Author: staff

Over 95 per cent of French Guiana – a French overseas department nestled between Brazil and Suriname – is covered in tropical forests, a wild, thick, humid ecosystem found in regions near the equator. Tropical forests play an important role in mitigating climate change, as they absorb a great share of the carbon dioxide (CO2) stored in terrestrial biomass. However, quantifying exactly how much CO2 these forests absorb is challenging, as their dense canopies make them almost impenetrable.But the answer to these doubts might come from French Guiana itself. Blasting off from Europe’s spaceport in Kourou on April 29, the European…

TikTok is the second platform to receive a warning from the EU under the Digital Services Act (DSA), following preliminary findings against Elon Musk’s X released last summer. TikTok does not “provide the necessary information about the content of the advertisements, the users targeted by the ads, and who paid for the advertisements,” and it also does not allow the public to search for ads, the Commission said. The investigation into TikTok started in February 2024, and several aspects of the probe are outstanding: addictive design, minors’ protection and giving data access to researchers. The Commission closed another DSA investigation…

TikTok’s advertising repository is in breach of the EU’s online platforms rules, the European Commission said on Thursday with the publication of preliminary findings in its Digital Services Act (DSA) probe which it began in February 2024.Under the DSA, very large online platforms need to have such an advertising repository in place for researchers and civil society to detect scam advertisements and hybrid threat campaigns.The Commission’s investigation found that video sharing app TikTok does not provide the necessary information about the content of the advertisements, the users targeted by the ads, and who paid for the advertisements.In addition, TikTok’s repository…

Sky News’ Sam Coates and Politico’s Anne McElvoy serve up their essential guide to the day in British politics. Today, Sir Keir Starmer heads to Albania to announce a crackdown on migrant smuggling gangs in the Balkans, while internal political unrest continues to brew at home. Sam and Anne discuss the growing tension inside both the Labour and Conservative parties, and Sam reveals how the first cracks between the chancellor and the PM have started to form. What does this mean for an increasingly under-pressure Starmer? Plus: Tory uncertainty deepens, leaving MPs wondering where Kemi Badenoch’s leadership is taking them.

President Donald Trump has suggested that India has offered to drop tariffs on US goods to zero, something not immediately acknowledged by New Delhi.Trump made the comments during a business roundtable in Doha, Qatar, on his Mideast tour, first discussing Apple’s plans to build manufacturing plants for its iPhone in India.“It’s very hard to sell into India and and they’ve offered us a deal where basically they’re willing to literally charge us no tariff,” Trump said.India is a close partner of the US and is part of the Quad, which is made up of the US, India, Japan and Australia,…

Britain’s economy expanded a little faster than expected in the first quarter, as a strong performance from the services sector offset a decline in industrial output. Gross domestic product (GDP) rose by 0.2 percent month-on-month in March, the Office for National Statistics said today in a preliminary estimate. Analysts had expected it to stay stagnant. That left GDP up by 0.7 percent over the first three months of the year, a little more than the 0.6 percent forecast. The Bank of England had said last week that, while it expected a solid performance in the first quarter, the U.K. economy…

European Council President Antonio Costa continued his Western Balkans tour on Wednesday with a visit to Kosovo, another EU membership hopeful.Costa arrived in the capital Pristina during an institutional and parliamentary crisis. Even after three months of elections, the new parliament chair had not been chosen, and the new government was nowhere in sight.Costa met with Kosovo President Vjosa Osmani and Prime Minister Albin Kurti, who is on a technical mandate while also serving as MP in the new parliament.At a joint press conference with Osmani, Costa said that the dialogue between Kosovo and Serbia is crucial for further EU…

American music legend Bruce Springsteen lambasted U.S. President Donald Trump and his team during a concert in England on Wednesday night. “In my home, the America I love, the America I’ve written about, that has been a beacon of hope and liberty for 250 years is currently in the hands of a corrupt, incompetent and treasonous administration,” Springsteen fumed on stage in Manchester during the opening night of a European tour with his E Street Band. “There’s some very weird, strange, and dangerous shit going on out there right now,” Springsteen said later in the show, according to a local…

Boeing has secured a historic deal with Qatar Airways, as part of US President Donald Trump’s regional trade drive. Shares in the largest US aerospace manufacturer rose 2% to a 52-week high on Wednesday following the announcement.During Trump’s visit to Qatar, the White House revealed that the US president had reached agreements totalling $243.5 billion (€209 bn) with the Gulf state. “The landmark deals celebrated today will drive innovation and prosperity for generations, bolster American manufacturing and technological leadership, and put America on the path to a new Golden Age,” stated the White House.The deals include a $96bn (€85.8 bn)…

Findings include abuse of temporary appointments and promotions of multiple people within leadership figures’ “friendly circle” to mid-management roles between 2019 and 2023. This was contrary to what would be beneficial for the agency and is in breach of EU staff regulations, the OLAF investigators found, according to the same two officials. OLAF alleges that recruitment decisions were also steered by personal ties — including appointing friends as chairs of hiring panels, canceling formal selection processes, and ignoring input from official selection committees. The EU’s watchdog also said those decisions were taken to the detriment of the good governance and…