Author: staff

According to a Reuters report, Syria’s new leader Ahmed al-Sharaa (previously known by his nom de guerre Abu Mohammad al-Jolani) asked Russia to hand over the ousted dictator Assad, who fled Syria and was granted asylum in Russia last month, according to Russian state media.  Syria’s state news agency SANA also reported that al-Sharaa urged Russia to “rebuild trust with Syrian people” through concrete measures such as “compensation, reconstruction and recovery.” Russian leader Vladimir Putin’s forces were instrumental in propping up the Syrian regime for years, with Moscow’s heavy bombing campaigns originally helping to turn the tide of a brutal civil…

Despite not reaching pre-pandemic levels, the number of flights in the EU increased by nearly 6% last year. But is it the only challenge aviation is facing? In 2024, 6.7 million flights transporting passengers, goods and mail were registered in the EU. This reflects a 5.8% increase compared to 2023, according to the latest Eurostat figures. However, the number of flights is still below the levels seen before the pandemic in 2019. The highest number of commercial flights in 2024 was recorded at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport in the Netherlands, with 484,000 flights in total. This was followed by Paris’ Charles de Gaulle in…

Analysts expect Spain’s economy to continue to recover in the coming months, despite being likely to stay vulnerable to the continuing effects of the Valencia floods, and with the possibility of tariffs being imposed on the EU by the US. Strong performance in the tourism and agricultural sectors helped boost Spain’s GDP for the fourth quarter of 2024, according to official figures. Spain’s quarter-on-quarter gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate for the period saw a rise of 0.8%, according to the National Statistics Institute (INE). That was the same as the previous quarter and above analyst estimates of 0.6%. Domestic demand…

Working four days a week gives people 50 per cent more free time and helps drive down their carbon emissions too. Everyone loves a three day weekend, but what if that could be the norm for every workplace, every week? That’s the reality more than 5,000 British workers are enjoying, as increasing numbers of companies sign up to a four day working week.The latest update from the 4 Day Week Foundation, the UK’s national campaign for a four day working week, shares that 200 UK companies have permanently adopted a four day working week, with no loss of pay for…

Experts say that China’s AI development shows that regulation does not have to be a barrier for innovation. DeepSeek, a Chinese artificial intelligence large language model, has taken the US by surprise by quickly challenging dominant players such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini and Meta’s LLama. Experts believe that this can also be a wake-up call for Europe’s AI innovators.DeepSeek, a China-based company, was founded in July 2023 by Liang Wenfeng, an information and electronics engineer, and is the first of such advanced AI system which is available to users for free. It comes after the rise of OpenAI’s ChatGPT which…

“I am ready to mobilise every tool at my disposal to bring today’s commitments into reality,” Commissioner for the Mediterranean Dubravka Šuica, who is in charge of the file, said in a statement. The new money comes on top of a €500 million financial package currently being negotiated by the European Parliament and Council of the European Union. It’s the latest in a series of similar deals the EU has struck with countries in its eastern and southern neighborhoods as the bloc tries to shore up their economies and pave the way for deporting migrants back to their home countries.…

General Motors swung to a loss in the fourth quarter on huge charges related to China, but still topped profit and revenue expectations on Wall Street. The automaker is also taking a proactive approach with the United States government on regulations and doling out generous profit-sharing payouts to thousands of workers.Last month, GM cautioned that the poor performance of its Chinese joint ventures would force it to write down assets and take a restructuring charge totalling more than $5 billion (€4.8bn) in the fourth quarter.China has become an increasingly difficult market for foreign automakers, with BYD and other domestic companies…

Being part of the EU would ensure Greenland has “protection,” he added. “In a common society, you are secured economically and politically.” Trump has said it is an “absolute necessity” for the U.S. to gain control of Greenland and has refused to rule out using military force to acquire the island. His increasingly aggressive overtures have sparked crisis talks in Copenhagen and other European capitals, with Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen dashing between Berlin, Brussels and Paris this week to shore up support. Greenland, a self-ruling Danish territory, voted in a referendum to leave the European Communities, a precursor to the EU, in…

Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba released a new artificial intelligence model on Wednesday and claims it outperforms its rival DeepSeek. The timely announcement comes after Chinese AI start-up DeepSeek rattled the markets on Monday and prompted a tech-led selloff in the US and Europe after the company claimed its AI is more cost-effective and performs better than leading US models.Alibaba now claims its new AI model, Qwen 2.5-Max, an open-source, is even more impressive than that of DeepSeek, putting pressure on its domestic and overseas rivals. The e-commerce giant said Qwen 2.5-Max is also able to outperform OpenAI’s GPT-4 and Meta’s…

Despite the high adoption rate, “profound disparities persist,” an expert said about using AI tools in job search. More than three out of four job seekers – some 77 per cent – say they have already used artificial intelligence (AI) when looking for employment, according to a new French survey.Automatic recommendations offered by platforms like LinkedIn are the most used AI tool with 63 per cent of the respondents having used it at least once. Over three people out of 10 said they had used chatbots when looking for a new job.”The results of this study are very positive overall on…