Author: staff

French S&D MEP Emma Rafowicz says Emmanuel Macron’s government is “completely irresponsible” in its handling of the ongoing student protests in France. Rafowicz argues that most of the violence comes “from the police side” and says young people are “mobilising quite well”. She accuses the government of “looking to the other side” and hoping the protests will dissipate during the holidays. Rafowicz also describes French schools as being “in shambles”, citing falling ceilings and food that fails to meet quality standards. The MEP says this reflects “a disrespect for the young people”.

Floodwaters surged through the streets of Santiago, carrying away cars and forcing bus passengers to climb onto the roof for safety. Las Condes, in the east of the capital, was among the worst-hit areas as mud and debris rushed through residential neighbourhoods. Emergency crews rescued people trapped in vehicles and buildings, while soldiers helped evacuate vulnerable residents. At least six people were injured, and 11 people were moved to safety from a care home for older people. Two private clinics were flooded, with mud covering treatment rooms, stretchers and medical equipment. A nearby university campus was also affected. Chile’s disaster…

Russia was also accused of covering up a mysterious 1988 alopecia outbreak in Chernivtsi region, in which more than 175 children lost their hair. Soviet authorities said the children suffered from thallium food poisoning, but later studies raised questions about that, with some suggesting the cause was hydrazine, or acid rain. Over the years, the Kremlin has also dismissed, downplayed and underreported HIV cases, even while in the middle of a deadly epidemic. And, more recently, during the Covid-19 pandemic, Russia was accused of downplaying coronavirus deaths, particularly at the beginning.  An image taken from a helicopter in April 1986…

Police said 10 vehicles were set alight during clashes in Soweto, near a Home Affairs office in Orlando West, Johannesburg. Shops owned by foreign nationals were also looted, while firefighters tackled burning cars and police closed nearby roads. Similar unrest broke out in Durban, where riot police were deployed after reports of looting and vehicle fires; police said 14 vehicles were torched there. The violence followed a July Constitutional Court ruling removing barriers that prevented some migrants from applying for asylum, including those who entered South Africa irregularly. Authorities said refugee reception offices had been overwhelmed by applicants. The government…

The EU’s gas reserves are emptier than at this stage of any autumn since 2011, meaning the bloc might have to burn 14 billion cubic metres (bcm) less gas than last winter over the coming months, according to the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA), a US-based non-profit that analyses energy markets and backs a shift to cleaner energy. In a report published on Friday, IEEFA noted that EU gas storage sites were about 72.4% full on 3 October and could supply 7.3bcm less gas this winter, from November to March, than they did last winter. Combined with…

From crocodiles channelling their inner Elvis Presley to a handstanding leopard and orangutans apparently flipping the bird, the finalists for the 2026 Nikon Comedy Wildlife Awards are finally here. This year’s shortlist is packed with 40 Individual Finalists, three U16 Category Finalists, four Portfolio Category Finalists and nine Video Category Finalists. More than 10,000 entries were submitted from 112 countries – the highest number in the Awards’ history. Tom Sullam, co-founder of the Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards, says: “The Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards started very gently, somewhere out on the vast plains of the Serengeti. What began as a small…

Politicians can, of course, make great writers, and several have won Nobel’s literature prize, including Britain’s Winston Churchill in 1953, and Peru’s Mario Vargas Llosa in 2010. The latter — who ran for president in 1990 — won the prize “for his cartography of structures of power and his trenchant images of the individual’s resistance, revolt, and defeat.” But has he ever referred to British Conservative grandee Jacob Rees-Mogg as a “Haunted Pencil”? No, he has not. There are, however, a lot of very bad books written by politicians. Former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson — very much the “Winston Churchill if…

French EU lawmaker Rima Hassan has denied throwing to the floor the EU flag at a 7 October commemoration, stressing she has asked for the CCTV footages to be made available to the press. Although she supports the commemoration of the victims of 7 October attack, she said she opposes inviting Israeli authorities to the European Parliament. The French MEP of Palestinian origin has denounced what she called “double standards”, with the EU adopting 21 packages of sanctions against Russia but none against the Israeli State. The EU has adopted sanctions against some Israeli settler organisations for supporting violence and…

Published on 09/10/2026 – 8:16 GMT+2 US President Donald Trump on Thursday awarded SpaceX CEO Elon Musk and a handful of other tech titans the prestigious National Medal of Science during a ceremony at the Institute of Peace in Washington, D.C. Musk received the award alongside Google cofounder Sergey Brin, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, and AMD chief Lisa Su. “I want to thank everybody for being here as we celebrate the exciting advance of science and technology in the golden age of America,” Trump said in his opening remarks, before turning his attention to Musk, who he called an “industrial…

For most of this year, the story in Europe’s bond markets has been about inflation. Prices kept rising, the European Central Bank kept raising interest rates, and investors kept demanding more to lend money to governments. This autumn, a new word may have entered the conversation: recession. Eurostat’s Business Cycle Clock – a real-time tracker that maps the phases of an economy – showed the eurozone in a sharp slowdown at the end of the third quarter. Some countries, like Italy, may have already entered a recession, while Germany and France are still facing a downturn. So is the bond…