Author: staff
Ultra-Orthodox Jewish men in Elad welcomed the release of fellow yeshiva student Shimon Heimlich from military prison, according to a report published this week. Heimlich, a Satmar follower who studies at a yeshiva in Elad, had been detained after approaching military authorities to regularise his status. The case comes amid a long-running dispute over military service for Israel’s ultra-Orthodox community. The original arrangement dates to 1948, when Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion approved an exemption for 400 yeshiva students. It later expanded significantly. In 2023, the legal framework for the broad exemption expired, and Israel’s Supreme Court ruled in 2024…
Witnessing the launch of a rocket is not something you can enjoy every day; only a few lucky spectators were able to watch live from French Guiana as Ariane 6 placed MTG-I2 into orbit, the new generation of weather satellites that will monitor the climatic conditions affecting Earth. Those attending the event in Tucán were keen to share with “Euronews” how it felt to hear the deafening roar of the launch, which they see as a new milestone in Europe’s conquest of space for science. With this third-generation Meteosat satellite, Europe is positioning itself at the forefront of the monitoring…
Parliament is back and the honeymoon is over – Andy Burnham now faces his first major test as prime minister. The PM will make his Commons debut as he promises to “bring back hope” and make life more affordable. But with pressure on public finances, can he deliver on his promises to cut energy bills, cap bus fares and slash business rates? Sam Coates and Anne McElvoy examine the gap between Burnham’s ambitious promises and the tough reality facing the government. And the duo look at how Kemi Badenoch plans to puncture the Burnham bounce with her shadow cabinet reshuffle.
Montenegro is the frontrunner to join the European Union. But officials, diplomats and experts fear Belgrade will do everything it can to prevent that from happening, leaving Brussels in a difficult position between the two candidate countries. While Montenegro closes in on the finish line, Serbia’s accession bid looks dead in the water: Belgrade has yet to open all negotiation clusters with the EU, and eight member states blocked its latest attempt last month. “We see some actions by the [Serbian] government and opposition parties that complicate the internal situation in Montenegro,” MEP Tonino Picula (Croatia/S&D) told journalists ahead of…
Published on 01/09/2026 – 8:50 GMT+2 The death toll from catastrophic flooding in Nepal and China passed 1,000 on Tuesday, authorities said, as rescue teams work to reach communities cut off by the disaster. Nepal’s disaster agency said on Tuesday that 987 deaths had been counted there, with 3,916 people missing, including 583 foreigners. Chinese authorities, in their latest update on Sunday, reported 16 deaths and 546 people still missing. At least 11,814 people have been rescued so far, according to Nepalese authorities. Emergency crews have been using helicopters and other aircraft to reach stranded communities in areas where roads…
Published on 01/09/2026 – 8:57 GMT+2•Updated 9:07 Munich, long known for the Oktoberfest and Bayern Munich, is fast becoming one of Europe’s leading centres for defence technology, as young firms building AI-powered drones and military software cluster around the Bavarian capital. The boom is underpinned by a dramatic rise in German government spending. Germany’s federal budget for 2026 allocates roughly €82.7 billion to defence, an increase of about €29.4 billion on the previous fiscal plan, with troop numbers set to rise by up to 10,000. Including an off-budget special fund created to modernise the armed forces, total defence spending reaches…
Kiala (source in Portuguese) was born from an idea that had been on Elga Fontes’ mind for years: creating room in the Portuguese publishing market for Black authors. The imprint of the publishing house Vírgula d’Interrogação officially entered the market in May this year and intends to publish books exclusively by Black authors, but its founder rejects the notion that this amounts to setting up a closed-off space or a literary category of its own. “Kiala is a word in Kimbundu [one of Angola’s Bantu languages] that means to illuminate or bring light,” explains Elga Fontes, who saw in the…
She also said she would soon present a plan to cut some €125 billion in spending, including on budget items associated with migration, “useless” public agencies, and France’s contribution to the EU. Le Pen will present her detailed platform in the fall, but Jean-Philippe Tanguy, a member of Parliament for the National Rally, told POLITICO this would be accomplished in “less than five years.” But Le Pen has yet to explain in detail how those savings would be achieved, and rivals are already questioning whether the numbers add up. “Marine Le Pen will ruin France,” Bruno Retailleau, a conservative candidate…
EU defence ministers gather in Wicklow this morning to kick off a week of informal yet high-level gatherings, following a summer marked by a surge in security incidents across the continent. At centre-stage this morning is the expectation, as our correspondent Shona Murray reports from the ground in Ireland, that Berlin will formally blame Russia for a suspected drone attack targeting a Ukrainian cargo aircraft carrying military supplies at Leipzig/Halle airport in early August. Reports suggest an explosives-laden drone, apparently intended to detonate, was found near the aircraft. Speaking to Shona in an interview, Swedish Foreign Affairs Minister Maria Malmer…
A 17-year-old North Carolina girl who recorded a livestream of a shooting that killed three people at a San Diego mosque and then published the attackers’ white-supremacist manifesto has been charged with murder by aiding and abetting, a district attorney said on Monday. Forsyth County District Attorney Jim O’Neill said at a news conference in Winston-Salem that the girl, identified in court records as Sarah L. Santiago, was arrested last week. A grand jury indicted her on three counts of murder and one count of conspiracy. “At this time I can confirm that my client is innocent of all these…