Author: staff

Issues with mail-in voting have stopped members of the German diaspora from casting a ballot in Sunday’s crucial federal election. Germans living abroad are calling for sweeping electoral reforms after postal delays have prevented some of them from voting in Sunday’s critical federal election. Under the current rules, the German diaspora cannot vote at their local embassies or consulates, nor can they ask a proxy to cast a ballot on their behalf back home. Instead, they have to rely on the often unreliable international postal system. Speaking to Euronews, German expats in Europe and further afield expressed their disappointment about…

German embassies were exceptionally offering express courier services for people to drop off their ballots — the cutoff in Brussels was 7 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 20. “It would make voting abroad incredibly easier if it could be carried out via embassies,” said Fabian Schmidt, a political economist living in Brussels and German citizen who applied for, but did not receive, an absentee ballot in time. “Votes should be online,” said Caroline Peters, a German living in Flanders north of Brussels. She did receive her ballot by mail with enough time to send it back, but still advocated the digital option. “It…

Updated: 21/02/2025 – 15:38 GMT+1Severe flooding and landslides hit rural Peru, destroying homes and farmland in Nazca. A state of emergency was declared in 157 districts. … More Torrential rains caused landslides and severe flooding across rural Peru on Thursday. In Nazca, the Aja River overflowed, swallowed farmland and destroyed homes while collapsing bridges left residents stranded. Firefighters rushed to rescue those trapped as the floodwaters surged. Many farmers initially refused to evacuate, fearing looters, but were eventially forced to flee as water levels rose. Peru declared a state of emergency in 157 districts as relentless rains continue to wreak…

The first-person view — FPV or kamikaze drone, a unmanned craft equipped with explosives and operated remotely — has become the most deadly and cheap weapon used by Russia in its invasion of Ukraine. Deployed on tanks and soldiers, Russian military also apparently use FPVs to hunt civilians in Ukraine’s southern city of Kherson. The glasses, needed to pilot the drone, were donated in January. In early February, Russian pro-war bloggers reported several cases of the FPV drone goggles exploding on the heads of the pilots, blinding at least eight of them in Russia’s Kursk and Ukraine’s Donetsk and Luhansk regions.…

His comments, which received loud applause from the CPAC crowd, continue a stark escalation in the Trump administration’s approach to transatlantic relations. The remarks follow a fiery speech Vance delivered earlier this month at the Munich Security Conference, where he lambasted European leaders for their migration policies and alleged censorship of political dissent. Vance’s address in Munich drew sharp reactions across the European political spectrum, as he accused Western leaders of undermining democratic values through mass migration and speech suppression. At CPAC, he further argued that Western governments, particularly under the previous Biden administration, had imposed a culture of censorship…

French President Emmanuel Macron will meet Donald Trump in Washington Monday, both the Elysée and White House confirmed, making him the first European leader to travel to the U.S. capital since Trump’s inauguration.Macron narrowly edged out U.K. leader Keir Starmer, who is visiting Washington three days later. Trump “talked to President Macron of France repeatedly last week. President Macron convened European leaders and then is coming here on Monday. Prime Minister Starmer is coming next Thursday,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said at a briefing on Thursday.The meeting comes as Western leaders are scrambling to respond to the U.S. president’s…

Hamas to release six more hostages and return four bodies, ending the first phase of the ceasefire. The next exchange will include hundreds of Palestinian prisoners. Hamas has said it will release six more hostages on Saturday, the last of the 33 to be freed under the ceasefire’s first phase. The group also announced it will hand over the bodies of four other deceased captives on Thursday.The next hostage release will be in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel. There have thus far been six swaps carried out between the two sides.Without providing any further details, Hamas…

European leaders have since grown increasingly worried that they can no longer rely on the U.S. and the NATO collective defense clause that have provided the foundation for Europe’s security since the Cold War. Merz, the leader of the center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and in first place in opinion polls ahead of Sunday’s vote, said that Europe should collectively brace itself for the possibility that the Trump administration might not uphold NATO’s Article 5 committing alliance members to collective defense. When asked whether he believes Trump will uphold the clause, Merz said: “I wouldn’t bet everything I have on…

The social media giant says it will build the world’s longest subsea cable to link the United States, India, Brazil, and South Africa. Meta, the parent company of social media platforms Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, is aiming to build the world’s longest subsea cable. Project Waterworth will see a 50,000-kilometre-long subsea cable connect five continents from its laying point 7,000 m under the ocean. Over 99 per cent of international data exchanges are carried by underwater cables, according to the International Telecommunications Union.Meta’s cable would use a 24 fibre-pair system, which will give the connections the cable makes to the United States,…

Chinese e-commerce firm Alibaba Group Holding posted its fastest revenue growth in more than a year, beating analyst expectations as it capitalises on the artificial intelligence boom in China. Alibaba said Thursday that its revenue for the quarter ended December grew some 8% to 280.2 billion yuan (€36.65bn) compared to the same period last year.Net income surged to 48.9 billion yuan (€6.41bn). Alibaba’s New York-traded stock was up by more than 12% following the earnings results.In an earnings call, Alibaba CEO Eddie Wu said that Alibaba plans to “aggressively invest” in artificial intelligence and cloud computing infrastructure in the coming…