Author: staff
POLITICO has previously reported that the far-right party is internally divided over Russia, Ukraine and NATO. Jordan Bardella, the National Rally president and a member of the European Parliament, leads the more pro-European wing of the party. Le Pen’s own views have been more pro-Russia; she has met Russian President Vladimir Putin in the past and her party took a €9.4 million loan from a Czech-Russian bank with links to the Kremlin, since repaid. Bardella and Le Pen also differ on NATO, although both would break with French President Emmanuel Macron’s strong support for the alliance. Bardella wants to wait…
Published on 04/09/2026 – 15:00 GMT+2 Tilos, a small Greek island, used to bury its rubbish on a hillside. The landfill kept growing. Wind scattered plastic across the beaches below. It’s a familiar problem for small islands. Residents and tourists produce waste, but shipping it elsewhere for recycling rarely makes economic sense. So most islands sacrifice a patch of scarce land and bury the problem. Out of sight, out of mind. A few years ago, Tilos tried something different. Working with Greek circular economy company Polygreen and backed by the Region of South Aegean, the island removed its street bins…
Published on 04/09/2026 – 11:57 GMT+2 An investigation into an Air India flight that dropped almost 300 feet last month has found that the plane suffered a temporary hydraulics failure. Flight AI2379 was travelling from Phuket, Thailand to the Indian capital of New Delhi on 4 August when the incident occurred. The Airbus A320, which had 137 passengers, six cabin crew and two pilots on board at the time, suddenly lost altitude while flying over Indian airspace, leaving 24 people injured. In a preliminary report published on Friday, India’s Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) said the aircraft detected a triple-hydraulic…
From plastic that pollutes water to a tool that helps clean it up. Researchers at Madrid’s Institute of Materials Science (ICMM), part of the CSIC, have developed flower-shaped iron oxide nanoparticles capable of capturing nanoplastics, fragments a thousand times smaller than a microplastic, derived from PET, one of the most common materials used in bottles, packaging and polyester clothing. The study has been published in the Chemical Engineering Journal. The secret lies in the shape. “Iron oxide is a magnetic material that allows many pollutants to be trapped at once. In addition, its nanoflower structure means that the particles have…
Published on 04/09/2026 – 13:56 GMT+2 Dubai has now closed registrations for its ‘A Dubai Invite’ scheme after receiving more than 90,000 applications from residents for the initiative, which offers discounts and perks for inviting friends and family from overseas to visit the emirate. Launched in July, the programme encouraged residents to become “ambassadors of the city by welcoming their loved ones to Dubai”. Under the scheme, residents could access benefits worth more than AED 3,000 (€700), including discounted hotel stays, dining offers and free or reduced-price tickets to some of Dubai’s biggest attractions. According to the Dubai Department of…
“But unlike the real India Gate, which has stood almost for a century, the chocolate version didn’t even survive the journey to India,” De Wever said. “Chocolate is excellent for diplomacy, but not excellent for diplomatic travel.” The gift carried a more serious message. India Gate is a war memorial in New Delhi, and De Wever said the replica was meant to honor the more than 9,000 Indian soldiers who fought and died in Belgium’s Flanders Fields during World War I. A backup version is still waiting in Belgium, De Wever said. He promised the replacement would fare better: “One…
Published on 04/09/2026 – 13:33 GMT+2 A lorry driver ignored warnings that he should break through the barriers at a level crossing in Gdańsk, Poland, moments before his vehicle was struck by a train. The driver’s lorry had become stuck when barriers came down while the vehicle was making its way across the tracks. CCTV shows a PKP Intercity train, the country’s national long-distance rail operator, travelling from Gdynia to Zielona Góra collide with the lorry at about 1:20 pm CET. The manager of the national rail network, PKP Polskie Linie Kolejowe (PLK), reported witnesses signalled to the driver to…
Published on 04/09/2026 – 13:02 GMT+2 Malaysia declared an emergency in a town in Sarawak state on Borneo Island on Friday after air pollution breached the country’s emergency-level threshold linked to fires in neighbouring Indonesia. The Air Pollutant Index in Serian, a small agricultural town of just under 90,000 near the border of Indonesia’s Kalimantan province, surged to 521 on Friday, according to Malaysia’s environment department. Sarawak’s much-larger capital, Kuching, also showed a hazardous reading of 311. Malaysia’s King Sultan Ibrahim Iskandar has consented to the declaration of an emergency in Serian, which would allow more effective measures to be…
We have seen the FIRE (Financially Independent, Retire Early) believers, but we may now be seeing a lot more NERDs: the Never Ever Retiring Demographic. The term refers to a growing number of Gen Zers and millennials across the UK and Europe who feel they will never be able to retire and who, as a result, believe there is little point saving into a pension plan at all. A recent study by People’s Pension, a leading UK workplace pension provider, found that 47% of Gen Zers aged between 18 and 27 do not engage with their pension. Despite having decades…
By Romain Gutkind with AFP Published on 04/09/2026 – 12:35 GMT+2•Updated 12:49 The film-maker died following a health problem while he was working in Arles, in the south of France, on a historical film project. Culture Minister Catherine Pégard paid tribute to him and said of him in a tweet that he “had a taste for taking the back roads, for fading borders, for lives we pay far too little attention to.” Tony Gatlif directed 25 films, including “Gadjo Dilo” with Romain Duris (1997) and “Exils” (2004, best director prize at Cannes). The film-maker was drawn to social stories and Gypsy culture. His…