Author: staff
A brand-new passenger train is undergoing testing at railway manufacturer Alstom’s facility in Derby, northern England. It will soon enter service on the United Kingdom’s South Western Railway network. But while the British-built Class 701 Aventra train runs through its paces on an outdoor test track, the most important work is happening inside a digital laboratory known as Train Zero. The facility recreates an entire train in virtual form, using racks of hardware and software to simulate how onboard systems behave in real-world conditions. “In here we are mainly testing one product, and that’s called the Aventra trai,n and that…
These are likely to include joint work on medical, health and life sciences, cooperation on climate science, and work to highlight Mandarin language schemes, the people said. Officials are also working on the mutual recognition of professional qualifications and visa-free travel for short stays, while firms have been pushing for more expansive banking and insurance licences for British companies operating in China. The U.K. is meanwhile likely to try to persuade Beijing to lower import tariffs on Scotch whisky, which doubled in February 2025. A former U.K. official who was involved in Britain’s last prime ministerial visit to China, by…
Updated: 26/01/2026 – 12:00 GMT+1 Catch up with the most important stories from around Europe and beyond this January 26th, 2026 – latest news, breaking news, World, Business, Entertainment, Politics, Culture, Travel. … More
The digital economy presents growing challenges for tax systems as online services highlight the limitations of current frameworks. Virtual ventures, such as Meta or Alphabet, notably have large customer bases in countries where they have no physical presence, generating profits from advertising or subscription services. Because tax rules still assume a physical presence, profits from digital activities often bypass contributions where consumers are located. Instead, multinationals usually pay corporate levies where production takes place. “It is important that all sectors of our economies pay their fair share of taxes and contribute to the functioning of our societies,” says the European…
Die Koalition will raus aus dem Reformstillstand. Mit dem Bericht der Sozialstaatskommission soll heute ein Wendepunkt markiert werden: weniger Bürokratie, mehr Digitalisierung, effizientere Leistungen. Arbeitsministerin Bärbel Bas legt vor, der Kanzler positioniert sich. Gordon Repinski ordnet die Vorschläge gemeinsam mit Rasmus Buchsteiner ein und blickt auf die nächste, politisch heiklere Reformrunde bei Rente und Krankenversicherung. Im 200-Sekunden-Interview: Matthias Moosdorf, der frühere außenpolitische Sprecher der AfD. Es geht um Russland, den Angriffskrieg gegen die Ukraine, persönliche Verbindungen nach Moskau und um die Frage, wo politische Provokation endet und journalistische Konfrontation beginnt. Warum dieses Gespräch das letzte seiner Art bleibt, erklärt Repinski…
US Border Patrol chief Gregory “Greg” Bovino, who has been at the centre of fierce criticism following a second fatal shooting amid the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown in Minneapolis, is expected to leave the city on Tuesday along with other agents, according to a person familiar with the matter. In a sign of a softer tone from President Donald Trump on the crackdown, the US leader has scaled back federal presence in Minneapolis and replaced Bovino with his border czar, Tom Homan. The shift in tone comes after 37-year-old ICU nurse, Alex Pretti, was fatally shot by federal immigration officers,…
Both Allisio and Vassal are calling for unspecified spending cuts while preserving basic services provided at the local level like schools, public transportation and parks and recreation. Vassal, who is polling third, said she would make public transportation free for residents younger 26 to travel across the spread-out city. She accuses the current administration of having delivered an insufficient number of building permits, slowing the development of new housing and office buildings and thus the revitalization of Marseille’s most embattled areas — a trend she pledged to reverse. Both Vassal and Allisio are advocating for less local taxes on property…
Published on 26/01/2026 – 12:46 GMT+1 Germany’s far-right Alternative für Deutschland or AfD party in Bavaria is proposing a specialised police unit modelled on US Immigration and Customs Enforcement to track asylum seekers and coordinate deportations, according to internal documents. At the press conference following the winter conference of the Bavarian state organisation, AfD parliamentary group leader Katrin Ebner-Steiner initially avoided questions about this model. While Ebner-Steiner explained that the unit’s organisational structure was still open, the fact that the concept paper envisages an orientation “similar to the ICE” only became known later, when the documents were made available to…
It is, by any reasonable measure, a strategic own goal. The consequences of this go well beyond trade. Mercosur governments spent years negotiating this free trade agreement (FTA) in good faith, navigating Europe’s hesitation, shifting demands and inconsistent political signals. Understandably, they are now interpreting the referral to the court as a political move. For partners already hedging their bets in an increasingly contested global landscape, it reinforces doubts over whether Europe can be relied on. Meanwhile, for Europe, the true damage is to a deeper truth it all too often obscures: That its real power comes from the ability…
Published on 26/01/2026 – 14:33 GMT+1 Germany’s Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul denounced Russia’s “stubborn insistence on the crucial territorial issue” on Monday following talks between Russian, Ukrainian and US envoys in Abu Dhabi on ending Moscow’s ongoing war in Ukraine. “What I am hearing and reading today, including from the negotiations in the United Arab Emirates, is only Russia’s stubborn insistence on the crucial territorial issue,” Wadephul said during a visit to Latvia. “And if there is no flexibility here, I fear that the negotiations may still take a long time or may not be successful at this stage.” Wadephul…