Author: staff
Published on 09/04/2026 – 20:30 GMT+2 The European Union’s police force Europol said on Thursday it had smashed a criminal gang smuggling Vietnamese people into Europe, with a final destination of Britain via small boats across the Channel. Europol said they had made eight arrests and seized passports, vehicles and cash in a French-led sting that took place on 30 March. Among the arrests was a network leader detained in Germany under a European warrant. Police arrested another high-level organiser in Hungary before the swoop at the end of last month. The Vietnamese people entered the EU’s borderless Schengen Area…
European leaders have repeatedly said they would help open the contested waterway once the fighting stops, but it hasn’t been clear what that would look like in practice. U.S. President Donald Trump has displayed increasing frustration over the lack of help from America’s European allies in NATO, openly entertaining a U.S. withdrawal from the alliance. The chancellor stressed the need for calm, telling reporters that “we do not want — I do not want — NATO to split. NATO is a guarantor of our security, including and especially in Europe. We must continue to keep a cool head here.” Merz told…
Published on 09/04/2026 – 18:40 GMT+2•Updated 19:07 Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday he had ordered his cabinet to open direct talks with Lebanon to disarm Hezbollah and establish “peace relations” between the two countries. “In light of Lebanon’s repeated requests to open direct negotiations with Israel, I instructed the cabinet yesterday to begin direct negotiations with Lebanon as soon as possible,” his office wrote in a statement. “Negotiations will focus on disarming Hezbollah and establishing peace relations between Israel and Lebanon. Israel appreciates today’s call by the Prime Minister of Lebanon to demilitarize Beirut,” the statement added.…
The tech company made the announcement after finding that its new Claude Mythos model outperformed most humans at “finding and exploiting software vulnerabilities.” Listen AI generated Text-to-speech
Published on 09/04/2026 – 17:41 GMT+2•Updated 17:49 The European Commission has firmly rejected any attempt, by Iran or the United States, to charge vessels for crossing the Strait of Hormuz, while admitting the final decision on whether to pay a fee is entirely at the discretion of affected companies. “International law provides for the freedom of navigation, which means what? It means no payment or toll whatsoever,” a Commission spokesperson said on Thursday afternoon in response to an Euronews question. “The Strait of Hormuz, like any other maritime lane, is a public good for all humanity, which means navigation must…
US President Donald Trump berated NATO again on Thursday after he appeared to renew his threats to take over Greenland following a closed-door meeting the day before with the alliance’s chief Mark Rutte, during which he was expected to discuss the possibility of leaving the security bloc. “None of these people, including our own, very disappointing, NATO, understood anything unless they have pressure placed upon them,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social, without giving any further explanation. Trump’s outrage at NATO allies over their failure to join the US in the Iran war had prompted fears he would…
After a record-breaking week in space, the four astronauts on NASA’s 10-day lunar flyby Artemis II mission are getting ready for the most intense part of their journey: the return to Earth. In 13 minutes, the Orion spacecraft will fall over 400,000 feet (121 kilometres) and travel almost 2,000 miles (3,218 kilometres) over the Pacific Ocean to a special “splashdown” site off the coast of California. For almost half of this time, their communication with NASA’s ground crew will be cut off entirely, and they will endure temperatures up to 2,760 degrees Celsius. Astronaut Victor Glover said he’s been thinking…
As is standard in a British police investigation, the force has not disclosed who it would question as a witness, and being questioned as such would not imply any wrongdoing. The Metropolitan Police declined to comment on an ongoing investigation. Prime Minister Keir Starmer has faced scrutiny over what Mandelson said during the process that led to his appointment as ambassador to D.C., and has claimed he was misled by the veteran Labour politician during that process. There is little precedent for interviewing a serving prime minister as a witness, although Tony Blair was in 2006 questioned by police as…
A handful of days before Hungarians vote in elections that pit long-time leader Viktor Orbán against pro-European opposition candidate Péter Magyar, US Vice-President JD Vance travelled to Hungary to endorse Orbán and critique the EU. Vance, giving a press conference beside Orbán, made a number of claims about the European Union, accusing it of “trying to destroy” Hungary’s economy, sabotaging the country’s energy independence and “driving up costs for Hungarian consumers”. He didn’t hold back as he accused the EU of “one of the worst examples of election interference I have ever seen or ever even read about” during his…
You’ve probably heard of jet-setting, but what about set-jetting? A term coined to describe holiday itineraries based on the shooting locations of films or TV series, this travel trend is proving particularly lucrative in Spain’s capital, Madrid. In April, the city council’s tourism chief Almudena Maíllo del Valle unveiled the findings from a study by the Madrid Film Office, developed in collaboration with L. R. Klein University Institute of Economic Prediction of the Autonomous University of Madrid, that showed the blockbuster growth of the city’s creative sectors. Over four years from 2021 to 2024, the ‘Dimension and economic impact of…