Author: staff
And that speech was about as far as it went. As Tehran pounded its neighbors, disrupting Europe’s energy supplies, Kyiv attacked Russian factories repairing military planes, and Donald Trump in Washington joked about the Pearl Harbor attack alongside the Japanese prime minister, European leaders used their talks to tinker with the bloc’s carbon permit scheme, the Emissions Trading System. It’s not a wholly unrelated matter to the global energy shock, but hardly an issue where the continent could demonstrate its geopolitical might. On Iran, leaders found they had little leverage or will to make any significant intervention. On Ukraine, more…
Good morning from Brussels. I’m Mared Gwyn, writing from the early hours of Friday morning after marathon talks among EU leaders last night. Fury over Viktor Orbán’s decision to veto the European Union’s €90 billion loan for Ukraine burst into the open on Thursday, my colleague Jorge Liboreiro reports from the European Council this morning, as leaders castigated, in the harshest terms yet, the “unacceptable” behaviour of the Hungarian Prime Minister. To recap: Orbán held firm on his veto on the EU’s Ukraine loan last night in protest over the disruption of the flow of cheap Russian oil via the…
8:59 GMT+1 Iran Guards say missile production continues despite war Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said on Friday that the Islamic republic has continued to produce missiles despite the war with Israel and the United States.”Our missile industry deserves a perfect score…and there is no concern in this regard, because even under wartime conditions we continue missile production,” Guards spokesperson Ali Mohammad Naini said, quoted by the Fars news agency.On Thursday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that “Iran no longer has the capacity to enrich uranium and manufacture ballistic missiles.” 8:56 GMT+1 Israel says it strucK Syrian government targets after attack…
The release of Peaky Blinders in 2013 brought with it several booms: in French crops (no, you can’t pull it off), in newsboy caps (maybe you can, but probably not), and, perhaps most importantly, in tourism to the West Midlands region of England and beyond. The hit television series followed the eponymous gang, loosely based on a real group active in Birmingham between the 1880s and 1920s, for six seasons until 2022. Now Tommy Shelby (Cillian Murphy) and his crew have returned for one final outing, with Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man released on Netflix on 20 March. If you…
Grégoire finished 12 points ahead of Dati in the first round of the election last Sunday, but the former culture minister made the race far more competitive by teaming up with center-right candidate Pierre‑Yves Bournazel, who finished a disappointing fourth. The decision of far-right MEP Sarah Knafo to drop out of the race gave Dati another boost. Grégoire chose not to team up with Chikirou on principle due to her party’s abrasive, confrontational approach to the local election. France Unbowed leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon has stoked controversy recently with his unapologetic response to the killing of a far-right activist, and later with…
Humanitarian funding has been declining since 2023, showing how vulnerable it is to the political whims of the day. The biggest blow to overseas spending happened in 2025, when US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that 83% of programmes by USAid — the country’s international development agency — would be cancelled. It’s a similar story around the world: between 2025 and 2026, total global humanitarian funding plummeted from around €23.97 billion ($27.60 billion) to approximately €7.34 billion ($8 billion), according to the latest data from the Financial Tracking Service (FTS). Currently, the EU and its member states account for…
Updated: 20/03/2026 – 7:00 GMT+1 Catch up with the most important stories from around Europe and beyond this March 20th, 2026 – latest news, breaking news, World, Business, Entertainment, Politics, Culture, Travel. … More
Petrol and diesel prices across Europe have been rising hand in hand with global oil costs due to the Iran war, and the disruption impacting the supply coming from the Gulf countries. Brent crude briefly hit $119 a barrel twice since the first joint US–Israeli strikes on Iran in late February. The effects of fluctuating oil prices are now being felt by households across the continent, where taxes are making up a significant share of the cost at the pump. How much of the price of oil is tax? So, where do consumers pay the most tax on fuel in…
By Angela Symons with AP Published on 20/03/2026 – 7:02 GMT+1 Research has shown the majority of plastic waste found ingested in the guts of seabirds is white rather than other colours. The University of Auckland’s Ariel-Micaiah Heswall set out to find out why this is. She led a follow up study on whether penguins were more attracted to this colour and therefore more likely to ingest harmful plastics or whether it could be attributed to a greater abundance of white plastic debris in the sea. According to researchers, soft plastics such as balloons can obstruct the birds’ guts, causing starvation, while sharp…
By David del Valle Published on 20/03/2026 – 7:00 GMT+1 Every day of war with Iran stops international tourists from spending €550 million in the Middle East, according to the World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC). Many are now looking to Europe as a safe destination. The blow to tourism in the Middle East and Gulf opens up both an opportunity and a risk for Europe: to absorb some of this flow of travellers. WTTC estimates that the Middle East accounts for 5% of global international arrivals and 14% of international transit traffic, so the impact could be very strong on…