Author: staff

At the Barcelona Zoo, a 40-year-old African elephant places her foot through the metal barrier where a zookeeper gently scrubs its sole. The beloved pachyderm gets her “pedicure,” along with apple slices every day.The treatment is part of the zoo’s specialised geriatric care for ageing animals that cannot be reintroduced into the wild as zoos worldwide increasingly emphasise lifelong care.“Sending them back into nature would be an error,” said Pilar Padilla, head of the zoo’s mammal care. “It is very likely they wouldn’t survive.”Zoos have undergone a rethink in recent decades with the emphasis on the conservation of species and…

It was a week when penguins, bonds, the new German coalition, Louisiana soybeans, fossil fuels, the EU’s Digital Markets Act, France’s creaking politics and American bourbon all became one news story. POLITICO explains what got us all yippy. Apr 11 11 mins read

British actress Jean Marsh, best known for her role as Rose Buck in the series Upstairs, Downstairs, has died aged 90. Marsh’s friend, director Sir Michael Lindsay-Hogg, said in a statement to the PA news agency that the actress “died peacefully in bed looked after by one of her very loving carers”. “She was as wise and funny as anyone I ever met, as well as being very pretty and kind, and talented as both an actress and writer,” he added. “An instinctively empathetic person who was loved by everyone who met her. We spoke on the phone almost every day for the past…

“The same concern applies to manufacturing equipment, which is all stainless steel,” she wrote. The largest pharma companies warned through their European industry association, EFPIA, that pharma research, development and manufacturing is likely to be redirected toward the U.S., when they sat down for crisis talks with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen this week. But the group — conscious that interinstitutional negotiations are about to begin on a Brussels plan to overhaul landmark EU pharma legislation, and the industry’s existing lucrative patent protection with it — added that the migration could be put on hold if Europe “delivers…

“In the future, we will be buying more gas from the U.S.,” EU Energy Commissioner Dan Jørgensen said at an industry event on Tuesday, while stressing that the purchases would need to align with the bloc’s green goals. That said, there is only so much the EU can ultimately do. At the end of the day, it’s companies, not governments, that purchase LNG. And some EU countries have indicated their companies are already bringing in as much U.S. LNG as possible.  It’s also unclear how well a demand aggregation scheme would work. The EU launched a similar system after Russia…

China’s imports, meanwhile, fell 4.3%, the customs administration reported.It said exports from the world’s second largest economy rose 5.8% in the first three months of the year from a year earlier while imports sank 7%.China’s trade surplus with the United States was $27.6 billion (€24.77bn) in March as its exports rose 4.5%. It logged a surplus of $76.6 billion with the US in the first quarter of the year.China is facing 145% tariffs on most exports to the United States as of the most recent revisions in Trump’s trade policies.However, the biggest increases in exports were to China’s Southeast Asian…

– Koalitionsvertrag und Kabinett: SPD-Chef Lars Klingbeil kämpft mit zwei Problemen. Zum einen lehnen die Jusos den Vertrag ab, zum anderen muss er klären, welche Rolle Saskia Esken künftig haben wird. Eine Analyse von Gordon Repinski.– Im 200-Sekunden-Interview: Der Virologe und CDU-Gesundheitspolitiker Hendrik Streeck über die schwarz-rote Gesundheitspolitik und das leidige Finanzierungsproblem. – Hans von der Burchard berichtet über das EU-Außenministertreffen, bei dem es um den Angriff Russlands auf die ostukrainische Stadt Sumy und die Atomverhandlungen zwischen den USA und dem Iran gehen wird. – Und: Regierungssprecher für Merz. Welcher bekannte Publizist womöglich bald häufiger vor der blauen Wand der…

Yet Berlin’s support comes with the radical condition that EU countries must be allowed to incorporate international carbon credits in their climate efforts — meaning that instead of reducing pollution at home, they could pay for emissions cuts in non-EU countries and count those toward their own climate balance.  Despite some enhanced global governance rules, the reliability of such credits varies wildly. Critics warn that relying on offsets would discourage much-needed emissions cuts and shift rich countries’ responsibility to developing nations. Last month, POLITICO reported that the European Commission has held talks with lawmakers and governments on including international credits…

LONDON — Keir Starmer leads a Labour Party that appears too big to fail. But nine months after it stormed to victory with an overwhelming majority, dividing lines in his army are beginning to emerge.  First apparent was a clash between upstart new MPs and longer-serving stalwarts, both of whom thought they were entitled to a bigger stake in Starmer’s government. Then his most loyal MPs, who are fully signed up to Labour decisions on cutting foreign aid and welfare payments, began coming up against the “soft left,” which had deep misgivings about the moves. Now another layer of tension…

Trzaskowski mostly held firm, but faltered when Hołownia — whose party is part of Tusk’s ruling coalition — criticized his offer to meet Nawrocki one-on-one. In a clumsy stunt, Nawrocki handed Trzaskowski a rainbow flag, suggesting it was closer to Trzaskowski’s heart than Poland’s white-and-red banner. Trzaskowski’s awkward decision to tuck the flag away gave the Left’s Magdalena Biejat an opening. “I’m not ashamed of it,” she said, getting the flag and displaying it in front of her. A poll taken after the debate showed Trzaskowski in first place, followed by Nawrocki, Hołownia and Biejat. The debate format — with…