Author: staff

Published on 04/06/2025 – 13:17 GMT+2•Updated 13:33More than 20,000 people were evacuated from their homes in the German city of Cologne on Wednesday as experts try to defuse three unexploded US bombs from World War II. Authorities on Wednesday morning started evacuating about 20,500 residents, as well as workers and hotel guests, from a central area within a 1,000-metre radius of the bombs, which were discovered on Monday during preparatory work for road construction. They were found in the Deutz district, across the Rhine River from Cologne’s historic centre.Disposing of such bombs sometimes entails large-scale precautionary evacuations such as the…

Jean-François Julliard, director-general of Greenpeace France, told POLITICO the group dropped it off at EDF headquarters and then notified the authorities and the museum to come pick it up. Julliard said two Greenpeace employees were in police custody Wednesday. Greenpeace claimed responsibility for the theft after the statue went missing Monday, claiming they were simply borrowing it. Though the European Union has cut down on business with the Kremlin since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, it still buys Russian gas and other energy products, with France one of Europe’s biggest importers of Russian liquified natural gas.

South Korea’s new president Lee Jae-myung has promised to recommence talks with North Korea with the aim of securing peace on the Korean Peninsula.Lee, who was sworn in early on Wednesday following his victory in a snap election, outlined key policy goals for his five-year term, from foreign and economic policy to healing the country’s political divide.In his inaugural address to the country’s National Assembly, Lee pledged to deal with North Korean nuclear and other military threats with “strong deterrence” bolstered by the South Korea-US military alliance. However, he also said he would restart talks with Pyongyang, which have not taken…

“There isn’t enough listening [in the Commission]. There isn’t enough listening to the people,” he said. Von der Leyen has long been accused of sidelining critics, promoting allies, governing through close aides and employing a Machiavellian divide-and-rule strategy during her years running the EU’s executive arm, which is made up of representatives from the bloc’s 27 member states. Barnier singled out excessive regulation and slow progress on integrating capital markets across the EU as major failures of the Commission during the von der Leyen years. The former French prime minister did, however, credit von der Leyen with successfully responding to…

Published on 04/06/2025 – 11:44 GMT+2•Updated 11:50A court in El Salvador has sentenced three former senior military officers to 15 years in prison for the killing of four Dutch journalists in 1982. Jan Kuiper, Koos Koster, Hans ter Laag and Joop Willemson were killed in an ambush by the Salvadoran army in the northern province of Chalatenango while filming a documentary about the Central American country’s civil war, which lasted from 1980 until 1992. Late on Tuesday, a five-person jury in a Chalatenango court found three former top military officials guilty over their deaths after a trial that was closed…

The counterassault was the most sophisticated Ukraine has launched so far. Dubbed “Spiderweb,” the operation saw dozens of Russian bombers parked at separate air bases, thousands of miles away from the front lines, struck at all once. The drones hit targets spread across Russia, including one base closer to Japan and another inside the Arctic Circle, Ukraine’s SBU security service claimed, quickly posting dramatic video footage of the assault on social media. To pull off the operation — which was 18 months in the planning — the drones were smuggled into Russia hidden in wooden mobile houses atop trucks, and…

“They’re looking at the overall numbers and they’re saying, oh, it’s a big directorate general, so it needs to be trimmed,” said one of the officials, referring to the communications department. Another official, however, cautioned the restructuring will likely not be a “major reform” but rather a “readjustment” of resources. What’s on the chopping block The Parliament’s leadership intends to gradually reassign existing staff members to jobs in other departments or to reallocate posts after employees retire. Less clear is what happens with subcontracted temporary positions — so-called externals — who often work in areas such as audiovisual services, website…

Published on 04/06/2025 – 8:59 GMT+2•Updated 9:05Elon Musk has slammed US President Donald Trump’s plan to cut taxes and spending, marking a sharp break from the president he helped re-elect in 2024 as one of his key allies.The bill allows the US government to borrow more money and extends tax breaks approved during Trump’s first term at the White House, along with new ones he campaigned on.The budget — which includes a massive buildup of $350 billion (€307bn) for border security, deportations and national security — was narrowly passed by the House of Representatives last month. “Shame on those who…

Washington is leading a deregulation charge, with President Donald Trump ripping up the safety rules laid down by his predecessor Joe Biden and unveiling a half-trillion-dollar AI hardware plan with leading company OpenAI. The Vatican could use its network across the Global South to “spark more democratic access” to AI as power becomes concentrated in the hands of tech giants and wealthier countries. | Alessandro Di Meo/EPA Even the EU, historically at the forefront of AI regulation, is modifying its stance to focus on competitiveness — opening the door to “targeted tweaks” of its AI Act and doubling down on boosting…

Frederiksen argued the EU needs the funds to bolster its defenses amid Russia’s assault on Ukraine. “For me, the most important thing is to rearm Europe,” Frederiksen said. “That’s my starting point and that’s my conclusion in all discussions, because if Europe is not able to protect ourselves and to defend ourselves, then it’s game over at some point.” Europe, she added, is “running out of time because of Russia’s behavior” and needs “a new profile on the budget.” Frederiksen argued the EU needs the funds to bolster its defenses amid Russia’s assault on Ukraine. | Sergey Kozlov/EFE via EPA…