Author: staff
More than 1.5 million foreign pilgrims are in Saudi Arabia for this year’s Hajj.The five-day rite that every Muslim must perform once in their lifetime is an awe-inspiring spiritual experience.But it is also physically gruelling. Pilgrims walk for hours and wait in huge crowds around holy sites and the surrounding desert.The country has spent billions of dollars on crowd control and safety measures, but one of the greatest challenges at the Hajj in recent years has been the heat. Pilgrims are currently gathering at Mount Arafat amid temperatures nudging 40 degrees Celsius – which are expected to reach as high…
Vibe: My dining companion described it as “rustic modernism” and that’s apt. Spacious, ceiling in béton brut, and adorned with potted plants rather than flowers. The chairs are recycled office design pieces in a fun fabric. It works, but it’s a touch cold. Who’s picking up the check? It’s not cheap. The waitress recommended getting at least five dishes for two people, and the broccoli was €16. We ended up paying close to €65 a head, which included two glasses of wine each but no desserts. Spotted: Almost no one. We went on a Wednesday and stayed for a few hours, and the…
The Balkan country of 6.4 million people is to make the switch from its national currency, the lev, to the euro on 1 January.Here are basic facts about the currency union, also called the Eurozone, and how countries join it.What is the euro?The euro is a shared currency and monetary system launched in 1999 when 11 EU member countries irrevocably fixed their currencies to the euro as an accounting currency, then swapped out the national notes and coins in 2002.The EU established the European Central Bank to handle monetary policy and set interest rate benchmarks for member countries, similar to…
National Rally representatives have insisted that the MPs who were members of the group were not aware of its content. “When you receive an invitation to France with Jordan Bardella and you’re a National Rally activist, you often think that it might be a nice group, and you don’t necessarily look at the content,” party Vice President Sébastien Chenu told FranceInfo Thursday. “None of the MPs liked the publications,” he argued. Chenu also fielded questions about the murder of a 46-year-old Tunisian man in southern France last weekend, a case that is being investigated as potentially racially motivated terrorism. The suspect,…
France was the second-biggest source of traffic for Pornhub in 2024 behind the United States, according to the company’s own statistics. A NordVPN spokesperson told POLITICO they have seen a 170 percent increase in usage since Wednesday. “We see similar spikes wherever digital freedoms are threatened or content is censored,” the spokesperson said. Demand for VPNs overall increased by 334 percent on June 4, compared to the average of the 28 previous days, said ranking site Top10VPN. France had set a deadline of June 7 for adult content sites to implement age verification measures. Aylo says France’s measures do not…
By Euronews Travel with AP Published on 05/06/2025 – 11:16 GMT+2Severe storms in southern Germany forced a Ryanair flight to make an emergency landing late Wednesday after violent turbulence injured nine people on board, German police said in a statement Thursday.The flight, travelling from Berlin to Milan with 179 passengers and six crew members, encountered turbulence so intense around 8:30 pm that the pilot was forced to make an unscheduled landing at Memmingen Airport in Bavaria. Eight passengers and one crew member were hurt.Three people were taken to the hospital in Memmingen for treatment; the other injured people were released after receiving outpatient…
The opinion gives the European Commission clout in its clash with Budapest over fundamental rights, which most recently escalated after Orbán’s government banned Pride events in mid-March and authorized police to use biometric cameras to identify organizers and attendees. Advocate-general opinions are nonbinding. However, they do often signal where the court will land in its final ruling, which usually comes out within months following the opinion. The European Commission opened an infringement procedure in July 2021 after Hungary adopted the law, which seeks to bar children from seeing LGBTQ+ content across television programs and advertisements, books, sex education classes and…
Published on 05/06/2025 – 11:00 GMT+2•Updated 11:04Hungary infringed EU law by prohibiting or restricting access to LGBTQ+ content, the EU top court’s advocate general said in an advisory opinion on Thursday.Advocate General of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) Tamara Ćapeta also suggested that Hungary breached fundamental values of the 27-member bloc, enshrined in Article 2 of the EU’s Treaty. The opinion of the advocate general is legally non-binding. However, the judges typically consider this, and in most cases, the final verdict aligns with this statement. If the judges of the court agree with the opinion of…
👉Listen to Politics at Sam and Anne’s on your podcast app👈 Sky News’s Sam Coates and Politico’s Anne McElvoy serve up their essential guide to the day in British politics. More details of Chancellor Rachel Reeves’s spending squeeze next week are trickling out – including a U-turn on the winter fuel allowance, which we now know is happening in the spending review. The political implications of the U-turn, rather than the broader spending review itself, threaten to dominate the political narrative for the next week and more. How much pressure will that pile on Sir Keir Starmer and his chancellor?
“Issues like nuclear cooperation are issues where we can work together with the U.S.,” Miliband told POLITICO last month. “We might be doing it with a different perspective — but we can work together.” Trump last weekend announced a series of executive orders aimed at firing up U.S. nuclear power, at the same time tech giants like Google and Microsoft lobby on both sides of the Atlantic for government-backed SMRs to help run their energy-scoffing data centers. One litmus test of the Treasury’s approach will be how many firms are awarded an SMR contract, amid fears officials will ultimately plump…