Author: EU News

Authorities in Greece on Thursday moved to declare a state of emergency on the island of Santorini as persistent tremors continued hiking fears of a possible bigger earthquake. The region has been rattled by thousands of tremors and more than a hundred earthquakes since January 26. Emergency measures in effect until March 3 The Greek Civil Protection Ministry issued the declaration that allows authorities to quickly mobilize heavy equipment and emergency personnel. The ministry said the declaration would be in force from February 1 and would remain in effect until March 3. Government spokesman Pavlos Marinakis on Thursday said Greece’s “entire state mechanism…

South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa came out in defense of his country and said South Africa will not be bullied by Trump during a national address on Thursday, asserting that South Africa would not be bullied by the US administration and Elon Musk. Elon Musk is at odds with the South African government, primarily for domestic DEI issues but also because the are at odds over the Rwanda and DR Congo conflict. On the one side you have the RDF and the M23 rebel group and on the other you SADC (Southern African Development Community) and the DR Congo army.…

Is Ethiopia’s Tigray on the brink of a fresh conflict, is it ready to explode. Insecurity in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region has noticeably increased in the last few days.  Many Tigrayans told WTX they are afraid that recent political tensions within the once-dominant Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) could lead to renewed violence — more than two years after one of Ethiopia’s deadliest conflicts claimed nearly 600,000 lives. Amid soaring prices, some Tigray locals have stormed banks to withdraw money to buy and hoard food and other essential goods. Something that is happening throughout Africa. Many gas stations have run…

The European Central Bank has a new reason to be optimistic. One of the last pieces that lack the ECB to be able to sing victory in its fight against inflation is to get salaries to moderate their growth in the euro zone, and these are already beginning to give encouraging signs for the Central Bank. The favorite ECB indicator to anticipate future movements in the salary front has given this week a great joy to the central bank: the growth rate has been moderated so much, that it has fallen to the lowest level of the last inflationary crisis,…

The Aga Khan, imam of the Ismaili Muslims, has died “peacefully” at the age of 88 in Lisbon, his foundation announced on Tuesday. “His Highness Prince Karim Al-Hussaini, Aga Khan IV, 49th hereditary Imam of the Shia Ismaili Muslims and direct descendant of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), passed away peacefully in Lisbon on 4 February 2025, aged 88, surrounded by his family,” the Aga Khan Foundation posted on social media. “The announcement of his designated successor will follow,” it added in relation to who could become the fifth person to hold the post since the 19th century. Who was the…

The recovery plan announced by the Generalitat Valenciana and that has not yet been reflected in any document will have as main actors the PWC consultant and the state company Tragsatec. Both will jointly receive 4.5 million for consulting and assistance to prepare the road map to face the day after the DANA and try to recover the levels prior to destruction. The Second Vice Presidency and Department for the economic and social recovery occupied PWC through an emergency procedure. Although Gan Pampols publicly assured that a contest was held to which four consulting firms were presented, the truth is…

US President Donald Trump on Saturday said he ordered military airstrikes on a senior “Islamic State” attack planner and others from the terror network in Somalia. “These killers, who we found hiding in caves, threatened the United States and our Allies,” Trump said on Truth Social. “The strikes destroyed the caves they live in, and killed many terrorists without, in any way, harming civilians.” Strikes coordinated with Somalia’s government The strikes were carried out in the Golis Mountains, a range on the northern coast of the Somali Peninsula, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said, adding that the mission was coordinated with Somalia’s government. An…

Beethoven or birds — but no room on new euro notes for Irish cultural icons The European Central Bank (ECB) is considering using European cultural figures on the front of its next series of euro banknotes but 14 of the 20 countries that use the currency, including Ireland, will not be represented. In an update on this long-running plan to update the euro banknotes, the ECB announced that it has selected motifs to illustrate the two possible themes for future euro banknotes. The first option, ‘European culture’, focuses on shared cultural spaces and famous Europeans. The second is ‘Rivers and birds’ and…

