Author: EU News

US President Donald Trump traveled to North Carolina before continuing on to California on Friday to visit people affected by hurricanes and wildfires. The visits are Trump’s first trips outside of Washington, DC, since taking office in his second term as president. Trump critical of Biden administration policies and fire response Trump has heavily criticized California Governor Gavin Newsom and other officials for the response to the wildfires that caused widespread devastation this month. However, as the pair met on the tarmac in California, Trump struck a more positive note, saying: “I appreciate the governor coming out and meeting me,” He pledged to “get…

Parts of Ireland and Northern Ireland are grappling with the devastating impact of Storm Eowyn, which hit early Friday with wind speeds exceeding 180 kilometers per hour (112 miles per hour). One person in Ireland died when a tree fell on his car, said police reports. The storm has forced public transport to come to a standstill, closing schools and roads. Hundreds of flights were canceled at airports in the cities of Dublin, Belfast, Edinburgh and Glasgow. ESB Networks said there had been “unprecedented” damage to its network, leading to more than 700,000 homes and businesses in Ireland and almost 100,000 in Northern Ireland…

Caixabank has closed the year 2024 with the granting of 31% more mortgages in the Aragonese community. Specifically, mortgage loans have exceeded 148 million euros. The entity, which leads the mortgage market with a 25.6% share at the national level, has granted 83.5% of fixed type mortgages in Aragon. A fact that the trend of recent months is maintained despite the decrease in interest rates. It is also due to the fact that CaixaBank maintains its commercial priority in fixed mortgages due to greater simplicity, transparency and protection against types of types. In this way, 40% of the entity’s mortgage…

Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin has been elected taoiseach (prime minister) of Ireland for the second time, following intense debates in the Dáil (Ireland’s lower house of Parliament). The Dáil faced multiple suspensions on Wednesday due to heated exchanges between the government and opposition parties.  

  A Paris court sentenced a Pakistani man to 30 years in prison on Thursday for a 2020 knife attack outside Charlie Hebdo’s former offices. The court found Zaheer Mahmood, 29, guilty of attempted murder and terrorism in an Islamist-motivated attack in September 2020, which left two people injured. Mahmood believed he was attacking employees of Charlie Hebdo in Paris, not realizing that the satirical magazine had relocated after Islamists gunned down 12 of the magazine’s staff in January 2015. Attack after Charlie republished cartoons of Prophet Mohammed The knife attack came five years after the Al-Qaeda-linked attack on Charlie Hebdo’s…

For Sihem Bensedrine, a 74-year-old Tunisian rights activist, being in her cell at the Manouba women’s prison became unbearable last week. “I can’t stand the injustice that’s hitting me anymore,” she posted on her Facebook page on January 14. “I am determined to pull myself out, at all costs, of this black hole that I was arbitrarily thrown into,” she wrote. She has been on hunger strike ever since. Bensedrine has been in pre-trial detention since last August, on charges of fraud and “gaining unfair advantages,” as well as accusations of forging part of an official report while she was head of Tunisia’s Truth and Dignity Commission…

  Italy’s top court upheld the conviction of US citizen Amanda Knox for slander on Thursday, in a case that dates back nearly two decades.. Knox was convicted last year of slandering local bar owner Patrick Lumumba by implicating him in the 2007 murder of her British flatmate, Meredith Kercher. But another man, Rudy Guede, was eventually convicted of Kercher’s murder after DNA evidence linked him to the scene. He was sentenced to 16 years in prison and released early in 2021. What was the reaction to the verdict? Knox, who was not in Italy for Thursday’s verdict, described it as “surreal.””I’ve…

In Pedro Sánchez’s first visit to Valencia after the one he made to Paiporta in November with the Kings and which was interrupted by the indignation of those affected, the President of the Government has announced more money for the town councils that continue trying to recover normality. almost three months after the floods. After meeting with the 28 mayors of the municipalities that suffered the most intensely from the effects of DANA and are still in a situation of Emergency 2, Pedro Sánchez announced two new measures with which the central government will increase its contribution to the reconstruction…

Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin, who was set to be nominated, accused Sinn Féin and other opposition TDs (MPs) of orchestrating the disruption. He called the delay ‘premeditated, coordinated, and choreographed.’

Fico’s claims, based on what he described as a classified intelligence report, came ahead of a no-confidence motion against his government. The motion was abandoned after the parliamentary session was held in secret at Fico’s request, prompting the opposition to walk out in protest.  

A two-year-old boy and a 41-year-old man were killed in a stabbing at Schöntal Park in Aschaffenburg, Germany. Two others, including a child, were seriously injured.  

Panic over fire rumor leads to deadly India train accident A rumour that a fire had started on a moving train in western India led to panic and the deaths of at least 12 people. Some passengers jumped off the train with the supposed fire and were hit by another train. It happened in Maharashtra State, between Maheji and Pardhade stations, approximately 410 kilometres (255 miles) northeast of India’s financial capital, Mumbai. What do we know about crash? According to the Press Trust of India news agency, passengers jumped off the Pushpak Express train bound for Mumbai after rumours of…

Solar power surpassed coal as a source of electricity in the European Union (EU) for the first time in 2024, according to a report released on Thursday by climate think tank Ember. Solar energy has become the EU’s fastest growing power source, contributing 11% to its supply. Overall, strong growth in solar and wind have boosted the share of renewables to 47%, up from 34% in 2019. Only 10% of the block’s power was generated with coal. The report highlighted a continued decline in fossil fuel dependency, with gas generation falling for the fifth consecutive year and overall fossil-fueled power dropping…

One of the first announcements made by Donald Trump in his first week in the US presidency was his country’s exit from the Paris Agreement. It was during his speech at the World Economic Forum taking place this week in Davos that the UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, wanted to send a clear message: the institutions and industries that take steps back from the commitments to fight against Climate change is on the “bad side of history” and has made the world’s addition to fossil fuels a “Frankenstein monster.” “Several financial institutions and industries are backtracking on their climate commitments,”…

Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin is set to be reinstalled as taoiseach (prime minister) when the Irish parliament reconvenes on Wednesday. He will succeed Fine Gael’s Simon Harris, who will take on the role of tánaiste (deputy prime minister).

