Author: staff
Fico survived the attack after emergency surgery. In a message after the shooting, he publicly forgave the attacker and blamed the Slovak opposition for fueling the political climate that led to the attack. Cintula reportedly told police he didn’t intend to kill Fico, but only to injure him so he could no longer serve as the country’s leader. Cintula disagreed on Fico’s Ukraine policy, among other political issues. He was initially charged with attempted murder, but prosecutors later upgraded the charge to terrorism. He faced 25 years behind bars, but received a shorter sentence due to his age. Fico did not attend the trial himself and…
The prefecture confirmed that four of the injured remain in critical condition, while five sustained serious injuries. The storm, described as a “mini-tornado,” hit around 5:45 p.m., causing widespread destruction across several municipalities. Authorities said the tornado swept through a construction site, a medical-social facility, and a residential building, toppling cranes and tearing roofs from nearby structures. A 23-year-old construction worker was killed when one of the cranes collapsed on the site, according to local officials. Emergency services, including 80 firefighters, 50 police officers and 20 medical staff, were deployed to assist with rescue operations and secure the affected area.…
An initiative to raise a flat tax on short-term rentals has sparked debate in Italy, both within the ruling coalition and the opposition. The measure is part of Italy’s 2026 budget draft, due to be passed in Parliament by the end of the week before heading to the Senate. Lawmakers have suggested an increase in the flat tax to 26%, a levy that will apply to both individual landlords and platforms that manage these rentals. Currently, the rate is 21% on the first property rented and 26% on additional properties. Centre-right party Forza Italia and right-wing Lega were against the…
The freeze helped ensure Lecornu’s government would at least temporarily have the tacit support of the Socialists, who opposed the 2023 reform. He survived the first no-confidence vote against his government on Thursday by 18 votes. Macron praised Lecornu’s decision as a way to “appease the public debate.” The French president insisted the reform remains “necessary for the country” and said he saw Lecornu’s move as “neither a repeal nor a suspension” but rather a “delay.” In a meeting with lawmakers from Macron’s Renaissance party, Lecornu said his decision to freeze one of Macron’s landmark policies was designed to reopen…
Europe’s fragility on defence is giving leeway to Washington, which has been pressuring the EU to ease environmental laws and trying to create friction between the bloc and China, as the ousting of Nexperia’s CEO revealed. The European Union is stuck between US economic coercion and Russian military threat, a predicament that makes the 27-member bloc vulnerable and gives in to Washington’s demands. Seizing this vulnerability, the US is taking steps to create friction between the EU and China, a key trading partner for the success of the bloc’s climate pledges of reducing emissions to net-zero by 2050. To attain…
Published on 21/10/2025 – 14:30 GMT+2 Austria has deported a convicted criminal to Afghanistan for the first time since the Taliban returned to power in 2021, with Vienna warning more deportations are planned. Chancellor Christian Stocker announced the deportation in a post in X on Tuesday morning, saying: “Those who do not abide by our rules must leave.” “This sends a clear message from Austria: Zero tolerance for those who have forfeited their right to stay through criminal acts,” said Stocker, who heads the conservative Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP). “The interior ministry, under Gerhard Karner, is preparing further deportations,” he…
Morning trading in Europe marked a cautious recovery from recent weakness on Tuesday. Most European equity indexes opened modestly higher, after Asian markets extended gains and US Futures slipped slightly. Just before midday, Milan’s stock exchange was leading, up 0.80%. That’s thanks to gains from banks including UniCredit and Intesa Sanpaolo, energy company Eni, and Leonardo, Italy’s leading aerospace and defence company. Defence stocks fuelled gains in Germany too, although not enough to lift the DAX index out of its dip of 0.13%. German battleship and submarine maker TKMS continued to overperform on Tuesday morning, after its IPO on Monday.…
Published on 21/10/2025 – 13:55 GMT+2 Despite its name, cloud computing is not a distant technology in the sky made up of water vapour. It is on ground level – and its problems can cause global issues, taking down banking platforms, government websites, social media, and food delivery services. Cloud computing also isn’t a monolith. There is more than one cloud, and as the Amazon Web Service (AWS) outage on Monday showed, overreliance on one cloud can cause internet apps and sites to have little alternative when technical issues arise. AWS said that its cloud service is back to normal…
Dutch voters elect a new parliament next Wednesday. The Dutch data protection authority ran an experiment on how parties were portrayed in voting advice across four different chatbots, including OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini, Elon Musk’s Grok and French Mistral AI’s Le Chat. The authority set up profiles that matched different political parties (based on vetted Dutch voting-aid tools), after which it asked the chatbots to give voting advice for these profiles. Voter profiles on the left and progressive side of the spectrum “were mostly directed to the GreenLeft-Labor” party led by former European Commission Executive Vice President Frans Timmermans, while…
Deportations to Afghanistan have been controversial. Pro-asylum groups consider it an unsafe country where deportees could face the threat of persecution by the Taliban, which has not been officially recognized as the ruling government by any EU country. According to the Austrian public broadcaster ORF, the deportee was convicted of a sex offense and severe assault, and spent four years in an Austrian prison. A spokesperson for Vienna’s Interior Ministry told POLITICO: “Austria deports convicted criminals to their home countries. If that’s not currently possible in a specific case, we work hard and consistently to make sure it will be…