Author: staff
Two people have died and another is missing after heavy rain and flooding hit Catalonia, in north-eastern Spain, authorities said on Sunday. Catalan regional president Salvador Illa confirmed the second death in a social media post on Sunday. Firefighters said the missing person had been swept away by a stream in Pineda de Mar, a town north of Barcelona. Catalan Civil Protection has sent a new Es-Alert on Sunday to the mobile phones of residents in Vallès Oriental, Maresme, la Selva, Baix Empordà and Gironès. The message urges people to comply with travel restrictions while the torrential rain continues. Residents…
Published on 04/10/2026 – 17:07 GMT+2 Residents of Russia’s Irkutsk region are deeply worried by rumours of a possible outbreak of pneumonic plague in this Siberian area. Speculation began to spread rapidly after the death of an employee of the Irkutsk Research Anti-Plague Institute. Darya Shipilova died in the early hours of 2 October in the intensive care unit of the district hospital in the town of Shelekhov. According to local media, she broke a test tube containing the plague pathogen. The incident prompted authorities to introduce quarantine measures: around 200 people have been placed under strict medical observation. The…
Marine Le Pen has broken her silence to publicly renew her support for Jordan Bardella, who is now in turmoil after fresh revelations about antisemitic and conspiracist messages attributed to him. Three days after investigative website Mediapart published a second article on the affair, the presidential hopeful told La Tribune Dimanche she has “total confidence” in the man tipped to become her prime minister if she wins the 2027 presidential election. Le Pen had already defended Bardella when Mediapart first published the allegations on Monday. “You won’t get anyone to believe that,” she told reporters during a walkabout at a…
“The people of Ukraine should blame only the head of the Kyiv regime for this,” the Russian Defense Ministry stated, referring to the Ukrainian president. “It is Zelenskyy who bears full personal and political responsibility for this.” In an interview with Reuters, Zelenskyy said Saturday that Ukrainian forces “have to respond in any way we can” to Russian attacks, which are increasingly targeting bridges across the Dnipro River in the capital. “With their attacks on our energy, we have to respond on their energy. First of all, oil refiners: what gives money to them for this war,” he added, while…
Published on 04/10/2026 – 12:00 GMT+2 Riot police from Spain’s Police Intervention Unit (UIP), brought in from Seville, Granada, Malaga and other parts of the country, launched Operation Trampolín on Sunday to clear the tents from the settlement that has seen the worst insecurity and tension of the crisis. Officers from the Prevention and Reaction Unit (UPR) and intelligence units, both from Ceuta and elsewhere, are also taking part. Police justified the operation by pointing to conditions at the site. The waters off Trampolín are contaminated, they say, arguing safety cannot be guaranteed, and there is a clear health risk,…
Friedrich Merz arrived in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv by special train on Sunday morning. The visit had not been publicly announced beforehand. Alongside Economy Minister Katherina Reiche, the delegation includes around ten representatives of German companies from the defence and energy sectors. The focus of the trip is further support for Ukraine in its war against Russia. According to German government sources, thousands of interceptor drones are to be delivered to the Ukrainian armed forces in the coming months. The systems are intended in particular to counter Russian jet-powered drones, which are difficult to intercept because of their high speed.…
Latvia’s Prime Minister Andris Kulbergs’ centre-right United List party has won the Baltic state’s parliamentary election, preliminary results showed Sunday. With more than 99.9 percent of votes counted, the United List led with 35.4 percent, according to state television. In the 100-seat parliament, Kulbergs’ United List party secured 42 seats, a record for the post-independence history of the former Soviet republic, local media reports. The results point to a continued pro-European and pro-Ukrainian course for Latvia. Kulbergs, who became prime minister only in May, said the result was higher than expected and matched the lead shown in exit polls. “That…
By Peter Barabas & Jane Witherspoon & Toby Gregory in Dubai Published on 04/10/2026 – 11:37 GMT+2 The FlyDubai hero captain revealed new details of his fight to save the passengers aboard flight FZ1073 in an emotional telephone conversation with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, released by his office on Saturday evening. Captain Smit Machchhar told Netanyahu he felt he had “one more fight left” in him when in a critical state he reached for the cockpit door once again to save the 174 passengers and 6 crew members, while the co-pilot kept attacking him and putting the aircraft in a steep defence.…
Despite the decisive victory — far stronger than pre-election polling suggested — Kulbergs will still need to negotiate with other parties to form a majority government. Two partners in his outgoing coalition, the conservative National Alliance and center-right New Unity, cleared the 5% threshold and are set to return to parliament. They appear to have enough seats for a majority without the Union of Greens and Farmers, which fell below the threshold. That gives Kulbergs a solid path to another pro-Ukraine coalition without having to seek support from Šlesers’ Latvia First, an option that had loomed over the election campaign,…
Welcome back to Off the Record, after a hectic week in our newsroom. The Brussels media loves to talk about itself, but we prefer to speak with the newsmakers. This week, Euronews hosted its first defence summit -and it made news. That’s how I measure success and impact, and it’s the only metric I care about. Talking about yourself is fine, but making news is better. On stage, I sat down with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte. I have covered the Dutchman for years, going back to his four terms as prime minister of the Netherlands, when he earned the…