Author: staff
By Tokunbo Salako with AFP Published on 30/03/2026 – 14:23 GMT+2 Italian police say they’ve recovered €20 million of assets allegedly bought from money stolen from the original Bond Girl Ursula Andress. Goods seized include property, vineyards and olive groves in the Tuscany region. The case stems from a complaint the 90-year-old actress made in her native Switzerland, accusing individuals who managed her finances of “progressive and significant depletion of her assets”. In a joint operation, Swiss and Italian prosecutors traced the money to Florence from where police began probing the paper trail. Italian authorities say the swindled funds were invested in foreign…
The various scenarios polled by Elabe showed Philippe netting as much as 25.5 percent of the vote depending on which other candidates feature in the race, far better than any leftist candidate or Philippe’s centrist and center-right rivals. The survey shows the National Rally retaining its place as France’s most popular political party and its candidate on track to comfortably qualify for the runoff in the country’s two-round voting system. Both Bardella and Le Pen come in ahead of the second-place finisher in all scenarios tested, often by double digits. The poll also tested voter intentions for the second round…
Moscow threatened to take further action against embassy employees if London responds to the expulsion by targeting its diplomatic representatives in the U.K. Listen AI generated Text-to-speech
A slow-moving protest by the Organisation of European Road Transport Operators (OTRE) is under way on the Paris ring road, with hauliers demanding help as fuel prices rise. The action, a go-slow rather than a full blockade, is meant to press the government for direct support and clearer fuel aid. The dispute comes after talks with ministers stalled. OTRE says current measures do not go far enough for road freight firms facing tighter margins. More demonstrations are expected in the coming days, including outside Paris, as transport operators warn that higher costs are eating into business.
Published on 30/03/2026 – 12:44 GMT+2 TotalEnergies is reported to have made more than $1bn (€868m) in profit after buying up oil cargoes across the Middle East as the Iran conflict choked shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, according to the Financial Times. The French oil giant’s traders purchased around 70 cargoes of crude produced in the United Arab Emirates and Oman available to load in May — more than double its purchases in February — according to a person close to the company cited by the FT. Total has so far not made any firm public statements regarding this…
Published on 30/03/2026 – 12:18 GMT+2 Italy’s not having a great time of late when it comes to protecting treasured goods… After the museum heist that saw millions worth of artwork nabbed comes another daring heist that happened over the weekend. Twelve tonnes of KitKat bars were stolen in a high-stakes chocolate heist, with confectionery giant Nestlé confirming the robbery yesterday. In an official statement, the company explained that precisely 413,793 chocolate bars were stolen while in transit between a factory in Central Italy and end destination in Poland. “We’ve always encouraged people to have a break with KitKat,” a…
Weapons not wealth: How the EU’s lure for new members switched focus – POLITICO Skip to main content
Ireland’s junior agriculture minister Timmy Dooley has warned the outlook for farmers is “stark”, as soaring fuel and fertiliser costs pile pressure on the sector ahead of an EU ministers’ meeting in Brussels. He urged flexibility on EU climate rules, including exempting fertilisers from the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM), which makes importers pay for production-related emissions. Supply has also been hit by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz amid the Iran war, affecting 13% of global fertiliser, according to the United Nations. This comes after the EU moved to ban fertilisers from Belarus and Russia in July 2025.…
Authorities declared a state of emergency in Dagestan after torrential rainfall flooded streets in the regional capital Makhachkala, damaging homes, vehicles and infrastructure. Local leader Sergey Melikov said some areas recorded more than 50mm of rain, an unusually high level for recent years. Russia’s emergency ministry said around 3,000 people had been evacuated as floodwaters cut electricity to more than 130 settlements and destroyed several bridges. Neighbouring Chechnya has also been affected, with hundreds of homes flooded in the Gudermes district and about 500 residents evacuated. Meteorologists say the rain is expected to ease, but recovery efforts are continuing across…
The Iran war has highlighted how producing videos with artificial intelligence (AI) can impact the public’s perception during periods of maximum news consumption, and as countries involved in the conflict aim to shape their own narrative as well. But this phenomenon can have a highly emotional impact in countries that are part of the war, prompting their governments to take strict containment measures. Easy and cheap access to AI video technologies has flooded social media with AI-fabricated deepfake videos and photos of combat, impact on civilian areas or statements since the start of the Iran war, fuelling disinformation which can…