Author: staff

The UN agency that fights HIV plans to slash its workforce by more than half and move many posts to cheaper locations as a result of drastic funding cuts from long-time donors in the United States, Asia and Europe, the agency and staffers have said.UNAIDS said “the overall global AIDS response is facing a severe shock and many of the gains made in the past few decades are at risk of being reversed.”It said the restructuring follows an independent panel’s recommendations calling for “downsizing” its secretariat in Geneva while continuing to “prioritise the most essential functions.”It said it would maintain…

Kallas reaffirmed the EU’s collaboration with the Arctic island, adding that the bloc “fully supports” its objectives in education, green growth, raw materials, renewable energy and security. Since his reelection last November, Trump has repeatedly said he wants the U.S. to acquire Greenland for “international safety and security.” “We need it. We have to have it,” Trump said in a radio interview in March. During the same month, Vice President JD Vance visited a U.S. Space Force base on the island, which boasts significant mineral reserves. Both Greenland and Denmark have reputedly said the Arctic island is not for sale, with Greenland’s…

The movie, directed by Edward Berger, features English actor Fiennes as Cardinal Thomas Lawrence, a pope-appointed “camerlengo,” or chamberlain, who is tasked with overseeing the conclave. He has to deal with fractious clerics, the emergence of scandalous dossiers targeting papal favorites and the appearance of an unknown candidate from an obscure diocese. It all might sound painfully relevant. The film is seen as remarkably accurate even by cardinals, said the cleric, making it a helpful research tool, especially at a time when so many of the conclave participants have little experience of Vatican politics and protocol. A majority of the cardinals…

The United Kingdom and India have said they have agreed on a long-stalled free trade agreement that will slash tariffs on Scotch whisky and scores of other products.The deal comes more than three years after negotiations started and stalled under a previous British government.Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on X that the deal was “ambitious and mutually beneficial.”While British Prime Minister Keir Starmer called it a “landmark” that was “fantastic news for British business, British workers and British shoppers.”The UK government said the deal will reduce Indian import taxes on whisky, cosmetics, medical goods, car and aeroplane parts and…

The document does, however, note that 170 billion cubic meters of new LNG capacity are set to come online globally by 2027, including a doubling of North American capacity. The plan also stresses that the EU executive will increase efforts to electrify its economy and consider expanding a platform for companies to jointly purchase supplies like biomethane, to replace supplies of traditional natural gas. Nuclear is nigh The new plan also targets the bloc’s lingering nuclear ties to Moscow, which supplies a fifth of the EU’s raw uranium and 38 percent of its enrichment capacity. Five countries — Finland, Bulgaria,…

The European Union has set 2027 as the deadline by which all 27 member states, from landlocked to coastal, must phase out all remaining purchases of Russian energy, most notably the carriers of liquefied natural gas (LNG) that continue arriving at the bloc’s shores despite the brutal war in Ukraine.The break-up will take place gradually. First, with a ban on new and short-term contracts by the end of 2025. In a second stage, long-term contracts, which account for two-thirds of Russian gas, will be terminated by the end of 2027. Further restrictions will also be introduced to crack down on…

Updated: 06/05/2025 – 16:55 GMT+2Thick smoke billowed over Port Sudan on Tuesday after drone attacks struck the city for a second time in three days, Sudanese military officials said. … More Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) launched a fresh drone strike on Port Sudan, hitting fuel tanks and disrupting flights, according to the officials.The assault follows a similar strike on Sunday that hit a military base and a civilian warehouse, igniting a fire that lasted two days. Footage showed smoke rising from the southern port area, where Information Minister Khalid Aleiser blamed the United Arab Emirates for supplying arms…

BERLIN — Friedrich Merz will be German chancellor after winning a vote in the Bundestag Tuesday afternoon, following an embarrassing initial failure that plunged Berlin into political turmoil. The conservative leader, who has been weakened by the unprecedented first round setback, secured 325 votes in the dramatic second round — just above the 316 needed to win. The 69-year-old now takes the helm of a fragile coalition between the conservative bloc and the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD). The coalition will hold one of the slimmest parliamentary majorities since World War II, with just 52 percent of seats.

Space is getting increasingly crowded and experts are sounding the alarm.In a report, the European Space Agency said around 1,200 pieces of rocket and satellite debris fell back to Earth last year.And as 54,000 space junk pieces larger than 10cm remain floating around the planet, the organisation adds that they are even increasing in “number and size.”Other experts argue the rate of returning objects could reach 15 a day within ten years.Reasons include a rise in satellite launches, particularly by SpaceX and China, as well as heightened solar activity, which slows down space objects, causing them to decay faster.France littering…

Sudan’s most powerful paramilitary force struck targets in the city of Port Sudan early on Tuesday morning, Sudanese military officials said, the second attack on the government’s seat of power in recent days.There were no immediate reports of casualties or confirmation of the extent of the damage.Two military sources told the Associated Press on the condition of anonymity that Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) struck early on Tuesday. Online footage showed billowing clouds of smoke.Visiting the southern part of the port where he said fuel tanks had been struck, Sudan’s Information Minister Khalid Aleiser condemned the United Arab Emirates…