Author: staff

Forget the Colosseum and what you’ve seen in the Gladiator film franchise – the latest evidence of ancient Roman brutality comes not from the heart of Italy, but from a quiet field in Yorkshire.A Roman-era skeleton unearthed in York, England, has given archaeologists the first physical proof that gladiators in Britain clashed not just with each other, but with ferocious beasts.Experts say the man’s pelvis bears bite marks from a large feline – most likely a lion – revealing that brutal man-versus-beast spectacles weren’t confined to the Colosseum, but reached the far-flung corners of the Roman Empire, including ancient Eboracum…

“I had agreed, as I always do, to debate the various reforms with socialist trade unionists before the start of our conference,” Bouchez wrote on his social media following the incident. “When I arrived, one of their members threw a glass of beer at me, insults, threats, obscene gestures. The police had to intervene,” he said. He argued that although he could have have asked for police protection, he decided to stay and confront the protesters to show he was not intimidated. According to members of the FGTB trade union, however, Bouchez provoked the demonstrators who had come outside the…

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has cut short a visit to South Africa as a result of Russia’s deadly overnight attack on Kyiv. Zelenskyy, who only landed in the country on Wednesday evening, said he would leave after a meeting with his South African counterpart Cyril Ramaphosa in Pretoria on Thursday morning. The move came in response to a large-scale Russian missile and drone strike which killed nine and injured more than 70 in Ukraine’s capital. The Ukrainian leader had travelled to South Africa, which currently holds the presidency of the G20, in an attempt to “bring a just peace closer”.…

China has launched three astronauts into space on Thursday, marking a further step in the country’s ambitions for a crewed mission to the Moon and explore Mars.The Shenzhou 20 spaceship was launched as planned atop China’s workhorse Long March 2F rocket at 17:17 local time. It was set to reach the Tiangong space station about 6.5 hours later.The rocket lifted off from the launch centre in Jiuquan, on the edge of the Gobi Desert in northwestern China. The ship will remain in space before returning the current crew.While in space, the astronauts will conduct experiments in medical science and new…

Joyce’s intervention ran counter to the sentiments expressed by most other speakers at the summit, including U.K. Energy Secretary Ed Miliband and French Minister for Industry and Energy Marc Ferracci, who said: “As long as we remain massively dependent on fossil fuels, there will be no energy security for Europe.” The U.S. has pressured Europe to increase its imports of U.S. liquefied natural gas. But Ferracci said: “We need to accelerate the phasing [out] of imported energy, and this means decarbonization.” One U.K. energy industry figure said of Joyce’s speech: “That went down like a fart in a phone box.”…

Germany’s corporate morale edged higher for the fourth straight month in April, reaching its highest point since last summer, yet business leaders remain wary of storm clouds gathering over global trade and geopolitical risks.The Ifo Business Climate Index, a key barometer of sentiment among German firms, edged up to 86.9 in April from 86.7 in March, beating expectations and marking the strongest reading since July 2024. While the marginal gain suggests economic resilience, underlying data reveals a more nuanced picture, with rising optimism about current conditions offset by waning expectations for the months ahead.What’s driving Germany’s business morale?The improvement was…

At least eight people have been charged by the Belgian prosecutor — including one of Huawei’s most senior executives in Europe — with active corruption, money laundering and criminal organization, after a series of police raids of premises in Belgium, France and Portugal. Huawei is listed as a member of 22 associations in the European Union’s transparency register, which tracks corporate lobbying activities. Several of these, like DigitalEurope, BusinessEurope and the European Internet Forum, have already moved to suspend the Chinese company in response to the bribery scandal. Several other organizations told POLITICO at the end of March that they were “closely…

The world’s auto industry is getting a shake-up from Chinese automakers as they expand across global markets, offering relatively affordable electric vehicles designed to wow car buyers with sleek designs and the latest high-tech interiors.Companies like BYD, Great Wall, Geely and Chery Automobile are reaching further afield as they build the scale they need, in order to survive cut-throat competition in their home market.These generally are not state-run giants like SAIC, BAIC and Guangzhou Automotive. The founder of Geely started out making refrigerators.BYD first built up its expertise in battery technology, now its biggest advantage as the EV maker with…

BRUSSELS — Europe’s favorite bottle of red or white may come with an unwanted ingredient: toxic chemicals that don’t break down naturally. A new investigation has found widespread contamination in European wines with trifluoroacetic acid (TFA) — a persistent byproduct of PFAS, the group of industrial chemicals widely known as “forever chemicals.” None of the wines produced in the past few years across 10 EU countries came back clean. In some bottles, levels were found to be 100 times higher than what is typically measured in drinking water. The study, published on Wednesday by the Pesticide Action Network (PAN) Europe,…

“Kyiv and the region, Zhytomyr, Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkiv, Poltava, Khmelnytskyi, Sumy, and Zaporizhzhia regions were under massive combined Russian attack,” the emergency services said, adding that Kyiv had suffered the most damage. Zelenskyy, who arrived in South Africa on Thursday to meet with President Cyril Ramaphosa as part of a broader trip, announced he would cut his visit short and “return to Ukraine immediately after the meeting with the President of South Africa.” “The Foreign Minister of Ukraine will hold all the necessary meetings in South Africa to fully inform the country’s political and civil society leaders about the situation,” Zelenskyy…