Author: staff

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has arrived in Paris for talks with European leaders about Ukraine and its future security. Rubio is joined by Steve Witkoff, US President Donald Trump’s special envoy.Witkoff and Rubio are meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron and Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot. British Foreign Secretary David Lammy is also taking part in the discussions, along with the German government’s foreign policy adviser.A Ukrainian delegation made up of presidential adviser Andrii Yermak, Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha and Defence Minister Rustem Umerov will also participate in the discussions. Yermak described them as “a series of bilateral and…

Egypt’s revenue from the Suez Canal plunged by almost two thirds last year, officials said on Wednesday, attributing the sharp drop to regional tensions and wars in the Middle East that have impacted traffic through the key waterway.The canal is a major source of foreign currency for the Egyptian government, with about 10% of world trade flowing through the waterway in recent years.The Suez Canal Authority, which runs the waterway, said the canal generated an annual revenue of $4 billion (€3.5bn) in 2024, down from a historic high of $10.3bn (€9.1bn) in 2023, according to a statement posted on its…

NGOs, such as Via Iuris or Peace for Ukraine, have dubbed the law as Russian-esque because of its implications for the country’s democratic opposition.“This law is copied from Russia, where similar legislation has been used to destroy independent organizations, imprison opposition figures, silence the media and impose repression,” Lucia Stasselová from the Peace for Ukraine initiative, which organizes protests, told POLITICO. Earlier this month, thousands of Slovaks protested against the bill in more than 30 cities around the country, but also Madrid, Copenhagen and London. Pushing through the legislation was part of Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico’s long-standing effort to…

China-founded e-commerce sites Temu and Shein said they plan to raise prices for American customers starting next week, a consequence of US President Donald Trump’s sky-high tariffs on goods shipped from China.Temu, which is owned by the Chinese e-commerce company PDD Holdings, and Shein, which is now based in Singapore, said in separate but nearly identical notices that their operating expenses have gone up “due to recent changes in global trade rules and tariffs”.Both companies said they would be making “price adjustments” starting 25 April, although neither provided details about the size of the increases. Shein sells inexpensive clothes, cosmetics…

Polling currently shows Lasconi running behind Dan and two nationalist candidates. Those standings sparked a crisis of confidence among USR leaders as to whether their candidate could repeat last year’s successful result, when she qualified for the second round before the election was annulled.  USR leaders now want the party to coalesce around Dan as the pro-European candidate in the race. Otherwise, they fear, Romania’s pro-EU centrist votes will be split between Lasconi and Dan, risking catapulting two far-right candidates into the runoff: Alliance for the Union of Romanians leader George Simion, and the former center-left prime minister-turned-nationalist Victor Ponta.…

That economic hardship was amplified by the Trump administration’s imposition, and then sudden suspension, of certain global tariffs in recent days. Jordan, which exported more than $3 billion to the U.S. in 2023, was hit with a 20 percent tariff by its American ally.   “Jordan has been a crucial partner for the U.S. in terms of security, military support, but the U.S., by cutting this aid, has destabilized Jordan directly,” said Kelly Petillo, program manager for the Middle East and North Africa at the European Council on Foreign Relations. Since its establishment in 1961, USAID has focused on a broad range of…

“It is not often that such people, charged with a certain idea, appear in the human population,” he added, going on to compare Musk to Soviet rocket engineer Sergei Korolev, who led the USSR’s space program during the Space Race with the U.S. in the 1950s and 1960s. It is not the first time Putin has praised Musk. In an interview with former Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson last year, the Russian president said there is “no stopping Elon Musk” and spoke of his desire to “find common ground” on areas such as artificial intelligence. Musk, for his part, has…

Most officials, however, say that Donohoe is likely to cling on to his job, although a three-horse race dents his chances of being reelected at the first round. If no one wins an outright majority on the first attempt, the two candidates with the most votes face off against each other in a decisive ballot the same day. “If three countries vote for Šadžius at the first round, then Donohoe needs a very big majority among the others to be immediately elected,” said a government official. A veteran finance minister, Rimantas Šadžius is expected to gather support among countries bordering…

Built of stone, with relief styles on the walls and an impressive floor, the World Centre for Circular Economy and Culture is a unique example of post-war architecture. Established in 1959 from designs by the architect Petros Pikionis, the “Pi” Pavillion is considered one of the most beautiful balconies of Delphi, lying just a few hundred metres from the picturesque village.There, as soon as the sun sets, its famous garden of “Pi ” comes alive.* Ancient faces, letters and words appear on the rocks and the green leaves of the trees.”The Garden of Pythia” is the new art installation by…

The technology was mentioned in a wider Commission package on virtual worlds published March 31. “AI agents are software applications designed to perceive and interact with the virtual environment,” the text read. Agents can “operate autonomously,” but their work is set by “specific predefined rules.” Leading AI companies have all been experimenting with their own AI agent applications. In January, OpenAI launched Operator, a research version of an AI agent that can carry out several tasks in a separate web browser. Microsoft has also been rolling out the possibility of creating agents in its AI “companion” Copilot. French AI company…