Author: staff
Published on 11/09/2026 – 14:31 GMT+2 The European Commission transmitted the EU-India trade deal, clinched last January, to EU member states for ratification on Friday – but only in English, despite opposition from France. The EU executive wants to fast-track the ratification process for trade deals by skipping the translation of agreements into the bloc’s 24 official languages. “When President von der Leyen went to India in January to conclude negotiations for this landmark trade agreement, she made a commitment to try to get it over the line within this calendar year,” Commission Deputy Chief Spokesperson Olof Gill said on…
For two days, Astana Finance Days 2026 brought together representatives of global financial institutions that collectively manage more than $26 trillion in assets, as Kazakhstan seeks to strengthen its position in the global competition for capital. The forum is organised by the Astana International Financial Centre (AIFC), which was launched in 2018 and operates as a separate financial jurisdiction in Kazakhstan with its own regulatory and legal framework based on the principles of English common law. The gathering included BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, alongside Goldman Sachs, Capital Group, Brookfield and other major financial institutions. Investors, policymakers and regulators…
Up until the current government, there was “no acceptance of a harm reduction or harm minimisation approach,” said Karl Fagerström, a researcher on tobacco and nicotine who has received consulting fees from tobacco companies. He said he was not against taxes on nicotine pouches as long as the levies on cigarettes are higher. However, the Public Health Agency of Sweden, an arm of the government, pointed to tobacco control policies including bans on tobacco advertising, tax regulation, age limits and smoking bans for how Sweden achieved its low smoking rates. “The decline in cigarette use has been going on for…
Published on 11/09/2026 – 8:01 GMT+2•Updated 14:41 On today’s show: Stefan Grobe speaks to Anthony Gardner, former US ambassador to the European Union during the second Obama administration, about how 9/11 changed America and the world, and what lessons political leaders should still be learning today. Maria Tadeo reports live from the Rīga Conference in Latvia, where she speaks exclusively to the EU’s economy chief Valdis Dombrovskis about Russia’s aggression and whether the Baltic states are getting the Russian threat right. She also interviews Norway’s Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide. Also in Riga, Angela Skujins interviews Kyrylo Budanov, Head of…
Published on 11/09/2026 – 4:33 GMT+2•Updated 4:37 An Israeli strike in Gaza on Thursday killed a family of four, including two children, according to Palestinian hospital and security sources, while the Israeli military claimed it targeted a “military operative”. “The bodies of four members of the Ahmad family were recovered in pieces after an Israeli strike hit a house in the Beit Lahia Project area in the northern Gaza Strip,” an official at Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City said, identifying the children as aged 12 and eight. The Israeli military said it “struck a military structure… from which terrorists had…
Published on 11/09/2026 – 17:14 GMT+2 Norway’s Princess Astrid, the older sister of the late King Harald, died on Friday at the age of 94, the Norwegian Royal Palace said in a statement. “Aunt Astrid was an important source of support for King Harald and the rest of our family. We learned a great deal from her, and she was never afraid to speak her mind,” King Haakon VIII said in the statement. “Her passing is a great loss to us. We will miss her.” The King added that Princess Astrid had stepped into the role of First Lady at…
Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis took control of the Bab el-Mandeb strait on Friday, after capturing an island located in the middle of the crucial Red Sea waterway, a local government official and eyewitnesses said. “Boats carrying armed Houthi fighters reached Mayyun Island after government forces withdrew from it yesterday,” the official said, referring to a rocky volcanic island also known as Perim that divides the narrowest part of the strait into two shipping lanes. “The Houthis have completed their takeover of the Bab el-Mandeb area and Mayyun Island, which is located in the middle of the strait,” he added, speaking on…
Incidents of Russian-orchestrated hybrid war attacks across NATO territory are entering a new dangerous, kinetic phase, leaders across the continent agree. At a meeting in early September, EU Foreign Policy Chief Kaja Kallas said Russian President Vladimir Putin’s aim is to “scare us away from supporting Ukraine.” “He will not succeed,” she told journalists at a meeting of EU foreign ministers. However, others in European diplomatic circles have told Euronews that the lack of a powerful deterrent response is leaving the continent vulnerable to an escalation in Russian attacks. Germany’s decision to formally blame the Kremlin for planting an explosive-laden…
A quarter of a century after hijacked planes struck New York, Washington and Pennsylvania, the attacks of 11 September 2001 remain lodged in the American psyche more firmly than almost any other event of the past 25 years. A new Ipsos poll finds that roughly half of US adults, unprompted, name 9/11 among the most significant events of their lifetime — ahead of the Covid-19 pandemic, the elections of Barack Obama and Donald Trump, and Hurricane Katrina of 2005. Nine in ten say the attacks changed the country “a great deal” or “quite a bit,” and most Americans can still…
Published on 07/03/2026 – 8:00 GMT+1•Updated 11/09/2026 – 22:42 GMT+2 France will push back against a European Commission plan to fast-track ratification of trade agreements by circulating only English-language versions during talks with EU governments and lawmakers, skipping translation into the bloc’s 24 official languages, according to several sources. The slow ratification of the contentious EU–Mercosur trade deal has frustrated the Commission, which wants to accelerate negotiations and bring deals into force more quickly as it seeks new markets amid rising geopolitical tensions. Translating the agreements into every official EU language can take months due to the legal scrubbing required…