President Zelensky says Russia attacking own civilians in Kursk. As Ukraine accused Russia of bombing a boarding school sheltering civilians in the Russian town of Sudzha, which is currently occupied by Ukraine. At the same time, Russian officials said Kyiv was behind the air strike, which they described as a “crime.” “Russian aviation struck a boarding school in the town of Sudzha, Kursk region, with a guided aerial bomb,” the Ukrainian army’s general staff said on Telegram. “The strike was carried out on purpose.” Ukrainian officials said at least four people were dead. Kyiv deployed its forces across the Russian…

Donald Trump’s approach is clear: make immigration and asylum more difficult, deport undocumented immigrants, close the borders. He has already signed several executive orders to implement his plans. Executive orders allow a US president to take action without the approval of Congress. Though Trump seems to be making particularly extensive use of this tool, they are not uncommon as a means of taking urgent measures or concretizing existing laws. What do Trump’s executive orders mean for migrants? Executive orders can be challenged in court if they are deemed to be unconstitutional or to interfere with the powers of the states. They…

What is happening in the DR Congo now? The M23 rebel group was advancing towards another city in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) a UN expert said on Friday, just days after seizing the key eastern city of Goma, which is close to the Rwandan border. Large parts of the city are now under rebel control in what’s considered the worst escalation of a long-running conflict in more than a decade. The M23 have been financed and armed extensively to take on a country the size of the DRC. The world media would have you believe that this…

The third sector of Social Action conducted 47 million interventions in 2023 and its action in economic terms, accounts for 1.44% of GDP-with economic revenues slightly above 19,000 million euros per year–, according to The Barometer of the Third Sector of Social Action (TSAS), presented by the Social Action NGO platform at the headquarters of the Eleven Foundation of Madrid. Among other data, the document reveals that the sector has more than 600,000 salaried people; That 7 out of 10 are women and more than 70% have university studies, and that there are about 1.5 million volunteers. The barometer is…

A small plane carrying 6 crashes in Philadelphia. It was a medical plane crashed shortly after takeoff in the US city of Philadelphia on Friday. Jet Rescue Air Ambulance, the company that operated the plane, said its aircraft was carrying six people. The plane crashed near shopping mall in a residential area. That included four crew members, one child medical patient and the patient’s mother on board. There is no confirmation that any survived, the company said. Small plane carrying 6 crashes in Philadelphia All six people on the plane were Mexican nationals, the Mexican Foreign Ministry said. The ministry added on…

A total of 422 million euros. This is the figure that Aragon would stop receiving with the elimination of the criteria of depopulation and orography within the framework of autonomous financing. Of this amount, about 320.9 million euros would correspond to the orography, while 101.1 million euros would be for depopulation. They are the initial calculations that have been made in the Department of Finance after yesterday a document was received from the central government in which the absence of sufficient consensus to contemplate these two criteria is aimed to contemplate these two criteria -Despoblation and Orography-, In regional financing.…

Trump threatens BRICS with tariffs if they replace US dollar. The US President did not hold back and threatened BRICS member states with 100% tariffs on Thursday to dissuade them from replacing the US dollar as reserve currency. Donald Trump had made a similar statement right after winning the November 2024 elections. Trump threatens BRICS with tariffs “We are going to require a commitment from these seemingly hostile countries that they will neither create a new BRICS currency, nor back any other currency to replace the mighty US dollar or, they will face 100% Tariffs,” he said on his Truth social media…

Germany offers maternity leave for women after miscarriage following a rigorous debate in parliament. The German Bundestag, the lower house of parliament, on Thursday evening passed a law that extends maternity leave protection to women who suffer a miscarriage after 13 weeks of pregnancy. Maternity leave for women after miscarriage A large majority of lawmakers voted in favor of the bill which aims to support women during a period of physical and emotional recovery, said Sarah Lahrkamp, a lawmaker from the Social Democratic Party (SPD). There were two nearly identical bills on the subject. As part of a cross-party agreement, the parliamentary…

An explosion at arms munitions factory in Spain injures six people. They were injured after an explosion in ammunition department in factory in Spain on Thursday. Emergency services said one of them was in a serious condition. There was initial speculation that the plant was sabotaged by Russia, as the company are one of the biggest suppliers to Ukraine and Israel. But these were denied by site officials, who said an internal investigation is underway. Explosion at arms munitions factory Firefighters had to be called in to extinguish the fire. It was located in Javali Viejo in the southeastern Murcia…

