Author: staff
As of April, Italy’s prisons held over 62,000 people in facilities built for just 51,000, according to a report by Antigone, an NGO that monitors prison conditions. Suicides are surging, with 45 inmates killing themselves this year as of July 24. In 2024 some 91 suicides were recorded among prisoners — a record, surpassing the previous high from 2022. From the Capitoline to Rebibbia Alemanno’s accounts often focus on the individual stories of his fellow inmates such as Roberto, a 77-year-old who can barely see and walks with difficulty but still has to serve three years of detention. “What is Roberto…
Opposition politicians and activists say the sentence is unfair and is politically motivated — part of an escalating government crackdown on dissent. “The regime is paralyzed — too cowardly to free Mzia Amaghlobeli, too weak to convict her,” former President Salome Zourabichvili wrote on X. “This isn’t justice. It’s a dying authoritarian system. And we won’t stop!” The diplomatic missions of 23 countries and the European Union have denounced the sentence and called for Amaghlobeli’s release. Amnesty International said the trial was “riddled with procedural irregularities and bias.” Since a parliamentary election last October, the ruling Georgian Dream party has…
Is a global treaty to put an end to plastic pollution within reach? Meeting in Geneva from 5-14 August, delegates from around 100 countries, including the EU, are tackling the problem at source, with the aim of setting legally binding targets to reduce plastic production. “We really need to take urgent action,” Richard Thompson, professor of marine biology at the University of Plymouth and named in Time’s 100 most influential people of 2025 for his work on microplastics, told Euronews. “This cannot be solved by waste management alone. We need to take systemic action throughout the supply chain, which will…
This week’s video of the man stooping to light his cigarette at the Unknown Soldier War Memorial in Paris sparked outrage and was widely shared on the internet. Retailleau blasted the man’s actions as “indecent and pathetic,” while Veterans and Remembrance Minister Patricia Miralles wrote online that “France will never let anyone tarnish the memory of those who have died for it. Never.” Retailleau, a hardline conservative with political hopes ahead of the 2027 presidential election, has taken a draconian line on security and immigration since he was appointed last September. He wants France to take a much tougher approach…
In the late 1980s, however, things began to shift. While Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev pursued reformist policies, Ceaușescu tried to block any contagion. He had become an obsolete leftover of the Stalinist era, and Romanians grew weary of the insane cult of personality surrounding him and his wife. As his dictatorship grew increasingly erratic, many in the bureaucracy considered Iliescu as a possible alternative to “dynastic Communism.” In December 1989, popular uprisings erupted across the country, first in the western city of Timișoara, then in Bucharest. But this was not a velvet revolution. Amid a military crackdown, the army and…
By Una Hajdari with AP Published on 06/08/2025 – 19:02 GMT+2 President Donald Trump on Wednesday hit India with an extra 25% tariff over its Russian oil deals, bringing total US tariffs on the ally to a steep 50%. Currently, Brazil is the only other country to face a 50% import tax on all its products across the board. This does not include the steel, aluminium and copper tariffs, also at 50%, levied on every single country in the world apart from the UK. The tariffs would go into effect 21 days after the signing of the order, meaning that both India and…
By Euronews with AP Published on 06/08/2025 – 18:16 GMT+2 WhatsApp has taken down 6.8 million accounts that were “linked to criminal scam” centres targeting people online around that world, its parent company Meta said. The account deletions, which Meta said took place over the first six months of the year, arrive as part of wider company efforts to crack down on scams. In a Tuesday announcement, Meta said it was also rolling new tools on WhatsApp to help people spot scams, including a new safety overview that the platform will show when someone who is not in a user’s contacts adds them…
Ruchniewicz is a historian and the director of the Pilecki Institute, a research center focused on the fate of Poles who experienced authoritarianism and totalitarianism in the 20th century. The institute said that the article about the seminar by the Rzeczpospolita newspaper contained ““numerous slanders and untruths” and that no meeting leading to the return of items to Germany was planned. However, the story caused an outcry from the opposition nationalist Law and Justice party, which demanded that the government fire Ruchniewicz. Knut Abraham, Ruchniewicz’s German counterpart, said on Wednesday he was surprised by the Polish action. “I was in Warsaw…
The number of customers in the European Union and the United Kingdom on online gambling platforms reached 38.6 million last year, representing a 19% increase from the 32.5 million recorded in 2023, according to the European Gaming and Betting Association (EGBA). While this is an upward trend over the past five years, the number of people looking for help to stop gambling addiction across Europe has also increased. Data from The Lancet from 2024 claims that 54.7 million men worldwide experienced gambling disorders or problematic gambling, compared to 25.3 million women. Gambling can lead to serious harms to health, including…
If confirmed, Ruginienė would lead the formation of a new cabinet following the collapse of Paluckas’ government after only eight months in office. Under Lithuanian law, once nominated by the president and approved by parliament, the prime minister-designate must present a cabinet approved by the president and submit the government’s program to the Seimas within 15 days. The government receives a mandate to govern if a majority of MPs present vote in favor of its program. In the run-up to the LSDP’s decision, Ruginienė’s name was floated alongside two other potential candidates: Deputy Speaker of the Seimas Juozas Olekas and…