Author: Press Room
A French court has sentenced a man to six months in prison after he threatened to “cut off the head” of a teacher at his son’s school last week. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT The defendant confronted his son’s teacher in the school car park in the southwestern town of Le Fauga last week, after the nine-year-old was moved to another class because of his behaviour. He threatened to decapitate the 58-year-old teacher before entering the school, where he repeated the threats in front of the headteacher. Remarks of ‘great violence’ The court sentenced the defendant to six months in prison, to be…
By Luca Bertuzzi & Maria Tadeo & Jorge Liboreiro Published on 11/09/2026 – 18:37 GMT+2•Updated 19:00 The French government has joined Slovakia in seeking the delisting of Russian-Uzbek businessman Alisher Usmanov, causing “huge frustration” among other EU countries, four EU diplomats told Euronews. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT Slovakia has long pushed for Usmanov and another Russian oligarch, Mikhail Fridman, to be removed from the EU’s sanctions list targeting individuals close to Vladimir Putin’s regime and the military-industrial complex sustaining the war in Ukraine. But Bratislava is no longer alone. Paris has also called for Usmanov, who has been under EU sanctions since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022,…
European Central Bank (ECB) President Christine Lagarde on Thursday criticised a proposal by left-wing French presidential candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon to cancel France’s debt held by the central bank. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT Lagarde said the proposal by the La France Insoumise (LFI) leader was “really not a good idea” during a press conference following the ECB’s announcement of another increase in its key interest rates. The president added that the move would amount to a “clear violation of the treaty” on the European Union. Mélenchon’s proposal essentially entails cancelling the 18% of France’s debt that is currently held by the country’s central…
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. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT “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…
Published on 11/09/2026 – 15:49 GMT+2 The immobilised assets from the Russian Central Bank are not “the primary focus” at the moment, the European Commission said on Friday amid growing calls to channel the €210 billion into additional support for cash-strapped Ukraine. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT Sweden, the Netherlands, Poland and Spain, backed by the Baltics, have asked the executive to devise new legal options to tap the assets. Ukraine has endorsed the initiative and pitched creating an EU-owned custodian to hold the assets kept at Euroclear, a depository in central Brussels. And this week, a cross-party group of 122 members of…
Published on 11/09/2026 – 15:00 GMT+2 Work begins at dawn in Corticeira Amorim’s cork oak forests. Cork harvesting takes place between late May and August, and much of it is still done by hand. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT “On average a tree can produce for 170 years, 200 years more or less, giving us 15 to 17 extractions.” explains Carlos Abreu, from the Communication Department at Amorim Florestal. A cork oak takes at least nine years to regenerate its bark, and around 25 before it can be harvested for the first time. These long timeframes are difficult to reconcile with the needs…
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. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT 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…
Despite public declarations that economic ties with Russia will be severed, Europe has paid an estimated €7.28 billion for liquefied natural gas (LNG) from Moscow’s Arctic Yamal project in just over eight months this year, already surpassing the €7.3 billion spent in all of 2025. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT The figures were revealed by an investigation by Urgewald, an NGO that exposes the financial institutions and companies backing climate-damaging projects. During the first eight months of 2026, European ports received 156 Yamal LNG cargoes carrying 11.39 million tonnes, compared with 142 cargoes and 10.34 million tonnes between January and August 2025 –…
Emma Bonino has died aged 78. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT The founder of More Europe, a longtime leading figure in Italy’s Radical Party and former government minister, passed away after her health deteriorated in recent weeks. Bonino had recently been admitted to the Santo Spirito hospital in Rome after a respiratory crisis. She arrived in critical condition and was transferred to intensive care so that her condition could be monitored. After an initial improvement, on 10 September, she left the ward and was moved to a private facility. In 2015, Bonino revealed she had a tumour in her left lung. She underwent…
Published on 11/09/2026 – 11:11 GMT+2 The centre-right European People’s Party (EPP) is preparing to call for a rebalancing of relations with China that stops short of open confrontation or full decoupling. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT In the upcoming paper, senior EPP lawmakers are set to argue for a general rebalancing of economic relations by making fuller use of the bloc’s existing economic leverage tools, stopping short of a full escalation, according to the early contents seen by Euronews. The EPP is the largest and most influential political family at EU level, commanding the largest number of MEPs in the European Parliament…