Author: Press Room

Published on 08/10/2026 – 6:14 GMT+2 Lawmakers in Kosovo elected economist and academic Justina Shiroka Pula as the country’s new president in a marathon late-night session, moments before a constitutional deadline that would have forced a snap election. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT The election late on Tuesday was a significant moment in a political crisis in the small Balkan nation that has caused legislative deadlock for over 19 months and two early parliamentary elections. Just before Shiroka Pula was elected, lawmakers also approved a law limiting the powers of a special court in The Hague, which was set up to investigate and…

Maricarmen Abascal, whose resistance to eviction from her flat in Madrid sparked a growing nationwide protest has died. Her plight brought hundreds of thousands onto the streets and ultimately brought forward a general election after mass demonstrations across the country. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT The elderly woman, who had lived in her flat in Madrid’s Retiro district for 70 years, was eventually evicted at the fourth attempt under the gaze of the media, after she was unable to pay the increased rent. She was admitted to hospital, but she managed to force the property fund that expelled her from her home to…

Published on 08/10/2026 – 0:45 GMT+2 A Russian court sentenced a 68-year-old man who swam across the Nemunas River from Kaliningrad to Lithuania in an attempt to seek asylum to six years in prison, according to Lithuanian media Lrytas. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT He was sentenced to six years in a maximum-security penal colony and barred from administering websites or online channels for three years following his release. The man, identified by Russian media as Igor Yuryevich Odintsov, was convicted by the Baltic Fleet Military Court of “publicly justifying terrorism,” according to the court. He also holds “a negative attitude towards the…

As expected Sébastien Lecornu addressed young people in particular in his televised speech, and said the country could not be “indifferent” to the concerns of high school students, acknowledging that the “anger of young people does not come from nowhere”. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT However, he said French security forces do not have orders to “confront” protesting high school students, as allegations of police brutality mounted following days of protests that have shaken the country. Hundreds of students, police and teaching staff have been injured since the movement demanding better conditions in high schools began, and more than 6,500 people — mostly…

Drones have left a trail of destruction across the Black Sea, sinking commercial ships, setting vessels ablaze and killing civilians — exposing the challenge Europe faces in protecting one of its most vulnerable maritime regions. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT Bulgarian Prime Minister Rumen Radev described a drone attack on Tuesday, some 130km off the country’s coast, as “absolutely unacceptable”. One merchant ship sank and another was damaged. Radev did not attribute blame, with an investigation still underway. Romanian Foreign Minister Oana-Silvia Țoiu described a deadly incident off the country’s coast a day earlier as “a flagrant violation of international law”. On Monday,…

At a time when the security and energy landscape in Europe and the Eastern Mediterranean is undergoing constant change, Athens and Washington are seeking to further expand the strategic scope of their relationship. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s visit to Athens, for the sixth round of the Greece-US Strategic Dialogue, brought defence, security, energy, technology, trade and investment to the forefront. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT The talks took place against a particularly complex international backdrop, with Greece emerging as an important US partner in the region, both in security and in energy planning for Central and Eastern Europe. Two-hour Gerapetritis-Rubio meeting…

The attack took place a few minutes after 11.00 a.m. local time at the vocational school complex No. 4 in Ostrołęka. A 19-year-old student at the school attacked both pupils and teachers and passers-by with a sharp weapon before fleeing the premises. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT According to initial police reports, seven people were injured and were immediately taken to hospital. Two of them are said to be in a serious condition. As Superintendent Tomasz Żerański, spokesperson for the Ostrołęka municipal police headquarters, told the Moja Ostrołęka news website, the suspect was detained on the nearby municipal beach on the Narew river…

Hungary has cleared the way for the EU to open two more negotiating clusters with Ukraine, signalling that Budapest is ready to lift its veto if Kyiv passes a minority-rights law next week. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT The move removes a major obstacle ahead of next week’s European Council summit. It would also allow Moldova’s accession talks to advance, as the two candidate countries have been closely linked in the process. Budapest had blocked further progress until Ukraine adopted legislation strengthening the educational and cultural rights of the ethnic Hungarian minority in Transcarpathia. Following an agreement at expert level, Ukraine’s parliament, the…

Published on 07/10/2026 – 10:58 GMT+2•Updated 11:00 EU Trade Commissioner Maroš Šefčovič heads to Beijing on Wednesday for two days of talks aimed at rebalancing trade relations that Brussels sees as heavily skewed in China’s favour. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT His meetings with Chinese Commerce Minister Wang Wentao come as the EU’s trade deficit with China has reached a record €1 billion a day – and an October deadline for progress approaches. The Commission opened negotiations in June to address what officials describe as trade-distorting Chinese exports, giving Beijing until October to deliver “tangible” results. At the heart of the talks is…

The world is marking the third anniversary of the October 7 attacks by Hamas — a day that shocked Israel to its core and reverberated across the region and beyond. Meanwhile, the war against Hamas in Gaza continues to produce a human catastrophe, with tens of thousands dead and no clear path to peace. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT At the European Parliament in Strasbourg, tensions erupted at a commemorative event, with French MEP Rima Hassan accused of kicking an Israeli flag to the ground. She denied throwing down the flag but only removing it from its stand. Also she explained on X:“My…