Entertainment
-
New European Songbook aims to foster cultural exchange across the EUThe European Union Songbook Association will unveil the EU Songbook on November 5, featuring 164 songs from across the European Union. The collection includes three iconic tracks by01 November 2024Read More...
-
Croatian city named among top European autumn destinationsWhile many travelers choose to take their holidays in the summer, others find autumn to be the ideal season for exploring Europe. With fewer crowds, more affordable22 September 2024Read More...
-
Antwerp to build new public heritage depot to house 800,000 cultural artifactsAntwerp will soon have a new heritage depot in the Zuid district, designed to house the city’s entire heritage collection of 800,000 items and make them accessible to20 September 2024Read More...
-
Belgian beaches covered in litter after busy tropical summer dayThe tropical summer weather on Monday drew large crowds to the Belgian coast, resulting in plenty of beach fun and a vibrant atmosphere—but also a significant13 August 2024Read More...
-
29 suspected drug dealers arrested at Tomorrowland festival, court hearings scheduledDuring the two weekends of the Tomorrowland festival in Boom, Antwerp province, authorities apprehended a total of 29 suspected drug dealers on and around the30 July 2024Read More...
-
Cider Festival returns to Prague with over 100 varietiesAre you a fan of cider? Experience over 100 different varieties at the Cider Festival taking place on September 16 and 17.29 July 2024Read More...
-
Tens of thousands celebrate at Rotterdam Summer CarnivalThe Summer Carnival in Rotterdam was celebrated with a joyful atmosphere, drawing tens of thousands of attendees to the city's center. The vibrant street parade,28 July 2024Read More...
Politics
-
France summons North Korean diplomat over troops in Russia, ministry reportsFrance’s foreign ministry summoned North Korea’s general delegate in France last week to express strong disapproval over the deployment of North Korean troops to Russia, emphasizing thatRead More...
-
Slovak PM Fico clashes with British Ambassador over Russian TV appearanceSlovak Prime Minister Robert Fico has come under fire from British Ambassador Nigel Baker following Fico's appearance on Russian state television, where he criticized Western policies onRead More...
-
France and Morocco sign €10 billion in agreements amid Macron's diplomatic visitOn Monday, France and Morocco reached agreements worth up to €10 billion during French President Emmanuel Macron's three-day visit to Morocco, aimed at easing recent diplomaticRead More...
-
Orbán of Hungary to visit Georgia amid EU concerns over election integrityHungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán is scheduled to visit Georgia on Monday to meet with Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze following a highly disputed election.Read More...
-
Maribor: the top European destination to visit this autumnMaribor, Slovenia’s second-largest city, has been named the top European destination to visit this autumn by European Best Destinations, following its recognition as Europe’s best culinaryRead More...
News
-
Romanian PM anticipates full Schengen membership by spring 2025Romanian Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu expressed optimism on Thursday, November 7, stating that Romania could achieve full Schengen Area accession with its land borders by the spring ofRead More...
-
Belgium revises approach to Afghan women’s asylum applicationsBelgium’s outgoing State Secretary for Asylum and Migration, Nicole de Moor (CD&V), emphasized the country’s longstanding commitment to acknowledging the dangerous realities faced byRead More...
-
Polish and German authorities dismantle extremist militant group known as "Saxon Separatists"Polish and German authorities have successfully dismantled a militant far-right extremist organization known as the “Saxon Separatists,” arresting eight suspects during coordinated raidsRead More...
-
Spain deploys 7,500 troops to flood zone amid rising anger over slow responseSpain is deploying 7,500 troops to its flood-stricken eastern region, the government announced on Monday, as anger mounts over the response to the disaster that has claimed at leastRead More...
-
Germany seeks forgiveness for nazi-era atrocities in GreeceGerman President Frank-Walter Steinmeier made a heartfelt appeal for forgiveness on Thursday during a visit to the village of Kandanos on Crete, which was devastated by Nazi forces duringRead More...
-
Amsterdam's 750th anniversary: free trees available for residentsAmsterdam residents will have the opportunity to pick up a free tree on Saturday, as part of a special initiative celebrating the city’s 750th anniversary. The Healthy City Foundation isRead More...
-
Belgium's fast-track asylum procedure rejects 96% of applicantsBelgium's new "accelerated procedure" for handling asylum claims has rejected 96% of applications so far, according to a report by De Tijd. The process was introduced by outgoing StateRead More...
