Author: staff

For Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s government, it’s another step toward making the Bundeswehr a war-ready force while giving German manufacturers a steadier pipeline of long-term orders. Some of the biggest checks are being written for drones. MPs will clear about €68 million for Uranos KI, an AI-enabled reconnaissance network built in competing versions by Airbus Defence and Space and German defense-AI company Helsing. Another €86 million will keep the German Heron TP, operated by Airbus DS Airborne Solutions and based on Israel’s Heron TP, flying into the 2030s. Roughly €16 million will go to Aladin, a short-range reconnaissance drone developed by…

Published on 28/11/2025 – 13:15 GMT+1 Far-right figures and other social media users are sharing a clip which they wrongly claim shows a new European-developed brand of “anti-rape” underwear. The X posts, such as one by British far-right activist Tommy Robinson, attempt to whip up xenophobic sentiment by suggesting that Europe is bringing in the underwear to protect women from immigrants, rather than closing its borders or stopping migration from the “third world”. The video features Spanish subtitles and says that the underwear will protect the user from rape, because it doesn’t tear, can’t be cut and has a special…

US President Donald Trump said during a Thanksgiving call on Thursday with military personnel that operations against drug trafficking in Venezuela might involve ground operations, though he provided no details about the plan or its execution. The US president said there was an 85% reduction in drug trafficking in waters where more than 20 vessels have been destroyed since 1 September in both the Caribbean and Pacific. “They’ve probably noticed that people don’t want to deliver drugs by sea anymore, and we’re going to start stopping them by land as well. By land is easier, and that’s going to start…

The year is coming to an end with a somewhat disappointing record for French cinema, bereft of major national successes like last year’s The Count of Monte-Cristo, A Little Something Extra and Beating Hearts. As of October, ticket sales are down 14.9% in 2025 compared to 2024. French films represent 38% of movies screened in the country as opposed to more than 46% last year, according to the National Centre for Cinema and the Moving Image. It was, however, an interesting year for French lesbian cinema, with several acclaimed movies, in both documentary and fiction. One of them was_The Little…

“Sometimes the image that people paint — saying that everything is stuck and so on — doesn’t match what I experienced yesterday,” said Lars Klingbeil, the leader of the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD), which governs in coalition with Merz’s conservative alliance. “We really did push forward far-reaching changes for this country in constructive debates.” The agreements announced Friday revolve around a pension package lawmakers are set to vote on in December that a faction of Merz’s own conservatives had railed against, as well as a deal on Germany’s position on the EU’s push to phase out the combustion engine.…

Spanish National Police have arrested two fugitives linked to the Neapolitan Camorra criminal organisation one in Tenerife and another in Almería, both wanted by Italy under European arrest warrants. The suspects face combined prison sentences of up to 60 years. The investigation began in late October following a cooperation request through the National Police’s information exchange agreements with FAST Italy and the Sirene bureau. Italy issued a European arrest warrant for one suspect on charges of blackmail, extortion, kidnapping, illegal detention and hostage-taking, carrying a potential 30-year sentence. The arrested man is considered a high-value target as one of the…

“Eurovision is a contest. Human rights are not”. The president of the Corporación de Radio Televisión Española (RTVE), José Pablo López, has defended the public broadcaster’s initial position, after weeks of speculation about the fate of next year’s Eurovision Song Contest. The head of the public broadcaster has reiterated that the Spanish delegation will not participate in 2026 if Israel is allowed to compete. Three weeks ago, Lopez’s Austrian counterpart went so far as to travel to Israel, the current Achilles heel of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), to openly defend the participation of the country accused of perpetrating genocide…

Nonetheless, Western leaders continued to characterize the war as a contest between good and evil, with huge stakes for democracy. They cast it as a struggle not only for territory but between liberal and autocratic values, and as one with global consequences. But in that case, why be restrained in what you supply? Why hold back on long-range munitions and tanks? Why delay supplying F-16s? And why prevent Ukraine from using Western-supplied long-range missiles to strike deeper into Russia? Or, as Ukraine’s former top commander Gen. Valery Zaluzhny fumed in the Washington Post: “To save my people, why do I…

Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) and Special Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO) raided the premises in the early hours of Friday linked to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s chief of staff Andriy Yermak as part of a major corruption investigation involving the state nuclear power company. Ukraine’s anti-graft watchdogs confirmed that the raids are part of an investigation but did not specify whether Yermak is a suspect. Zelenskyy’s chief of staff confirmed on Telegram that NABU and SAPO were “indeed conducting procedural actions at my home” . “The investigators are not encountering any obstacles. They have been given full access to the apartment,…

But the mood in the European Parliament and in some capitals has turned volatile. And with the clock ticking down to a tentative Dec. 20 date for European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to fly to Brazil for a formal signing ceremony, the path to that successful outcome is narrowing. Brazil’s ambassador to the EU, Pedro Miguel da Costa e Silva, is bullish that the agreement, which has been 25 years in the making and would create a free-trade area spanning nearly 800 million people, can still be done. “What will happen will be exactly what happened with other…