Author: staff

Published on 28/01/2026 – 20:32 GMT+1 The US Federal Reserve pushed the pause button on its interest rate cuts on Wednesday, leaving its key rate unchanged at about 3.6% after lowering it three times last year. The central bank said in a statement that there are signs the job market has stabilised while it also said growth was “solid,” an upgrade from last month’s characterisation as “modest.” With the economy growing at a healthy pace and no signs of deterioration in hiring, Fed officials likely see little reason to rush any further rate cuts. While most policymakers do expect to…

One of the arguments against putting the Revolutionary Guard on the terror list was fear of potential reprisals. Iran has repeatedly used a strategy of arresting Europeans to use as bargaining chips in international diplomacy, including former EU official Johan Floderus, who was released from the notorious Evin Prison in 2024. Paris has secured the release from Evin of two of its nationals — Cécile Kohler and Jacques Paris — who are now under house arrest at the French Embassy in Tehran. “We need to send a strong signal,” van Weel said. The Revolutionary Guard “is the glue and the…

The European Union Governmental Satellite Communications programme (GOVSATCOM) is a long-awaited part of a wider EU strategy and the first step in satellite connectivity, the European Commissioner for Defence and Space, Andrius Kubilius, told Euronews. He noted that, realistically, the Infrastructure for Resilience, Interconnectivity and Security by Satellite (IRIS²) — the EU’s more ambitious project, a multi-orbital constellation of 290 satellites — will only be operational by “around 2029”. “To avoid having an empty space now for several years, especially when geopolitical challenges and threats are coming from different sides, we definitely need to develop some precursor capabilities for secure…

However, raising the VAT requires a change in the constitution and a public consultation will open in the spring. Switzerland has been rethinking its defense stance since Russia’s attack on Ukraine almost four years ago. It is looking for more military cooperation with European nations and ramping up its rearmament, although it still has no intention of joining NATO. Switzerland spends about 0.7 percent of its GDP on defense, one of the lowest rates in Europe. The current goal of boosting that to 1 percent by 2032 is now out of date, the Federal Council said. “Due to the savings made…

MEP Henrik Dahl has defended NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte’s comments this week regarding the EU’s reliance on the US to defend itself. In an opinion article for Euronews, the Danish European lawmaker agrees with the NATO secretary general that Europe currently lacks key military capabilities, particularly in independent command, intelligence, and digital infrastructure, most of which are still provided by the US. “As of today, the European pillar of NATO cannot function as a fully autonomous deterrent force without the United States,” Dahl wrote. “Europe lacks a genuinely independent strategic command structure capable of planning and executing large-scale, high-intensity…

In spite of an impending thunderstorm, hundreds of heavily disguised torchbearers gathered on a remote Scottish island to celebrate an old Viking fire festival. They marched through the town of Lerwick, in the Shetland Islands, holding aloft burning torches. The procession culminated in the burning of a Viking-style galley. People come from all over the world to witness the spectacle, which originated in the 1880s to mark the end of the Yule season (the pre-reformist calendar that coincided with the Catholic one) and celebrate the Viking heritage in Scotland. The building of the galley and making of more than 1000…

“It has been raised with the White House at the tail end of last week, over the weekend and into the early part of this week,” Starmer said of ongoing engagement on the issue. “The position, as you know, is that when the Trump administration came in, we paused for three months to give them time to consider the Chagos deal, which they did at agency level. “And once they’d done that, they were very clear in the pronouncements about the fact that they supported the deal, and they were announcements made by… the defense secretary … I think Marco…

Fourteen cross-border electricity and hydrogen projects were awarded €650 million from the European Commission on Wednesday as part of the bloc’s plan to modernise ageing grid infrastructure and maximise the use of clean power. Spain will get €180 million, Poland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania will receive €112 million and another cross-border project in Romania and Bulgaria is set to get €103 million. The three represent the top major projects benefiting from EU funding for electricity infrastructure, including smart grids, according to the European Commission. Austria (€1 million), Greece-Egypt (€9 million), and Slovakia (€62 million) are also among those listed to…

Published on 28/01/2026 – 18:07 GMT+1 Europeans cannot replace the US nuclear umbrella, at least for the time being, but when it comes to conventional defence the situation is different, European Commissioner for Defence and Space Andrius Kubilius told Euronews on Wednesday. NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said on Monday that the European Union should “keep on dreaming” of becoming independent from the US, its largest ally, in matters of security and defence. Kubilius told Euronews that if Rutte’s comments refer to nuclear defence only and if Rutte meant that “the Europeans should stop dreaming about the possibility to defend…

According to the Budapest prosecutor’s office, Karácsony faces a fine, not a trial. The indictment says the Budapest mayor had published a video message announcing that the city’s Metropolitan Municipality would organize the rally, and inviting his followers to attend. The event qualified as an assembly outlawed under the new amendment, the prosecutors argue. By proceeding with the event, Budapest’s mayor is accused of committing the “misdemeanor of violating freedom of association and assembly,” the federal prosecutor office’s statement says. Budapest’s mayor expressed outrage over the prosecutor’s statement, writing on X: “Prosecutors are seeking to fine me without a trial for…