Author: staff

In an interview with POLITICO in 2024, Magyar said Tisza was pro-EU but was candid about the EU’s shortcomings. He expressed opposition to a European “superstate” and said he didn’t have “friends” in the European Parliament. That followed his first press conference in the Parliament, in which he opposed sending weapons to Ukraine. Earlier this year, Orbán’s Fidesz party sought to corner Magyar over the EU’s giant Mercosur trade deal with South America, which it opposes on the grounds it would harm Hungarian farmers. In Budapest, Orbán accused Magyar of backing the agreement and undermining farmers because Tisza sits with the center-right European People’s…

Read More

Microwave meals are a convenience that’s hard to resist on a busy day. But they could be quietly wreaking havoc on our health and environment, a new report warns. The paper by Greenpeace International analyses 24 recent scientific studies on the hidden health risks of plastic-packaged ready meals. It paints a grim picture: hundreds of thousands of tiny plastic particles leaching into our food along with hazardous chemicals that could have far-reaching health impacts. “People think they’re making a harmless choice when they buy and heat a meal packaged in plastic,” says Graham Forbes, global plastics campaign lead from Greenpeace…

Read More

Published on 25/02/2026 – 7:00 GMT+1 Cyclists are spoilt for choice if they are considering a journey on two wheels around France. With more than 20,000km of official routes, the country offers a wide range of cycling tourism itineraries that take visitors along stunning coastal and river paths, diverse city routes and nature-filled countryside trails. One route that’s attracting particular attention right now is La Voie Bleue, a 700km-long journey from the Luxembourg border to Lyon which was crowned as the European Cycle Route of the Year for 2026 at the Fiets en Wandelbeurs cycling and walking fair in Utrecht.…

Read More

By&nbspAlima Assylbek Published on 25/02/2026 – 7:18 GMT+1 Across Kazakhstan, tattoo studios are seeing a noticeable rise in requests for traditional Kazakh ornaments. These motifs, originally meant to protect households and ward off evil spirits, have found new lease of life across fashion, branding, architecture, and urban design. National patterns have become part of corporate identities and contemporary visual culture, reflecting a broader revival of cultural heritage. To these traditional spheres of use, another has now been added – tattooing. And if once ornaments were woven into fabric, carved into wood, or engraved in metal, they are now increasingly becoming…

Read More

Europe marked four years since Russia’s full-scale invasion with a high-profile show of solidarity in Kyiv on Tuesday. Ursula von der Leyen and António Costa stood alongside Volodymyr Zelenskyy — but the absence of some key leaders raised quiet questions in Ukraine about who showed up, and who didn’t. Zoya Sheftalovich was on the ground in Kyiv for the anniversary events. She joins Ian Wishart to describe the mood in the city, what was said behind closed doors, and how European leaders are discussing ways to deal with attempts by Hungary and Slovakia to block a vital EU loan for…

Read More

Was steckt in Donald Trumps erster richtiger Rede zur Lage der Nation zu Iran, zu den Zöllen und Europa? Eine Einschätzung von Gordon Repinski und von Julius Brinkmann von POLITICO in Washington. Parallel dazu blickt die Bundesregierung nach Peking. Kanzler Friedrich Merz zwischen Partnerschaft, Wettbewerb und Systemrivalität. Im 200-Sekunden-Interview erklärt CDU-Staatssekretärin und Mittelstandsbeauftragte Gitta Connemann, warum Deutschland auf Dialog setzt, aber mehr Schutz vor Investitionsverboten, Joint-Venture-Auflagen und erzwungenem Technologietransfer fordert. Vizekanzler Lars Klingbeil hat währenddessen die Leitung der Kabinettssitzung. Eine seltene Gelegenheit. Mit einem Konzept gegen organisierte Kriminalität, inklusive früherer Vermögensbeschlagnahmung bei Geldwäscheverdacht, setzt er ein Signal in der Innen-…

Read More

US President Donald Trump boasted about “winning so much” as he defended his administration’s increasingly unpopular policies during the longest-ever State of the Union address to Congress. Trump began by painting an optimistic picture, declaring America was “bigger, better, richer and stronger than ever before.” “Tonight, after just one year, I can say with dignity and pride that we have achieved a transformation like no one has ever seen before, and a turnaround for the ages,” Trump said. Trump hopes the primetime speech, broadcast across all major networks, will help him to sell that message to voters after a deeply…

Read More

Trump appears willing to harm America’s allies in ways that once seemed inconceivable, and threats — as we’ve learned — are his way, with many of them are directed at allies. The threat against Canada, for example, came just days after Trump reminded luminaries at the World Economic Forum in Davos that he was very serious about annexing Greenland. And that was after he’d threatened new U.S. tariffs against European nations voicing support for Denmark. Tariffs for European friends are, of course, already a reality. In late January, the U.S. president told an interviewer he imposed 39 percent tariffs on…

Read More

The party’s other national leader, Tino Chrupalla, said party politicians had done nothing to violate German law, but nevertheless acknowledged the practice of employing relatives left a “bad taste” in voters’ mouths. A few days later, however, he admitted in a post on X that he employs the wife of an AfD state parliamentarian. ‘Fake news’ One of the most prominent AfD politicians implicated in the nepotism accusations is Ulrich Siegmund, the party’s lead candidate in Saxony-Anhalt, where it is polling in first place at around 40 percent. “We are reviewing everything that comes to our attention, and we are…

Read More

Scientists say multiple critical Earth systems appear closer to destabilisation than previously believed. This is putting the planet in increased danger of following a “hothouse” path driven by feedback loops that can amplify the consequences of global warming. The findings from the international collaboration led by Oregon State University’s William Ripple were published today in the journal One Earth. ‘We could be entering a period of unprecedented climate change’ ‘The risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory’ report brings together scientific findings on climate feedback loops and 16 tipping elements – Earth subsystems that may become unstable if critical temperature thresholds…

Read More