Author: staff
Iran’s 2026 protests erupted after a prolonged period of planned cuts to water and electricity, successive closures of educational and commercial centres, and deadly air pollution in major cities. Factors such as the surge in the dollar rate, the steep rise in prices of goods and services, and discontent with the political system are frequently cited causes for the unrest – but these don’t paint the entire picture. This time, the issue goes beyond ‘how to live’ and becomes a matter of ‘how to survive’. What is playing out on the streets today is an alliance between a middle class…
Published on 26/01/2026 – 13:51 GMT+1 Another day, another James Bond casting rumour. The identity of the seventh 007 (if you don’t count David Niven’s take in the 1967 spoof Casino Royale) is Hollywood’s best-kept secret and no official announcement has yet been made. Actors like Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Tom Holland, Harris Dickinson and Scott Rose-Marsh have been rumoured to be in contention for the next superspy, and recent reports suggested that Callum Turner had already been cast as Bond. Now, another credible report states that the internet’s current heartthrob, Jacob Elordi, has auditioned for Bond 26 director Denis Villeneuve. The…
The report also highlighted a plan by Russia to build a drone production plant in neighboring Belarus with a capacity of up to 100,000 drones a year. Drone warfare played a major role in helping Ukrainian forces repel Russia’s invasion in February 2022. Since late 2024, however, the drone war has shifted in Russia’s favor, as Moscow adapted to the new technology, according to the Atlantic Council. Russian media have reported that the country’s Ministry of Defense this month launched a recruitment campaign at Russian universities, seeking students with computer and tech skills to bolster its unmanned systems forces. The…
Published on 26/01/2026 – 13:40 GMT+1 At least four people have been killed in a fire at a biscuit factory in central Greece in one of the country’s deadliest recent industrial accidents, officials said on Monday. Six employees and a fireman have been hospitalised but are not believed to be in immediate danger, the health ministry said. Television footage showed the gutted remains of the Violanta factory outside the city of Trikala, some 245 kilometres northwest of the capital Athens. The fire broke out shortly before 4 am in a wing of the food production plant during the night shift,…
Published on 15/01/2026 – 14:20 GMT+1 •Updated 16/01/2026 – 8:44 GMT+1 NASA has sparked concern after releasing a statement alongside its latest benchmark annual report on global temperatures, which notably omits one key word. The release, which was published yesterday (14 January), confirms that global surface temperatures in 2025 were marginally warmer than 2023, following estimates that the two would become the joint-second-hottest years on record. However, NASA’s statement includes no mention of climate change, emissions, fossil fuels, or the term ‘global warming’. Multiple other reports, including Europe’s Copernicus Climate Services, have blamed the build-up of greenhouse gases in the…
LONDRES — Le gouvernement britannique de Keir Starmer a une décision à prendre : faut-il ou non continuer à chauffer une grande partie des bâtiments publics britanniques via TotalEnergies, qui continue à opérer en Russie. Dans le cadre d’un contrat existant avec le secteur public, TotalEnergies Gas & Power, filiale du groupe pétrogazier français, fournit le gaz utilisé pour chauffer la résidence du Premier ministre, le ministère des Finances et d’autres bâtiments accueillant le gouvernement britannique. Ce contrat, d’une valeur de 8 milliards de livres sterling (9,2 milliards d’euros), expire au début de l’année prochaine. Les autorités préparent un appel…
As investigators worked to identify the cause of a deadly train crash in Spain, unfounded theories about the origins of the tragedy have surfaced online. On 18 January in Adamuz, southern Spain, three carriages on a train operated by the private company Iryo derailed and crossed onto a separate track before colliding with another train operated by Spain’s state-owned Renfe rail operator, which crashed into an embankment. At least 45 people died in one of the worst train crashes in the country’s history. Days later, a train driver was killed in a separate derailment near Barcelona, and another train crashed…
Belgian biathlete Maya Cloetens can’t help but think about the future of winter sports as she trains for next month’s Olympic Games in Milan and Cortina, Italy. Evidence of climate change is all around her in the mountains above Grenoble, France, where the 24-year-old fell in love with the sport that combines cross-country skiing and shooting. Grenoble hosted the 1968 Winter Olympics, but its winters are shorter and milder nowadays, and with less consistent heavy snowfall. When the games return to the French Alps in 2030, Grenoble won’t be the focal point. “I grew up there, and I really see…
This year’s Sundance Film Festival will be the last held in its longtime home of Park City, Utah. The film festival, the brainchild of the late Robert Redford, will relocate to its new setting in Boulder, Colorado, next year, and while attendees of this year’s edition have paid homage to Park City and Redford, current events have overshadowed the festivities. Just two weeks after 37-year-old Renee Good was shot and killed by an ICE agent in Minnesota, an ICU nurse by the name of Alex Pretti – also 37 – was fatally shot on Saturday by ICE agents. Footage of…
The new investigation will look into whether the company properly assessed and mitigated the risks of integrating Grok, particularly those of “manipulated sexually explicit images” including some that “may amount to child sexual abuse material,” the Commission said. But the investigation “is much broader” than these images, a senior Commission official said during a briefing. The chatbot may have generated as many as 3 million non-consensual sexual images and 20,000 child sexual abuse images in the 11 days before it made changes to stop the spread of such photos, an estimate by civil society found. On top of the new…