Author: staff

When the Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed opened the vast Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam in the country’s west on 9 September, he did not mince his words. “This lake has brought with it a wealth greater than Ethiopia’s GDP. This generation has accomplished a great deed with the Renaissance Dam. The era of begging has ended,” he told a group of assembled officials, media and some regional leaders. Behind him, sheets of water poured over the concrete from the reservoir behind, which holds almost 74 billion cubic metres of water over a surface area roughly the size of Greater London.…

In 2015, almost 200 countries signed a landmark agreement to combat climate change. The Paris Agreement aimed to hold “the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2C above pre-industrial levels” while pursuing efforts to limit it to 1.5°C. The world has changed a lot since leaders celebrated this historic agreement in Paris a decade ago. Ahead of COP30, UN Secretary General António Guterres conceded that a “temporary overshoot above 1.5 degrees, starting, at the latest, in the early 2030s, is now inevitable”. Emissions have continued to rise and the world’s climate has continued to warm. Extreme weather…

Both the right-wing Conservatives and Reform insist they have no desire to destroy the BBC.  “There is a future for the BBC, because it does have a strong global brand, but in order to retain its trust and confidence, it’s got to respect its impartial charter responsibilities and make sure that the news and current affairs programming abides by its own editorial guidelines,” Huddleston said Monday.   Soft power  One of the central arguments the BBC’s advocates make in favor of funding the broadcaster is the soft power role it plays through initiatives such as the BBC World Service, which…

European lawmakers in the European Parliament’s environment committee backed the revision of the bloc’s climate law on Monday which sets the EU27 to cut 90% greenhouse gas emissions by 2040. Parliament’s position aligns with the text agreed by EU member states on 5 November, following lengthy political talks that secured policy flexibilities to help EU nations reach the 90% reduction target without jeopardising the competitiveness of their industries. The ballot, with 55 votes in favour and 32 against, paves the way for the full house to adopt the revision of the controversial 2040 climate law, after several delays and infighting…

Updated: 11/11/2025 – 7:00 GMT+1 Catch up with the most important stories from around Europe and beyond this November 11th, 2025 – latest news, breaking news, World, Business, Entertainment, Politics, Culture, Travel. … More

Italian companies still operating in the Russian Federation are filling the Kremlin’s war coffers despite active EU sanctions, according to data compiled by the Kyiv School of Economics as part of its Leave Russia project. According to Andrii Onopriienko, the head of the project, around €346 million in contributions are paid by Italian companies each year for a total of around €1.037bn since the full-scale attack on Russia’s western neighbour was launched. About half of this money, Onopriienko confirms, “was invested in military spending to finance the war against Ukraine.” Some companies are on the fence The Leave Russia initiative…

Ein besonderer Tag für den Kanzler und ein politischer Geburtstag mit viel Berliner Realpolitik. Friedrich Merz wird 70 Jahre alt. Während er in der Fraktion gefeiert wird, warten Streit über Rente, Wehrpflicht und Bürgergeld auf ihn. Gordon Repinski blickt auf den Tag des Kanzlers und formuliert fünf politische Wünsche für das neue Lebensjahr. Im 200-Sekunden-Interview spricht Roland Koch, früherer Ministerpräsident von Hessen und Weggefährte über Freundschaft, Geduld und Führungskraft. Er erklärt, warum Merz Stabilität braucht, wie schwer die Koalition wirklich zu führen ist und weshalb der Kanzler international schon überzeugt, aber innenpolitisch die Überzeugung noch auf sich warten lässt.Danach geht…

Published on 11/11/2025 – 5:42 GMT+1 US President Donald Trump vowed to “do everything we can to make Syria successful” following a first-of-its-kind White House meeting with Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa on Monday. The Oval Office meeting was closed to the press, and al-Sharaa entered the building through West Executive Avenue, adjacent to the White House, rather than on the West Wing driveway normally used for foreign leaders’ arrivals. He left the White House about two hours later and greeted a crowd of supporters gathered outside before getting into his motorcade. After the meeting, Trump said of al-Sharaa that “I…

Among them is Norway, whose finance minister, Jens Stoltenberg, is arriving in Brussels on Wednesday to discuss Kyiv’s financing needs among other policy topics. Economists and Norwegian politicians have suggested that Norway, bolstered by its giant sovereign wealth fund, provide the guarantee for the reparations loan. While welcome, the chances of that happening are slim, according to the official quoted above. The Commission is also encouraging EU capitals to use a recent €150 billion initiative for procuring defense contracts, dubbed SAFE, to get more weapons into the hands of Ukrainian troops. For the rest, the EU will have to step…

Flasbarth said Germany could host UN talks with more notice. “We would have no concerns whatsoever about hosting a conference, but it would have to be part of an orderly process and not a stopgap measure.” The location of the talks rotates through five groups of countries. Turkey, Germany, the U.K. and Australia are all in the same group, which needs to arrive at a decision by consensus. Australia’s bid, which is being made in conjunction with Pacific island nations, has been publicly supported by Germany, France and the U.K. Britain has found itself embroiled in the standoff because Turkish…