Author: staff
Published on 11/09/2026 – 11:12 GMT+2 The number of European leisure travellers visiting Saudi Arabia is forecast to increase by at least 130% between 2025 and 2030. According to new research from Tourism Economics, published this week at WTM Spotlight Riyadh, Europe is among the long-haul markets expected to drive the next phase of Saudi Arabia’s tourism growth. Leisure arrivals from Asia Pacific and North America are also predicted to more than double. As a result, longer-haul markets are expected to account for 54% of Saudi Arabia’s international leisure arrivals by 2030, compared with 47% in 2025. Germany and Italy…
Published on 11/09/2026 – 11:30 GMT+2 The only documentary selected to this year’s Venice Film Festival main competition premiered yesterday and has emerged as a serious Golden Lion contender. NAZA, the new film from Israeli No Other Land directors Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, shows “in detail the systems behind Israel’s calculated mass killing of Palestinian civilians in Gaza,” according to its official synopsis. The 80-minute hot-button doc, shot in secrecy at night on the rooftops of Tel Aviv during the ongoing Gaza war, features interviews with 24 Israeli military intelligence officers, soldiers and whitleblowers. They discuss how Palestinians are…
“A mention is a signal, a specific commitment is politically meaningful, a commitment with a deliverable and timetable is the real outcome.” But whether lobbyists can even get the access that matters is another question. The Commission president “keeps her cards exceedingly close to her chest in the whole process,” said one former Commission cabinet member, granted anonymity to speak freely. “In the end, von der Leyen writes the whole thing herself — there are literally four people involved,” the person said, adding that the speech is written only in the few days before it’s presented. Among the few who…
Emma Bonino has died aged 78. The founder of More Europe, a longtime leading figure in Italy’s Radical Party and former government minister, passed away after her health deteriorated in recent weeks. Bonino had recently been admitted to the Santo Spirito hospital in Rome after a respiratory crisis. She arrived in critical condition and was transferred to intensive care so that her condition could be monitored. After an initial improvement, on 10 September, she left the ward and was moved to a private facility. In 2015, Bonino revealed she had a tumour in her left lung. She underwent treatment for…
Emergency responders and military personnel paid tribute those killed in the 11 September 2001 attacks during the Republican Party’s midterm convention in Dallas on Thursday. The usually jovial crowd fell silent as an honour guard performed a solemn bell salute to remember the victims and mark the occasion, the eve of the 25th anniversary of the attacks. The event saw thousands of people gather at the American Airlines Center to pledge their support for GOP candidates running in the crucial upcoming midterm elections, which will determine the makeup of Congress for the final two years of US President Donald Trump’s…
By Roselyne Min with AFP Published on 11/09/2026 – 10:46 GMT+2 OpenAI is calling for binding safety requirements on the most powerful artificial intelligence systems in the United States, marking a pivot for a company that has previously resisted tighter regulation. OpenAI’s chief global affairs officer Chris Lehane wrote in a statement on Wednesday that mandatory national rules should be based on what advanced AI models are capable of doing. “We’ve reached a new chapter in AI capabilities, and that demands a new chapter for AI policy. No company, industry, or government can meet this challenge alone. We need to meet this moment…
Indefatigable Italian rights activist and European heavyweight Emma Bonino died aged 78, her party Più Europa announced on Friday. A former European commissioner and member of the European Parliament, Bonino held a series of senior positions at home, serving as lawmaker, senator and two-time minister, in a career that straddled Brussels and Rome. For the EU, she was chief among the voices who helped establish the bloc as a defender of international human rights and became a passionate advocate for European federalism. For Italy, she was a radical liberal who refused to neatly fit into her country’s entrenched left-right divide,…
By Simon Ormiston & Euronews Published on 10/09/2026 – 20:53 GMT+2•Updated 11/09/2026 – 10:42 GMT+2 A coach overturned on a mountain road in the eastern Swiss canton of Graubünden this week, leaving five people dead and 40 injured, local police said on Friday. The crash took place on Thursday on a stretch of road linking the villages of Susch and Zernez, deep in the Engadine valley. “The Dutch coach was travelling from Zernez towards Susch at 4.45 pm. Near the village of Less, it veered off the road in a roadworks area and overturned. Of the 45 adults on board the coach, five…
Published on 11/09/2026 – 10:19 GMT+2 Two Azerbaijani sailors were killed when a tugboat was struck by drones in the Black Sea on Tuesday, in the latest attack on civilian shipping near the Ukrainian port of Odesa. The Somali-flagged tugboat TEDY, owned by Mert Marine Corporation, was first hit near Odesa before coming under two further drone attacks overnight as it sailed toward the Romanian port of Constanta. Azerbaijan’s Foreign Ministry confirmed the deaths of crew members Aslan Aliyev and Asim Gasimov. Two other Azerbaijani sailors, Imran Novruzov and Rauf Aliyev, were hospitalised in the Ukrainian city of Chornomorsk with…
Published on 11/09/2026 – 9:48 GMT+2•Updated 9:57 While the economies of its main European neighbours continue to grow, France stands out as an exception.After a start to the year marked by a 0.2% fall in its GDP in the first quarter and then flat activity in the second, the French economy is “slipping behind”, Insee warns. The statistics office, which until now had been forecasting GDP growth of 0.7%, has sharply downgraded its growth outlook for 2026, now capped at 0.4%. This contrasts with the situation in the main neighbouring economies. Over the first two quarters, Germany recorded growth of…