Author: staff
For years, Austria’s stock market was largely seen as a play on banks, with energy company OMV providing one of the few major industrial exposures. In 2026, however, the Vienna Stock Exchange has become one of the best-performing equity markets in Europe. The biggest driver of that performance is not a bank or an oil producer, but a semiconductor supplier based in the Styrian town of Leoben, home to about 24,000 people. Austria’s benchmark ATX index has gained 21.3% since the beginning of January, according to Trading Economics. No major eurozone equity market has performed better. Italy’s FTSE MIB has…
The widening zone is emptying towns and villages, as thousands of people flee every month. June was the deadliest month for Ukrainian civilians since April 2022, the U.N. human rights monitors said this week, with at least 293 killed and 1,990 injured. Casualties from short-range drones near the front reached their highest level of the entire war. Those fleeing front-line communities described to U.N. staff “feeling hunted” by drones while shopping for food or walking their dogs. At a transit center near Sloviansk, where evacuees stopped to register and collect cash and food, Skau met a 90-year-old woman and her…
Published on 17/07/2026 – 7:37 GMT+2 China condemned the UK’s decision to nationalise British Steel, saying it “firmly opposes and is strongly dissatisfied with the British government’s decision” and warning that the move had damaged Chinese companies’ confidence in investing in the UK, the country’s Ministry of Commerce said on Friday. On Thursday, the British government announced that it would take the loss-making company into public hands to protect jobs and safeguard a “vital national capability”. The UK government took operational control of British Steel’s Scunthorpe operations in 2025 after Jingye considered closing the plant’s blast furnaces. However, the Chinese…
Published on 17/07/2026 – 11:17 GMT+2•Updated 13:11 In the coming week, from 20 to 26 July, fuel prices are set to rise sharply. According to the Automóvel Clube de Portugal (ACP) and the forecasts of the Directorate-General for Energy and Geology (DGEG), the price of diesel is expected to increase by 13.5 euro cents and that of petrol by 6.5 euro cents per litre. As a result, next week diesel will cost consumers €1.988 per litre and petrol €1.980 per litre. The ACP adds that the average figures are based on ‘raw material prices at the close of markets last…
The last time that Ursula von der Leyen travelled to Kyiv, in late February, she arrived in the midst of a gruelling winter. Ukraine was suffering widespread blackouts caused by Russian strikes. The population endured sub-zero temperatures without heating. This week, on her second trip this year, she declared upon arriving at the train station: “The tide is turning.” It was a bold statement that captured a remarkable transformation in less than five months. With the battle lines stuck in a war of attrition, Ukraine has moved the fighting to the skies, launching long-range drone strikes against Russia’s oil refineries,…
Published on 17/07/2026 – 7:30 GMT+2•Updated 11:40 Restricting Chinese access to the EU’s market of 450 million consumers could undermine Beijing’s export-driven economy and pose a risk to the country’s political stability, German liberal MEP Engin Eroglu, chair of the European Parliament’s delegation for relations with China, told Euronews, arguing that China’s model is “flawed.” His comments come as tensions between Brussels and Beijing have ramped up in recent weeks. The EU has set an October deadlinewith China last month to discuss how they can reduce their trade imbalance, after the bloc’s deficit with China reached a record €1 billion…
No asset manager had ever crossed the $15 trillion (€13tn) threshold before BlackRock confirmed the milestone in results published on Wednesday. The rise was driven by market gains and new client money. Clients handed the New York-based giant a net $192 billion (€167bn) in the second quarter of 2026, capping a record first half in which inflows reached $321 billion (€280bn), more than double the same period a year earlier. To illustrate the sheer scale of BlackRock’s assets under management, the firm manages more money than the projected nominal annual economic output of every country except the US and China,…
Updated: 17/07/2026 – 9:11 GMT+2 Glenn Micallef, EU sport commissioner, says the expanded World Cup format “worked” ahead of Sunday’s final. Micallef says the tournament reflects the improvement of football worldwide, but insists the “best talent and best football is still being played in Europe”, making him “proud”. … More
By Greta Ruffino with AFP Published on 17/07/2026 – 21:02 GMT+2•Updated 21:07 Apple reclaimed the title of the world’s most valuable company on Friday, overtaking Nvidia as investors grew more confident in its AI strategy. Shares of Nvidia were down as much as four percent as worries about the valuation of artificial intelligence equities dogged the market, giving the company a valuation of about $4.8 trillion (€4.2 trillion), slightly below Apple’s $4.9 trillion (€4.3 trillion). The company later clawed back the losses, with Apple and Nvidia trading neck and neck for the top spot. Nvidia’s stock has soared more than 1,200% since January…
The European Commission on Friday proposed extending its carbon market to international flights arriving in Europe from destinations within 5,000 km from 2029, as part of its long-awaited overhaul of the bloc’s Emissions Trading System (ETS). Routes such as Frankfurt–Dubai and Frankfurt–Istanbul will be brought into the carbon market while longer sectors such as Frankfurt–Tokyo will be excluded, according to the Commission proposal. Landing flights from the United States and China will be exempt. Exemptions for domestic services to the EU’s outermost regions, including routes linking mainland Spain with the Canary Islands, will remain in place until the end of…