Author: staff
But Munteanu’s stint as head of the country’s government was undermined by scandals that have rocked Moldova’s ministries and state-owned enterprises. Last month Dumitru Vangeli, head of the MOLDATSA civil aviation safety agency, was dismissed after his university diploma and pilot’s license was determined to be forged. On Thursday Ministry of Agriculture State Secretary Tatiana Nistorică was detained on suspicion of bribery. Vangeli publically denied the accusations, while Nistorică has not yet commented on her case. At the press conference following Munteanu’s resignation Sandu said she expected “greater involvement in difficult decisions, a stronger public presence to listen to people’s…
Ukraine and Moldova notched another milestone in their EU accession bids at a technical meeting on Friday, as member states unanimously agreed to advance the opening of another cluster of negotiations. The move to unlock cluster six (“External Relations”) marks a further step in the two candidates’ accession process, reflecting Hungary’s gradual shift in position following Péter Magyar’s landslide election victory over Viktor Orbán. Orbán had kept Kyiv’s accession bid on hold for years over a dispute concerning the treatment of the Hungarian minority in western Ukraine. Magyar’s new government worked with the Ukrainian side to resolve the issue, leading…
Six Asiatic black bears rescued from bile farms in South Korea have started a new life in a forest habitat at Knuthenborg Safaripark in Denmark after an international rescue operation. The footage follows their journey from sedation and transfer in Cheongju, where they are placed in wooden crates, to their arrival in Denmark and gradual release into holding enclosures. It ends with the bears stepping into woodland and water for the first time. The animals had been kept in cages for bile extraction before more than two years of planning between NGOs, veterinarians and authorities in South Korea and Europe…
Published on 03/07/2026 – 13:35 GMT+2•Updated 13:38 A new artificial intelligence model from China is catching up to other leading American AI models. Called GLM 5.2, the company behind it, Z.ai, unleashed it just a day after the United States banned Anthropic from supplying its Fable 5 and Mythos models to non-Americans earlier this month, before the controls were lifted on June 30. Z.ai claims that its model’s performance is almost on par with Anthropic’s Claude Opus 4.8 and OpenAI’s GPT 5.5. It also operates on a 1 million token context window, meaning it can hold roughly 750,000 words in…
Aegean has today resumed its air service between Athens and Paphos, returning to Paphos International Airport in Cyprus after an absence of several years. The first flight arrived in Athens at 6:31 am in the morning. From today, the connection between Paphos and the Greek capital will be operated with three flights a week, significantly strengthening passengers’ access to both the domestic and international network of Aegean Airlines. At the same time, it facilitates connections with key tourism markets such as Germany and other countries in Northern Europe. During a related meeting held last February, representatives of Paphos’ local bodies…
Following its world premiere in Competition at the 79th Cannes Film Festival, where Polish filmmaker Paweł Pawlikowski won Best Director for the second time after 2018‘s Cold War, Ojczyzna (Fatherland) is another monochrome historical snapshot focusing on a couple swept up by the tides of history. Instead of lovers, it centers on a father, German Nobel Prize laureate Thomas Mann (“Death in Venice”, “Doctor Faustus”) and his daughter, Erika. Thomas (Hanns Zischler) is heading back to his native Germany only four years after the end of the war. Having left in 1933 for the US, the returning national treasure is…
According to Michal, capitals should be more concerned about the cost of not deterring Russia’s Vladimir Putin because “the answer is measured not only in defence budgets, but also in lost lives, weakened security, disrupted economies and the price of rebuilding peace. Investing in deterrence today is far less expensive than paying for the consequences of aggression tomorrow.” “Supporting Ukraine is already increasing Europe’s security,” he went on, adding that “a Europe where Russia achieves its goals would be far more expensive than helping Ukraine succeed today.” EU leaders will grapple with the questions of defense spending and the bloc’s…
US Democrats are urging the European Commission to resist mounting commercial pressure and the Trump administration’s demands that the bloc scrap its methane rules, despite warnings that transatlantic energy exports, which are now the bloc’s second-largest provider, could decline if the rules remain in place. “At a time when the EU’s methane rules are facing increasing pressure to be delayed or weakened by fossil fuel interests, maintaining clear, consistent rules for all suppliers is essential to strengthening Europe’s energy security, while also reducing highly potent greenhouse gas emissions,” reads a 1 July letter sent by five US lawmakers, Sean Casten,…
By Sertac Aktan with AP, AFP Published on 03/07/2026 – 12:17 GMT+2 Venezuela’s acting president, Delcy Rodríguez, has defended her government’s response to the two devastating 24 June earthquakes. Facing intense criticism over an allegedly slow and haphazard relief effort, Rodríguez pushed back against claims that the official death toll is being under-reported and rejected accusations that poor social housing construction had exacerbated the disaster. The dual 7.2 and 7.5-magnitude quakes levelled nearly 200 buildings across Caracas and the hardest-hit northern coastal state of La Guaira, though satellite data suggests the true extent of destruction could be much higher. The official death toll…
Train enthusiasts will celebrate the 100th anniversary of a historic Swiss railway this weekend. Vintage steam locomotives will ferry tourists through the stunning Alpine scenery as part of the celebration. The Furka Pass, at an altitude of 2,431 metres, is among Switzerland’s highest Alpine passes and famous for its hairpin curves featured in the 1964 James Bond film “Goldfinger”. But long before 007 actor Sean Connery filmed a harrowing car chase scene there, a steam train first traversed the steep and winding route in a continuous journey on 3 July, 1926, kicking off a vital rail link between the regions…