The Valencian Tax Agency (ATV), the Agency of the Generalitat Valenciana in charge of managing the collection of own taxes and assigned to the autonomous government, collected 2,541 million euros last year, 7.8% more despite fiscal sales applied after the change of regional executive in mid -2023. An annual balance that was presented by the Valencian President Carlos Mazón, who took advantage of these data from the first full year at the head of the Consell to breastfeed from his fiscal policy and the first taxes that approved when assuming the Generalitat. According to the Popular Baron, with that balance…

Swedish police on Thursday said five people had been arrested over the fatal shooting of an Iraqi man who carried out several Quran burnings. The man had been due to attend Stockholm District Court later in the day for the verdict in a case over “offenses of agitation against an ethnic or national group.” What we know so far The incident occurred indoors and when police arrived they found a man who had been “hit by shots and the man was taken to the hospital,” the statement said. Police later said they had made several arrests in connection with the shooting.…

As hundreds of thousands of Palestinians return to the bombed out ruins of their homes in northern Gaza, Israelis await the return of more loved ones held hostage in the enclave. One of those hostages is 29-year-old Arbel Yehoud, who was supposed to have been released last Saturday. However, the Islamist militant group Hamas, whom the EU, US and others consider a terror organization, released four female Israeli soldiers instead. In response to the violation of the current ceasefire agreement, Israel promptly halted the return of Palestinians heading north. Yehoud’s release was a precondition laid down by Israel before it ultimately agreed…

South Sudan, the world’s youngest nation, has resumed oil production after nearly a year-long shutdown caused by the ongoing conflict in neighboring Sudan. The announcement of the restart, which began on January 8, 2025, has been met with optimism as well as skepticism, as the country continues to struggle with chronic economic challenges, corruption, and institutional weaknesses. South Sudan’s minister of petroleum, Puot Kang Chol, believes, however, that fresh opportunities await. “We know that our economy is suffering,” he said during a press briefing in Juba. “We believe that with resumption, resources will be back on the table.” A lifeline for the government? Chol confirmed the…

Some three years ago, a Danish public radio podcast brought to light one of the darkest chapters in relations between Denmark and Greenland: the so-called IUD scandal. The podcast made public a Danish government program that forced thousands of young women in Greenland, many of them minors, to have intrauterine devices (IUD coils) inserted into their wombs as a form of compulsory birth control in the 1960s and 1970s. Although Greenland — which is mostly populated by indigenous Inuit — was no longer a Danish colony after 1953, it was nevertheless not independent, but rather a Danish province. It was…

Trump administration rescinds memo to halt federal funding The Trump administration on Wednesday rescinded a sweeping directive to freeze all federal grants and aid after the move was temporarily blocked by a federal judge. The funding freeze, which came into action on Tuesday, is believed to have disrupted tens of billions of dollars in spending across healthcare, education, disaster relief, housing assistance and other programs. A memo sent by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to government agencies included a series of yes or no questions including “does this program promote gender ideology?” and “does this program promote or support in…

US President Donald Trump’s administration has revoked a decision that would protect some 600,000 Venezuelans from deportation, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said on Wednesday. Trump’s predecessor, Joe Biden, had ordered an extension of the deportation relief from April 2025 to October 2026. What do we know about the Trump administration’s plan to deport Venezuelans? Noem told the Fox News broadcaster that she had rescinded the Biden administration’s extension, which also gave Venezuelans access to work permits through the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) program. Trump had already attempted to block the program during his first term in 2017-2021, but the…

The public-private collaboration between Uparpo and the Galician Institute for Economic Promotion (IGAPE)-dependent of the Xunta-resulted in in 2024 a new increase in activity for the SGR and greater access to financing with autonomic public product for Galician SMEs . This casuistry occurs in an exercise that has been characterized in the sector due to the combination of a productivity drop attributed to the increase in labor costs and high interest rates before the de -escalation initiated in June. In this context, Robepo gave last year 462 guarantees to 343 companies through the IGAPE lines, for a joint amount of…