of evangelization to help the Church grow.
“We are often preoccupied with teaching doctrine … but we risk forgetting that our first task is to teach what it means to know Jesus Christ,” he said.
Prevost said during a 2023 Vatican press conference: “Our work is to enlarge the tent and to let everyone know they are welcome inside the Church.”
Prevost was born in 1955 and is a member of the global Augustinian religious order, which includes about 2,500 priests and brothers, operates in 50 countries and has a special focus on a life of community and equality among its members.
He has a bachelor’s degree from Villanova University in Philadelphia, a master’s from the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago, and a doctorate in Church law from the Pontifical College of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome.
Prevost first went to Peru as a missionary in 1985, returning to the United States in 1999 to take up a leadership role in his religious order.
He later moved to Rome to serve two six-year terms as head of the Augustinians, visiting many of the order’s communities across the world. He is known to speak English, Spanish, Italian, French and Portuguese.
Returning to Rome in 2023, Prevost generally did not take part in many of the social events that attract Vatican officials throughout the city.
Leon Angeles said he is a person with leadership skills, “but at the same time, he knows how to listen. He has that virtue.”
“The cardinal has the courtesy to ask for an opinion, even if it’s from the simplest or most humble person,” she said. “He knows how to listen to everyone.”
German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius is set to discuss the possibility of Germany paying for American Patriot air defence systems for Ukraine, as he heads to Washington to meet with U.S. Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth.
On Sunday, U.S. President Donald Trump said the U.S. would send an undisclosed number of Patriots to Ukraine, and that the European Union would pay for them.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has asked for more defensive capabilities, among them Patriot systems and missiles, to fend off daily missile and drone attacks from Russia.
Here is some key information about the Patriot:
What is the Patriot system?
The Patriot, short for Phased Array Tracking Radar for Intercept on Target, is a mobile surface-to-air missile defense system developed by Raytheon Technologies RTX.N.
It is considered one of the most advanced air defence systems in the U.S. arsenal and has been in service since the 1980s.
A typical battery includes radar and control systems, a power unit, launchers, and support vehicles. The system can intercept aircraft, tactical ballistic missiles and cruise missiles, depending on the interceptor used.
How does the Patriot work?
The system has different capabilities depending on the type of interceptor used.
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The earlier PAC-2 interceptor uses a blast-fragmentation warhead that detonates in the vicinity of a target, while the PAC-3 family of missiles uses more accurate technology that hits the target directly.
It is not clear what kind of Patriot systems have been donated to Ukraine, but it is likely that Kyiv has at least some of the newer PAC-3 CRI interceptors.
The system’s radar has a range of over 150 km (93 miles), the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) said in 2015.
Although the Patriot was not originally designed to intercept hypersonic weapons and Raytheon has not yet confirmed if it is able to do so, in May 2023 the U.S. confirmed Ukraine had used it to shoot down a Russian Kinzhal missile, which Moscow claims is hypersonic.
Since January 2015, the Patriot has intercepted more than 150 ballistic missiles in combat operations, Raytheon says on its website.
Raytheon has built and delivered over 240 Patriot fire units, according to its website.
These have been shipped to 19 countries, according to Raytheon, including the U.S., Germany, Poland, Ukraine, Japan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Egypt.
In January, Axios reported the U.S. had transferred about 90 Patriot interceptors from Israel to Ukraine.
A newly produced single Patriot battery costs over US$1 billion, including US$400 million for the system and $690 million for the missiles in a battery, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Patriot interceptors are estimated at around US$4 million per missile, CSIS says.
Why does Ukraine want more Patriots?
Kyiv has consistently asked Western allies for more air defences to protect critical infrastructure and civilian areas from frequent Russian missile and drone attacks.
While effective at intercepting missiles and aircraft, Patriots are a costly way to shoot down low-budget drones.
Still, Ukrainian officials say they are essential to defending key targets from Russia’s escalating long-range attacks.
Russia says it sees the Patriots as a direct escalation. Foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in May that supplying more systems to Ukraine would delay the chances of peace.
—Reporting by Isabel Demetz and Jesus Calero; Editing by Matt Scuffham
Politics
Over 1,400 tarantulas found hidden in cake boxes in German smuggling bust – National TenX News
Arachnophobes beware: Customs officials on Monday released photos from a seizure of roughly 1,500 young tarantulas found inside plastic containers that had been hidden in chocolate spongecake boxes shipped to an airport in western Germany.
Customs officials found the shipment at Cologne Bonn airport in a package that had arrived from Vietnam, tipped off by a “noticeable smell” that didn’t resemble the expected aroma of the seven kilograms (about 15 pounds) of the confectionery treats, Cologne customs office spokesman Jens Ahland said.
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“My colleagues at the airport are regularly surprised by the contents of prohibited packages from all over the world, but the fact that they found around 1,500 small plastic containers containing young tarantulas in this package left even the most experienced among them speechless,” Ahland said in a statement.
Ahland hailed an “extraordinary seizure,” but one that “saddens us to see what some people do to animals purely for profit.”
Many of the eight-legged creatures didn’t survive the trip, in a suspected violation of German animal-welfare rules, while survivors were given to the care of an expert handler, the office said. Reached by phone, Ahland said that the estimated value of the shipment was being assessed.
