Author: staff
Published on 04/07/2026 – 21:52 GMT+2 African powerhouse Morocco is advancing to the World Cup quarterfinals after beating Canada 3-0 in Saturday’s first round of 16 match. While neither team was able to break through in the first half, Azzedine Ounahi took a free kick from Achraf Hakimi and made a right-footed shot through traffic from outside the box to the bottom right corner to put Morocco on top 1-0 in the 50th minute. Ounahi the made it 2-0 from the middle of the box off a pass from Brahim Díaz in the 82nd minute. Soufiane Rahimi added a spectacular…
The Italian government is sounding the alarm after 80 vials of fentanyl, a synthetic opioid up to one hundred times more powerful than morphine, were stolen from Rome’s Israelitic Hospital. The missing quantity would be enough to produce up to around 20,000 doses potentially destined for illicit use, which in countries such as the United States and Canada has become a national emergency. Fentanyl is used legally in medicine as an anaesthetic and to treat severe pain, including in cancer patients. But taking this “party anaesthetic” for non-medical purposes has devastating effects. As little as 3 milligrams of the “zombie…
The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) is financing Kazakhstan’s first large-scale refractory gold ore processing facility, helping the country unlock previously inaccessible reserves while expanding domestic mineral processing. Around half of Kazakhstan’s gold resources are contained in refractory ores that cannot be processed using conventional methods. The bank is providing a €255 million loan to support the construction of the Ertis pressure oxidation hydrometallurgical complex in the Pavlodar region. Developed by Solidcore Resources, the facility will be capable of processing up to 278,500 tonnes of gold concentrate a year. Once completed, the project is expected to establish a…
Published on 02/07/2026 – 8:55 GMT+2•Updated 04/07/2026 – 10:17 GMT+2 A Dutch engineer has reconstructed, with the help of academic sources and ancient cartography, the road map that linked up the Roman Empire. The result, accessible from any browser, including on mobile phones, allows users to plot routes between cities of Antiquity and find out how many days the journey would have taken on foot or on horseback. The tool is called OmnesViae (Omnesviae.org (source in Spanish)) and is based mainly on the Tabula Peutingeriana, a medieval copy of a Roman map that depicted the cursus publicus, the Empire’s official…
Published on 04/07/2026 – 18:49 GMT+2•Updated 18:55 Thousands of people gather across France on Saturday to demand government action against sexual violence, following the rape and murder of an 11-year-old girl that served as a catalyst for mass mobilisation. The girl, named as Lyhanna, went missing on 29 May in the southwestern town of Fleurance and her body was found in an abandoned silo almost a week later. Anger grew after it emerged that the main suspect, the 41-year-old father of a school friend, had twice before been formally accused of raping a child but the investigations had been dropped…
Published on 04/07/2026 – 17:16 GMT+2•Updated 17:57 Archaeologists seldom encounter a site that has remained virtually untouched by natural and human interference for hundreds of thousands of years. That is precisely what has been found in a cave on the outskirts of Foreidis, near the Zichron Yaakov junction, where researchers from the Israel Antiquities Authority and the University of Haifa are excavating a site dated to between 400,000 and 250,000 years ago. The excavation is led (source in Spanish) by archaeologist Kobi Vardi and Amit Gabay, together with Professor Ron Schimmelmitz. The team describe the site as one of the…
More details have finally emerged of America’s so-called “royal wedding,” that of pop singer Taylor Swift and National Football League (NFL) star Travis Kelce, an event that triggered a frenzy of global attention despite being shrouded in secrecy. The couple married Friday in a lavish ceremony at Madison Square Garden on the United States’ 250th birthday weekend. The event was attended by some 1,000 guests, including celebrities, athletes, close friends and family. The pair both had their siblings by their sides, with Taylor Swift’s brother Austin Swift as her man of honour and Travis Kelce’s brother Jason Kelce as the…
The US celebrates the 250th anniversary of its independence on Saturday, in what the White House has called “the most important milestone” in the nation’s history. Fireworks displays, air shows, and a speech from US President Donald Trump are all part of the planned festivities, which Washington hopes will help “inspire a renewed love for American history”. Governments, officials, and royals from across Europe have joined the US in celebrating the day. Here are some of the messages they’ve sent. Ursula von der Leyen In a post on X, von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, wrote: “Today,…
On the day of the 250th anniversary of the United States, Pope Leo XIV chose to visit Lampedusa, the island that has become a symbol of the migrant emergency in Italy and across Europe. The last time a pope visited Lampedusa was in 2013, when Pope Francis chose the island for his first apostolic journey, signalling from the very start of his pontificate his commitment to the migrant cause. Immediately after landing, the pope headed to the Cemetery of the Nameless in Cala Pisana to pay tribute and pray at the graves of migrants who died at sea. The graves…
The AfD finished in second with just over 20 percent of the vote in the last German federal elections and is now Germany’s most popular party according to polling. It is positioned to win in two key state elections which will take place in September in eastern Germany. Other parties, including German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s conservatives, have kept a so-called “firewall” in place to keep the AfD out of federal government despite its electoral results. Some of its European ideological allies, like the French National Rally, have also cut ties with the German far-right party which it deemed to be…