Author: staff
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…
Using Russia’s immobilized state assets to help fund Ukraine returned to the EU agenda after the Netherlands, Poland, Spain and Sweden last month called on the European Commission to explore “new options” for unlocking them. More than €200 billion in Russian central-bank assets are immobilized across the EU, with most held by Belgian-based financial depository Euroclear. The Belgian government has resisted proposals to use the funds, citing the potential legal and financial risks it could face in the event of Russian retaliation or litigation. Kyiv’s renewed appeal reflects the growing pressure to find additional money for Ukraine, with the country…
As fertility rates plunge across the EU, the impact of migration on demographics is becoming increasingly evident. Since 2012, more people have been dying in the EU than have been born, and last year, new births reached their lowest point on record, at 3.46 million. Although migration is indeed helping to keep demographic collapse at bay, figures circulating online are not always accurate. Take this video shared by Tommy Robinson, a British far-right activist, which was watched nearly 700,000 times, claiming that nearly all population growth last year was driven by foreigners. The video doesn’t cite sources, but data from…
The captain of an oil tanker that collided with a cargo ship and sank off Istanbul leaving 10 crew missing has been arrested along with his third-in-command on charges of negligent homicide, prosecutors said on Friday. The pair were arrested by a court late on Thursday, a day after the pre-dawn collision in which the ALSU, an empty oil tanker, struck the Tuğberk İmamoğlu, a cargo vessel carrying rolled steel, in the Sea of Marmara near Istanbul. The case is being handled by prosecutors in Silivri on the western outskirts of Istanbul province. According to the prosecutors’ statement, the Silvri…
By Jonathan Benton with AFP Published on 04/09/2026 – 12:23 GMT+2 US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said the British government’s adherence to EU rules posed “a problem” for the country’s goal of expanding a trade deal struck with President Donald Trump’s administration last year. His comments come as British Prime Minister Andy Burnham looks to build on his predecessor Keir Starmer’s efforts to forge closer post-Brexit cooperation with the European Union. Asked whether the UK was using the “freedom” afforded by its departure from the EU at the start of the decade, Greer told the Financial Times: “No, they’re not.” “Based on my…