Criminal proceedings are underway against the intended recipient in the Sauerland region, east of the airport, in part for alleged violations of failure to pay the proper import duties and make the proper customs declarations, the office said.
The tarantulas were discovered about three weeks ago, but the customs office only made the images public on Monday.
© 2025 The Canadian Press
Politics
Trump set to make announcement on Russia as U.S. envoy arrives in Ukraine – National TenX News
U.S. President Donald Trump’s special envoy to Ukraine and Russia, retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, was in Kyiv on Monday, a senior Ukrainian official said, as anticipation grew over a possible shift in the Trump administration’s policy on the three-year war.
Trump last week said he would make a “major statement” on Russia on Monday. Trump made quickly stopping the war one of his diplomatic priorities, and he has increasingly expressed frustration about Russian President Vladimir Putin’s unbudging stance on U.S-led peace efforts.
Trump has long boasted of his friendly relationship with Putin, and after taking office in January repeatedly said that Russia was more willing than Ukraine to reach a peace deal. At the same time, Trump accused Zelenskyy of prolonging the war and called him a “dictator without elections.”
But Russia’s relentless onslaught against civilian areas of Ukraine wore down Trump’s patience. In April, Trump urged Putin to “STOP!” launching deadly barrages on Kyiv, and the following month said in a social media post that the Russian leader “ has gone absolutely CRAZY!” as the bombardments continued.
“I am very disappointed with President Putin, I thought he was somebody that meant what he said,” Trump said late Sunday. “He’ll talk so beautifully and then he’ll bomb people at night. We don’t like that.”
The European Union can’t buy Patriot missiles
Russia has pounded Ukrainian cities, including the capital, Kyiv, with hundreds of drones and cruise and ballistic missiles that Ukraine’s air defences are struggling to counter. June brought the highest monthly civilian casualties of the past three years, with 232 people killed and 1,343 wounded, the U.N. human rights mission in Ukraine said. Russia launched 10 times more drones and missiles in June than in the same month last year, it said.
At the same time, Russia’s bigger army is making a new effort to drive back Ukrainian defenders on parts of the 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) front line.
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Trump confirmed the U.S. is sending Ukraine more badly needed Patriot air defence missiles and that the European Union will pay the U.S. for the “various pieces of very sophisticated” weaponry.
While the EU is not allowed under its treaties to buy weapons, EU member countries can and are, just as NATO member countries are buying and sending weapons.
Germany has offered to finance two new Patriot systems and is awaiting official talks on the possibility of more, government spokesperson Stefan Kornelius said Monday in Berlin.
German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius was traveling to Washington on Monday to meet with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
Germany has already given three of its own Patriot systems to Ukraine, and Pistorius was quoted as saying in an interview with the Financial Times that it now has only six.
Trump ally says war at inflection point
A top ally of Trump, Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, said Sunday that the conflict is nearing an inflection point as Trump shows growing interest in helping Ukraine fight back against Russia’s full-scale invasion. It’s a cause that Trump had previously dismissed as being a waste of U.S. taxpayer money.
“In the coming days, you’ll see weapons flowing at a record level to help Ukraine defend themselves,” Graham said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” He added: “One of the biggest miscalculations Putin has made is to play Trump. And you just watch, in the coming days and weeks, there’s going to be a massive effort to get Putin to the table.”
Kirill Dmitriev, Putin’s envoy for international investment who took part in talks with U.S. officials in Saudi Arabia in February, dismissed what he said were efforts to drive a wedge between Moscow and Washington.
“Constructive dialogue between Russia and the United States is more effective than doomed-to-fail attempts at pressure,” Dmitriev said in a post on Telegram. “This dialogue will continue, despite titanic efforts to disrupt it by all possible means.”
NATO chief visits Washington
NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte was due in Washington on Monday and Tuesday. He planned to hold talks with Trump, Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, as well as members of Congress.
Talks during Kellogg’s visit to Kyiv will cover “defense, strengthening security, weapons, sanctions, protection of our people and enhancing cooperation between Ukraine and the United States,” said the head of Ukraine’s presidential office, Andrii Yermak.
“Russia does not want a cease fire. Peace through strength is President Donald Trump’s principle, and we support this approach,” Yermak said.
Russian troops conducted a combined aerial strike at Shostka, in the northern Sumy region of Ukraine, using glide bombs and drones early Monday morning, killing two people, the regional prosecutor’s office said. Four others were injured, including a seven-year-old, it said.
Overnight from Sunday to Monday, Russia fired four S-300/400 missiles and 136 Shahed and decoy drones at Ukraine, the air force said. It said that 61 drones were intercepted and 47 more were either jammed or lost from radars mid-flight.
The Russian Defense Ministry, meanwhile, said its air defences downed 11 Ukrainian drones over Russian regions on the border with Ukraine, as well as over the annexed Crimea and the Black Sea.
—Associated Press writers Lorne Cook in Brussels and Geir Moulson in Berlin contributed to this report.
© 2025 The Canadian Press
What is the Patriot missile system the U.S. plans to send to Ukraine? – National TenX News
Over 1,400 tarantulas found hidden in cake boxes in German smuggling bust – National TenX News
Trump set to make announcement on Russia as U.S. envoy arrives in Ukraine – National TenX News
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