Author: Press Room

Published on 27/09/2026 – 14:39 GMT+2•Updated 17:52 Catania-Fontanarossa airport has once again been brought to a standstill because of volcanic activity on Mount Etna, which has forced the authorities to halt flight operations. Sac, the company that manages the airport, has announced the closure of the relevant airspace because of the heavy emission of ash into the atmosphere and unfavourable wind conditions. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT All arrivals and departures have officially been suspended until 23:59 on Sunday 27 September. Flights were initially halted until 12:00, before the stop was extended. In a bid to limit disruption, the company has urged passengers…

As the Cognac harvest draws to a close in southwestern France, winegrowers already know they face another difficult year. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT Cognac makers are struggling. The 300-year-old amber brandy is only produced around the Charente River, but it has been caught in the trade wars between the EU and China, as well as by tensions with its top export market, the US. For months, producers have watched largely powerless as access to both markets has been squeezed. The industry has a historic connection to the EU. Jean Monnet, the French statesman regarded as one of the EU’s founding fathers, came…

Pope Leo XIV called on the Catholic Church to acknowledge its failings and confront sexual abuse as he celebrated an open-air Mass in Lourdes on Sunday, the latest stop on his visit to France. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT After drawing nearly 800,000 people in Paris on Saturday, the pontiff was greeted by further crowds in Lourdes, where around 150,000 people attended Sunday’s Mass. In his homily, Leo urged the Church to take responsibility for wrongdoing within its ranks. “The Church must have the courage to be the first to undergo this conversion. To heal the deep wounds, the acts of infidelity and…

Swiss voters overwhelmingly rejected a proposal to strengthen the country’s neutrality in a referendum on Sunday, with around 70% voting against the measure. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT According to final results published by the Swiss government, the proposal was rejected in all 26 Swiss cantons. The initiative would have restricted Switzerland’s ability to impose sanctions on other countries, allowing such measures only if they had been approved by the United Nations. That would have limited Switzerland’s ability to adopt sanctions against Russia, which holds veto power as one of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council. Supporters of the proposal,…

Published on 27/09/2026 – 12:58 GMT+2•Updated 13:05 Poland and Lithuania are working on an international evacuation plan for civilians in the event of a major crisis or military threat. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT If necessary, the plan would allow some residents of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia to be moved across the Polish border. Vilmantas Vitkauskas, the head of Lithuania’s National Crisis Management Centre, has announced that work on the proposal was already under way and that representatives of Lithuania and Poland were analysing procedures, logistics, and infrastructure capacity. A detailed plan is to be drawn up once Poland and Lithuania reach an…

Published on 27/09/2026 – 8:22 GMT+2•Updated 8:31 Russia’s foreign minister has rejected calls from his German counterpart to pull back on “dangerous” escalatory steps as he accused Berlin of being Ukraine’s “main sponsor.” ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT Sergey Lavrov met with German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York on Saturday, shortly before Lavrov delivered an address to world leaders. During their talks, the German minister urged Moscow to abandon its “dangerous path of escalation” towards Europe while also suggesting Berlin was open to improving its relationship with Russia – provided the Kremlin…

Published on 26/09/2026 – 14:59 GMT+2 Six people have been confirmed dead after a building where they were staying collapsed in Athens. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT The building collapsed following an explosion on Friday morning in the Plaka district of the Greek capital. Four US tourists had been staying on the first floor of the building while a couple – a 78-year-old British man and a 77-year-old Greek woman – lived on the second floor. The process of formally identifying the bodies is ongoing. Fire crews are now winding down the operation after hours of searching through the rubble. Around 30 firefighters,…

Despite having apologised and despite Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s attempts to put an end to the controversy that erupted during the week, Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani’s comments about choosing a life partner on the basis of criteria such as the length of the skirt she should wear continue to spark negative reactions against the minister, crossing national borders and turning him into the subject of memes shared on social media. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT During a speech at an event organised last week, Tajani said he would advise marrying serious women who wear “longer skirts”. “Perhaps less eye-catching, but more reliable,…

Published on 26/09/2026 – 18:37 GMT+2 The traditionally particularly busy “Italian weekend” is just around the corner and on 26 and 27 September will mark the halfway point of this year’s Oktoberfest. After the extreme overcrowding last year, organisers are looking with particular attention at visitor flows in 2026. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT On the middle Wiesn Saturday in 2025, the festival grounds reached their capacity limits, so that access to the Theresienwiese had to be temporarily closed due to overcrowding. In parts of Wirtsbudenstraße there was such a crush at the time that nobody could move forwards or backwards – visitors…

Pope Leo XIV arrived in Lourdes on Saturday evening, landing at Tarbes-Lourdes-Pyrénées International Airport to begin the next stage of his four-day France visit, hours after drawing hundreds of thousands of worshippers to an outdoor Mass at Paris’ Place de la Concorde. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT Leo opened his pilgrimage in Lourdes with a prayer at the Grotto of the Apparitions, the site where Catholics believe the Virgin Mary appeared to Bernadette Soubirous in 1858 and one of the faith’s most-visited shrines. On Sunday, the pope will meet with French bishops before celebrating an outdoor Mass in the sanctuary’s Prairie, followed by…