-
Report calls for enhanced coordination among European intelligence servicesFormer Finnish President Sauli Niinistö has called for improved collaboration among European intelligence agencies, proposing a central body to coordinate intelligence efforts across the EU.Read More...
-
France to implement identity checks at all land bordersStarting this week, France will extend identity controls to all its land borders, expanding a measure that has been in place at the French-Italian border since 2015. The broader border controlRead More...
Most Read
- Teen held after US woman killed in London stabbings
- Football: Farhad Moshiri adamant Everton deal above board
- Greece hails new post-bailout chapter but concerns remain
- The Kokorev case caused wide discussion in Brussels
- EU accession talks stir debate in Moldova: insights from Gagauzia's leader, Yevgenia Gutsul
Economics
They allow you to climb the steepest streets of Madrid without sweating, even on sultry summer days: more than 50,000 residents of the Spanish capital have signed up for a public electric bike share system.
In the shadow of the San Ildefonso church in the heart of Madrid, Anne Stauder, a tourist from Luxembourg, is trying out a BiciMAD bike for the first time.
"We came from Luxembourg with our four bicycles inside our car -- my children, my husband and me -- and we have visited the city like that for 10 days. But I wanted to try the electric bike because Madrid is hilly," the 44-year-old said.
The white bicycles work just like a regular bike but an electric motor kicks in to help with pedalling, and most importantly it give an extra push up hills.
The city of some three million people launched its electric bike share system in June 2014.
While other European cities like London and Paris set up shared bicycles schemes earlier, Madrid is the first major city to offer a system that only uses electric bicycles.
The argument behind BiciMAD is that with only regular bikes, they accumulate in low-lying areas and need to be shuffled around by trucks to redistribute them to higher ground -- as happens in Barcelona.
Margot Bonilla, a 28-year-old IT technician, started using the electric bikes in July and no longer uses the metro to get around the city.
"You exercise, you don't pollute and you move around fast. It's just a bit expensive for my taste," she said.
An annual membership to the bike sharing scheme costs 25 euros ($27.7) while renting a bicycle costs 50 cents during the first half hour, then 60 cents for the next half hour.
By comparison a ride on the Madrid metro costs 1.5 euros for travel in the centre of the city.
Another problem is a lack of bicycles, Bonilla added.
"Yesterday I had to walk home because I went to two stations and did not find any," she said, repeating a common complaint from regular users of the system.
- Vandalised and stolen -
The city rents the bicycles from Spanish firm Bonopark, which since 2013 has supplied electric bicycles for a similar scheme in the northern Spanish city of San Sebastian.
"We have a thousand bicycles available at 160 stations right now," said the head of the BiciMAD system, Joaquim Jimenez.
Two American women will on Friday become the first female soldiers to graduate from the elite and hugely demanding Ranger School, the US Army announced.
"Congratulations to all of our new Rangers. Each Ranger School graduate has shown the physical and mental toughness to successfully lead organizations at any level.
"This course has proven that every soldier, regardless of gender, can achieve his or her full potential," Secretary of the Army John McHugh said Monday.
"We owe soldiers the opportunity to serve successfully in any position where they are qualified and capable, and we continue to look for ways to select, train, and retain the best soldiers to meet our nation's needs," he added.
Nineteen women began the rigorous training program in April but 17 were eliminated.
South Korea announced Wednesday a series of heavy-weaponry, live-fire military drills with the United States as part response to a recent landmine attack blamed on North Korea.
Four exercises, involving tanks, howitzers, attack helicopters and fighter bombers, will be held in the coming weeks in an area around 30 kilometers (18 miles) south of the North Korean border, the defence ministry said.
"This will show our preparedness to retaliate against any provocative acts, including such a treacherous act of aggression as the landmine attack", a ministry spokesman said.
The first drill was to take place later Wednesday, with the last one conducted towards the end of the month.
Now 73 and sitting in his Tokyo home, Yohachi Nakajima fights back tears when he thinks of his Chinese adopted mother and the farming village he once called home -- a boy lost inside imperial Japan's crumbling empire.
He was just three years old when Tokyo surrendered on August 15, 1945, ending World War II but also leaving about 1.5 million Japanese stranded in Manchukuo, Tokyo's puppet regime in northeastern China.
