Author: staff
Published on 24/04/2026 – 14:44 GMT+2•Updated 15:10 A senior Swedish diplomat serving as special envoy to Syria was charged on Friday with unauthorised possession of classified documents which could have jeopardised Sweden’s national security in the hands of a foreign power, prosecutors said. “This concerns highly-classified information that the defendant has unlawfully handled by taking home and then keeping the documents containing classified information in his residence and holiday home,” prosecutor Mats Ljungqvist said in a statement. The diplomat gained access to the classified information “through his previous duties, but which he then took with him without authorisation and subsequently…
The group visited key locations including the abandoned city of Pripyat, once home to about 50,000 people, and the New Safe Confinement structure covering the damaged fourth reactor. The commemoration highlights the lasting impact of the world’s worst nuclear accident by scale and consequences. Known as “liquidators”, around 600,000 people were mobilised across the Soviet Union after the explosion on 26 April 1986. Many were exposed to high levels of radiation while building containment structures and clearing debris, leading to long-term health problems. Several of those returning in 2026 came from the Poltava region and worked on decontamination between 1987…
US President Donald Trump has threatened to impose tariffs on the United Kingdom unless it scraps its digital services tax on American tech companies. “We’ve been looking at it and we can meet that very easily by just putting a big tariff on the UK, so they better be careful,” Trump said, speaking from the Oval Office. “If they don’t drop the tax, we’ll probably put a big tariff on the UK,” he continued. Here’s what you need to know about the levy seems to have Washington rattled. What is the Digital Services Tax? The UK introduced its Digital Services…
Flights to and from Kuwait are set to resume on Sunday, two months after the outbreak of war following the US-Israel attack on Iran. While the airspace reopened last night (Thursday 24 April), commercial flights will not begin until 26 April as part of a “phased plan to gradually resume air traffic in preparation for the airport’s full operation in the coming period”, the country’s civil aviation authority said in a statement on the Kuwait News Agency website. Kuwait International Airport has been hit several times in recent weeks, with drone attacks on Terminal 1, the under-construction Terminal 2 and…
Russia and Israel have been barred from winning the Venice Biennale’s top prizes after the exhibition’s jury moved to exclude countries whose leaders have been indicted by the International Criminal Court. In a statement released Thursday, the jury said it decided to rule out awarding the Biennale’s Golden and Silver Lions, handed out at the exhibition’s closing in September, to national pavilions belonging to countries whose heads of state are facing ICC charges. The unprecedented decision directly affects Russia and Israel. Russian President Vladimir Putin has been under an ICC arrest warrant since 2023 over war crimes following Moscow’s full-scale…
The instrumentalisation of vetoes undermines the democratic principles of the European Union as it hijacks the interests of 26 in the name of one single holdout, High Representative Kaja Kallas told Euronews in an exclusive interview. Kallas was reflecting on the end of Viktor Orbán’s 16 years in uninterrupted power, during which the Hungarian prime minister frequently frustrated his fellow leaders with his near-constant, overlapping vetoes. “We have to be clear that, actually, the EU treaties do not foresee the veto. The treaties are based on unanimity — that everybody agrees,” Kallas told Euronews in an interview recorded on the…
Published on 24/04/2026 – 13:29 GMT+2 OpenAI has released its latest artificial intelligence model, GPT-5.5, pitching it as its “smartest and most intuitive model yet”. The company claims the new model is better at understanding what users want and can carry out multi-step work such as writing and debugging code, analysing data, and creating documents and spreadsheets. Unlike earlier versions, GPT-5.5 is to handle tasks that previously required multiple prompts for step-by-step instructions, plan its approach and keep working until the job is finished, OpenAI said. The company said this makes GPT-5.5 particularly useful for coding, routine office work, and…
There are “ways to be proactive … without taking gratuitous shots at President Trump that don’t actually help,” he said. Be nice to Trump Instead, European leaders should follow the example of NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, who has been careful not to anger Trump by backing the war against Iran. “Working with President Trump, being complimentary, being enthusiastic, because … he is doing them a service,” is the approach they should take, Volker said. He also called on German Chancellor Friedrich Merz to turn up the charm on Trump. Germany has not restricted the use of its crucial Ramstein air…
The Irish government has asked Economy Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis to rethink plans to accelerate permitting procedures, stressing that faster approvals are vital to deliver housing and critical infrastructure. The request comes as the country faces a deepening housing crisis marked by soaring rents, widespread homelessness and chronic supply shortages. Irish Housing Minister James Browne has recently called on housing developers facing financial strain on cost-rental developments to come forward and engage with his department, in a bid to keep projects viable. His remarks follow the recent collapse of a north Dublin cost-rental scheme, which was deemed financially unworkable. Browne said…
Iran’s decision-making elite are “trapped in slogans they have already committed to” and may struggle to free themselves from positions that stand in the way of a nuclear deal with the United States, a former Iranian diplomat has warned. Kourosh Ahmadi, who served in Iran’s diplomatic corps, told Euronews Persian both Tehran and Washington face domestic constraints that could prevent an agreement, even as the countries explore renewed negotiations following their 12-day conflict in June 2025. “Both sides are trapped in slogans they have already committed to,” Ahmadi said. “Whether they can free themselves from this self-made trap is unclear.…