Author: staff
Updated: 11/02/2026 – 7:00 GMT+1 Catch up with the most important stories from around Europe and beyond this February 11th, 2026 – latest news, breaking news, World, Business, Entertainment, Politics, Culture, Travel. … More
By Dorany Pineda and Seth Borenstein with AP Published on 11/02/2026 – 7:03 GMT+1 A record snow drought with unprecedented heat is hitting most of the American West, depleting future water supplies, making it more vulnerable to wildfires and hurting winter tourism and recreation. Scientists say snow cover and snow depth are both at the lowest levels they’ve seen in decades, while at least 67 Western weather stations have measured their warmest December through early February on record. Normal snow cover this time of year should be about 460,000 square miles (1.2 million sq km) – about the size of California, Utah, Idaho…
It’s another day of high-level talks across Belgium. First, the EU’s defense ministers meet in Brussels. Zoya Sheftalovich and Ian Wishart dive into the Foreign Affairs Council hosted by the EU’s top diplomat Kaja Kallas — with Ukraine’s new defense minister, Mykhailo Fedorov, also at the table. On the agenda: signing off on eight national plans under the EU’s flagship defense program, SAFE, and discussions around the €90 billion loan for Ukraine. Then we head to Antwerp for the European Industry Summit, where Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever…
These commitments would address some of the big challenges for early movers that we see at Neste. We have invested heavily in expanding SAF production capabilities, but demand is failing to pick up as expected. Once the €2.5 billion expansion of our Rotterdam refinery is completed in 2027, Neste’s SAF production capacity alone could be sufficient to meet the EU’s current 2 percent SAF mandate. Today, we are a year on from the launch of the EU’s flagship competitiveness plans at the start of 2025, but we still need new policies that translate commitments to early movers into action. That…
While the meeting is not expected to produce binding commitments, it will set a broad political direction for the European Commission, which is due to draw up proposals ahead of a formal summit in late March. “Everyone around the table must … face a moment of truth,” said Manfred Weber, leader of the European People’s Party, whose members include German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. Leaders should “not complain about each other” but do their “homework” to ensure reforms can be completed, he added. Estonian Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna told POLITICO ahead of the summit that…
Culleton has been Ireland’s top news story since the Irish Times on Monday reported on his case and on the allegedly appalling conditions he faces in Camp East Montana, the ICE facility inside Fort Bliss army base near El Paso. The same day, Culleton appeared live on air on Ireland’s RTÉ radio to describe conditions of overcrowding, filth, disease, hunger and violence — and a personal fear, now set aside, that speaking out might make matters even worse for him. “I definitely am afraid of rotting away here. It feels like I’m just stuck and there’s no way out,” Culleton…
By AP with Associated Press Published on 10/02/2026 – 20:04 GMT+1 China’s government estimates that 9.5 billion trips will be made during the 40 day-period around the Lunar New Year on 17 February – a record high, according to information from the National Development and Reform Commission. Some 540 million of those trips will be made via train, and 95 million by air. The rest will be on the road. In a country where workers are expected to put in long hours – including on weekends – and get few days of annual leave, the Lunar New Year festival is a precious time.…
His push comes amid a flurry of comments from EU leaders seeking to shape the meeting’s agenda, with French President Emmanuel Macron advocating for joint debt and a European preference policy in an interview with several media outlets published Tuesday morning. The Austrian chancellor’s comments echo other leaders including Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babiš and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, both of whom have called on the EU to do away with environmental rules they blame for high energy prices. “The approach we took with the Green Deal was certainly not sustainable: in Austria, for example, the reduction in CO2…
Among difficult items, lawmakers agreed to a clause mandating the European Commission to review the deal six months after its entry into force if the U.S. has not lowered tariffs to a 15 percent baseline level on EU products containing steel, instead of the current 50 percent. “If the United States is not reducing the tariffs for these products — more than 400 products — in six months, we will re-establish the tariffs for steel and steel relevant products inside the EU, automatically,” said Bernd Lange, a German Social Democrat who chairs the Parliament’s trade committee. Lawmakers also settled on…
Published on 11/02/2026 – 7:00 GMT+1 Political groups of the European Parliament reached an agreement on Tuesday on the EU-US trade deal, which was struck in July 2025 by US President Donald Trump and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and still needs to be ratified. The agreement sets US tariffs at 15% on EU exports, while the EU committed to cutting its tariffs on US goods to zero, but its approval has proven controversial in recent weeks due to Trump’s threats to take control of Greenland. The Parliament froze the approval process in January after Trump said on…