Farmers, labourers and young military reserves had migrated into the region from the early 1930s, attracted by government promises of a better life as Japan marched across Asia in a brutal expansionist campaign.
Nakajima's father, Hiroshi, was among those drawn to Manchukuo, but the frontier life proved miserable and the elder Nakajima was drafted into the military just three weeks before Japan's surrender. His fate is unknown.
Ill and poverty-stricken, Nakajima's mother sought out a local family to care for her son.
"Japan was an invader for them, clearly," Nakajima, who now lives in Tokyo, told AFP.
"It must have been pure humanity that convinced them to adopt and raise me, a child of the aggressor."
The malnourished boy, stomach bulging from starvation, was brought into the centre of the village as curious locals looked on.
One woman, Sun Zhenqin, volunteered to be his guardian and soon gave her scrawny charge a new name, "Lai Fu" (good luck coming).
"She would feed me from her mouth and gently massaged my stomach," Nakajima said.
"She was a midwife. It must have been almost on impulse that she took me in."
- 'Pearl in the palm' -
After Emperor Hirohito announced his country's surrender, the situation for Japanese migrants trapped in northeastern China deteriorated, with tens of thousands dying of hunger and disease as a frigid winter set in later in the year.
Some migrants-turned-refugees resorted to mass suicide, cramming into small houses that they blew up with grenades, while roving groups of sword-wielding male migrants stabbed women and children to death to end their suffering.
It is believed that just a handful of children were adopted by local families. Many others died of starvation, sickness and some were even killed by fellow Japanese out of mercy. There are no reliable statistics on how many survived.
The mother of Sun Shouxun, 58, a Chinese man who now lives in the northeastern city of Changchun, was one of those who took in a Japanese child.
He described his adopted Japanese sister as "a pearl in the palm" for his loving parents.
"Public opinion at the time was rather strong against raising a Japanese child and our relatives also opposed it, but my mother insisted on doing so," he said.
It is not known exactly how many Japanese children found new homes in China like Nakajima and Sun's sister, but Tokyo has confirmed just over 2,800.
Nakajima returned to Japan when he was 16 and afterwards spoke just once with his adopted mother, in 1966, during a trip to China when he acted as an interpreter on a cultural exchange.
However, the country, by then in the grips of the chaotic Cultural Revolution, was largely closed to foreigners and Nakajima only made brief contact by telephone with Sun who could only shout "Lai Fu! Lai Fu!" before the call got cut off.
The two never talked again and Sun died in 1975.
- 'No phone calls, no letters' -
Tokyo's efforts to repatriate those left behind in China only began several years after 1972, when it normalised diplomatic ties with Beijing.
New Zealanders were presented with 40 flag options Monday as the country moved a step closer towards voting on whether it wanted to change its national standard.
The government-appointed panel overseeing the project released its long list of designs, chosen from more than 10,000 public submissions.
The 40 will now be subject to further scrutiny, including an intensive intellectual property review, before being whittled down to four to be put to a public vote later this year.
A second referendum is planned for next year when the country will choose between the existing flag -- which features Britain's Union Jack -- and the most popular new design.
Project head John Burrows said the potential new flag had to be unmistakably from New Zealand and "celebrate us as a progressive, inclusive nation that is connected to its environment, and has a sense of its past and vision for its future".
"It is important that those designs are timeless, can work in a variety of contexts, are simple, uncluttered, balanced and have good contrast."
Common themes among the 40 flag offerings are silver ferns, the symbol used by New Zealand sports teams, and the Southern Cross constellation. Colour schemes are predominantly red, black or blue, and white.
A draft of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's statement to mark the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II includes the word "apology", public broadcaster NHK reported Monday.
The closely-watched remarks -- expected on Friday -- will be heavily scrutinised by China and Korea, which dispute Tokyo's version of its wartime history and who are waiting to see if Abe repeats earlier apologies for Japan's militarism in the 20th century.
NHK said an original draft of Abe's statement included the words "apology" and "aggression".
Those words appear in a landmark 1995 statement by then premier Tomiichi Murayama, who expressed "deep remorse" and a "heartfelt apology" over Japan's actions.
The so-called Murayama Statement said Japan "through its colonial rule and aggression, caused tremendous damage and suffering to the people of many countries, particularly to those of Asian nations".
Also Monday, the right-leaning Sankei newspaper said Abe was likely to use the word "aggression", though not necessarily linking it to Japan's warring.