Author: staff
Those requirements are set out in the EBU’s statutes, which were relaxed in June to allow broadcasters from some countries outside Europe to become full members. “Khabar Agency is a valued Associate Member of the EBU, and we appreciate its long-standing engagement with the Union,” the statement added. The broadcaster, controlled by Kazakhstan’s Ministry of Culture and Information, took the country to Junior Eurovision five times between 2018 and 2022, finishing as runner-up twice. Associate membership, however, does not provide an automatic route into the senior contest. A small portion of Kazakhstan (albeit an area larger than Greece) lies within…
Published on 10/09/2026 – 16:50 GMT+2 Russian military bloggers have acknowledged that Ukrainian forces have gone on the counterattack around Lyman in eastern Ukraine, with some claiming that Russian troops have been forced to withdraw from forward positions as the situation for Moscow deteriorates. One Russian military blogger said Ukrainian forces had been counterattacking in the area for months, while accusing Russia’s military command of presenting an overly optimistic picture of the frontline. According to the Washington-based think tank Institute for the Study of War (ISW), Russian bloggers criticised what Russian military commentators call “beautiful reports,” referring to exaggerated or…
Popular Egyptian television presenter Sarah Khalifa will sign appeal papers against her death sentence on Tuesday, her lawyer Mohamed El-Gendy said. Khalifa was convicted last week alongside 11 others in a synthetic drug manufacturing and trafficking case. She has consistently denied any involvement, saying she had never even smoked a cigarette in her life. Euronews looked into what Egyptian law says about capital punishment in drug cases and what the appeals process could mean for Khalifa and her co-defendants. Why can a drugs case carry the death penalty? Egyptian drug law allows the death penalty for some of the most…
Ratings agency Fitch has upgraded Portugal’s sovereign debt rating from “A” to “A+” with a “stable outlook,” the company said in a notice published on its website. The move keeps pace with a recent wave of confidence in the country from other ratings agencies and investors, according to Portugal’s Agency for Investment and Foreign Trade (AICEP). The Portuguese government says “all financial ratings agencies” now assign Portugal an “A” rating. In August, Standard & Poor’s (S&P) confirmed its unsolicited sovereign credit ratings for Portugal at “A+/A-1” for long- and short-term foreign and local currency debt, maintaining its positive outlook. Morningstar…
Zucman’s Paris event — currently billed as the “Summit Against the International Oligarchy” — is nominally focused on three themes: media and online platforms, artificial intelligence and taxing billionaires. But it won’t have an impact on the California contest, as voters there head to the polls on Nov. 3. Instead, it appears to be an opportunity to thrust wealth inequality and tax justice back into the public debate ahead of the next French presidential election, whose first round takes place in April of next year. The event, whose co-organizers include Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz and best-selling author Thomas Piketty, will…
By Euronews with AFP Published on 10/09/2026 – 19:08 GMT+2 Asylum applications in Europe reached a five-year low in the first half of the year, according to new data from the European Union Agency for Asylum. EU member states plus Switzerland and Norway received about 332,000 applications for international protection in the first six months of 2026. It represents a 17% decline compared to the same period last year, following a downward trend since 2024. The bloc’s asylum agency said this decline is due to the ongoing political transition in Syria as well as the EU’s cooperation with countries of origin and transit.…
A new exhibition by Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan has opened at Berlin’s Neue Nationalgalerie, bringing together works that question power, violence and belief. Among them is ‘Him’, a 2001 sculpture of a kneeling child with Adolf Hitler’s face. The curator says the work remains relevant because it presents an image of evil while leaving its meaning uncertain. Other works include ‘Charlie Don’t Surf’, showing a child fixed to a school desk. The exhibition, titled ‘Night’, explores authority, dictatorship, death and doubt. The title also suggests a period of reflection before morning comes.
The Italian Council of Ministers has approved a new fuel decree law that extends by one week, until Thursday 17 September, the 17-cent discount on the price of diesel fuel. The 14-cent-per-litre reduction in tax translates into a lower pump price of around 17 cents per litre, taking into account the reduced impact of VAT. The new decree law will cost around 80 million euros. According to government sources, this is expected to be the last across-the-board measure, in other words one that benefits all consumers. If the government intervenes again on fuel after 17 September, it will do so…
The measure would see prosecutors target those inside the bloc’s own borders who fall foul of strict rules about working with sanctioned Russian and Belarusian entities, or engage in banned transactions. Enforcement of EU sanctions has been held back by a patchwork of national laws and different approaches from prosecutors in the 27 capitals. EPPO is currently tasked with investigating and prosecuting serious organized crime, including money laundering, corruption and cross-border fraud. International sanctions enforcement would be a major addition to its remit. In July, the EU approved its 21st package of sanctions against Moscow since the start of its…
The picture of student performance in Europe is “really concerning”, with a recent report showing young people are losing essential skills that are “particularly important for the times we live in”, Andreas Schleicher, the founder of the OECD’s renowned PISA tests, has told Euronews. The results of the 2025 standardised test, taken by 15-year-olds across 91 countries, were released this week, and found that performance in reading and mathematics had reached record lows across OECD countries. The assessment measures students’ ability to apply reading, mathematics and science skills to real-world problems. “We see that young people not only have lower…