  The ousting of Sheikh Hasina last summer launched a new era in Bangladesh, seemingly turning the page on decades of rivalry between Hasina and former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia. Hasina, 77, is currently in self-imposed exile in India. And with 79-year-old Zia traveling to the UK to seek medical treatment this month, Bangladesh is rife with speculation on reviving a controversial doctrine that once aimed to sideline both leaders. In 2007, the military intervened in Bangladeshi politics and installed a caretaker government in what is known as the “1/11 changeover.” The new regime was accused of pursuing the so-called “minus…

Whether threatening to end climate protection policies and slap import tariffs on European goods, or envisioning a new imperialism that lays claim to the Panama Canal and Greenland, Donald Trump has been confirming all the worst fears of many German politicians. Despite this, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz congratulated the new US president on his inauguration. Wishing him “strength and success” for the tasks ahead, he added that, “[t]ogether, we can provide crucial momentum on both sides of the Atlantic for freedom, peace and security, as well as prosperity and economic development.” But Scholz was not present in Washington, nor was Germany’s opposition leader Friedrich…

The Israeli military said on Tuesday that security forces had begun a counterterrorism operation (unverified claims) in the city of Jenin in the occupied West Bank, just days after a ceasefire went into effect in the other Palestinian territory of Gaza. Demonstrating that the ceasefire meant nothing in pursuit of there genocide in Gaza and the West Bank. The Palestinian Health Ministry said at least two Palestinians were killed and others wounded in an Israeli strike on a built-up refugee camp near the city. An Israeli airstrike in the refugee camp last week killed three innocent people. Palestinians are being prevented…

  Two Americans held in Afghanistan were freed in return for a Taliban fighter serving a life sentence in the US, authorities in Kabul said on Tuesday. “An Afghan fighter Khan Mohammad imprisoned in America has been released in exchange for American citizens and returned to the country,” the Afghan Foreign Ministry said in a statement Mohammad was extradited to the US nearly two decades ago and imprisoned in California on drug trafficking charges. The US Justice Department at the time called Mohammed “a violent jihadist and narcotics trafficker” who “sought to kill US soldiers in Afghanistan using rockets.” He was released…

President Donald Trump has signed an executive order to withdraw the United States, the world’s second largest greenhouse gas emitter, from the landmark Paris climate agreement for the second time. The move places the US among just a handful of countries, including Iran and Yemen, that are not part of the international accord. The accord calls on governments to take action to cap global warming at 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) and to pursue efforts to keep temperatures below 1.5 degrees to avoid the worst impacts of the climate crisis. “I’m immediately withdrawing from the unfair, one-sided Paris climate rip-off,” the new president said as…

  Vietnam’s birth rate sank to a record low in 2024, with the total fertility rate falling to 1.91 children per woman. This marked the third consecutive year the figure remained below the replacement level of 2.1 — and it’s happening against the background of a booming economy. The country’s population currently hovers around 100 million people. The Vietnam News Agency cited Pham Vu Hoang, deputy director of the health ministry’s population authority, as saying that the population could begin to decline by mid-century. Urban centers are already feeling the impact. Ho Chi Minh City, the country’s southern economic hub,…

Beijing sends an opening message to the economic elite in Davos. The Chinese vice premier, Ding Xuexiang, warned this Tuesday against an increase in trade tensions, considering that “there are no winners in a trade war” and has assured that Beijing is not seeking to obtain a surplus but rather to increase its imports. “Protectionism leads nowhere. There are no winners in a trade war,” said the Chinese leader in his speech at the World Economic Forum. Drawing a parallel, Ding has indicated that protectionism is “like locking oneself in a dark room. Although the wind and rain are kept…

Donald Trump signed a flurry of executive orders on his inauguration day Monday. It wasn’t just the high number that was unusual ― Trump signed several presidential edicts at a red desk at Capitol One Arena in front of tens of thousands of cheering fans. The crowd of Trump supporters had gathered at the venue to watch a livestream of the inauguration and celebrate their president in person afterwards. Normally, the incoming US president signs executive orders at the Oval Office in the White House, which Trump did later in the day with more edicts. Executive orders are directives the…

Elon Musk is the world’s richest man and a key ally of US President Donald Trump. Throughout 2024, he placed his considerable cultural and financial weight behind Trump’s successful presidential campaign. The billionaire created and pumped more than $119 million (about €116 million) into a political action committee, “America PAC,” to elect Trump and spent weeks before the election encouraging voters in key battleground states to go to the polls, at one point offering million-dollar prizes. He contributed more than $280 million to Republican candidates at all levels in the 2023-24 election cycle. As a key Trump backer, observers suggest Musk, who currently has a net worth of…

Gerardo Cuerva, president of Cepyme, describes the Minimum Interprofessional Wage as “interventionism” on the part of the State and points out that the Government does it for “political wills.” This is how Cuerva spoke this Monday prior to a new meeting on the SMI: “Salary increases of more than 80% in eight years due to political will are not necessary at the moment we are in. We do not know the memory of these data and so It is difficult to support the why and the consequences. The SMI is an intervention by the Government, which has power, but I…