Entertainment
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Coffee prices keep climbing in Czech establishments
The cost of a cup of coffee in Czech restaurants and cafés has increased by 4% over the past year, now averaging CZK 57.80, according to data from the Dotykačka point-of-sale system.15 June 2025Read More... -
Swiss tourism set for record-breaking Summer
Following a record-setting winter in 2024/25, Swiss tourism is poised for continued growth this summer. According to economist Simon Flury from BAK Economics, the number of overnight27 May 2025Read More... -
French actor Gérard Depardieu convicted of sexual assault
French cinema icon Gérard Depardieu was found guilty by a Paris court on Tuesday of sexually assaulting two women on a film set in 2021. The 76-year-old actor received an 18-month13 May 2025Read More... -
Strong public support in Switzerland for social media ban for under-16s
A large majority of Swiss residents support banning social media use for children under the age of 16, according to a new survey. Conducted by the Sotomo research institute, the study found11 May 2025Read More... -
World’s largest Zara store to open in Antwerp
Spanish fashion giant Inditex, owner of the Zara brand, has announced plans to open the world’s largest Zara store in Antwerp. The new flagship location will be housed in the Meir Corner06 May 2025Read More... -
Swiss wine consumption drops sharply in 2024
Wine consumption in Switzerland saw a notable decline in 2024, falling by nearly 8% compared to the previous year, according to the Federal Office for Agriculture (FOAG). Swiss-produced30 April 2025Read More...
Politics
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EU agrees on stricter rules for suspending visa-free travel over security and rights concerns
More flexibility to respond to security threats, “golden passports,” and human rights violationsRead More... -
Macron visits Greenland to show EU support amid U.S. interest
French President Emmanuel Macron arrived in Greenland on Sunday, delivering a strong message of European solidarity and reaffirming support for the island’s territorial integrity.Read More... -
European foreign ministers poised to increase pressure on Russia
Foreign ministers from major European nations announced on Thursday their readiness to intensify pressure on Russia, potentially through new sanctions targeting the energy and bankingRead More... -
Switzerland sees growth in bureaucracy and public spending
Swiss municipalities are employing more administrative staff than ever before, according to a new analysis by the Institute for Swiss Economic Policy (IWP) at the University of Lucerne.Read More... -
Denmark among EU countries with fewest asylum applications
Denmark continues to rank among the EU nations receiving the lowest number of asylum applications, according to new data from the Ministry of Immigration and Integration.Read More...
News
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Warsaw hosts 2025 World Justice Forum
This week, Warsaw is the meeting ground for hundreds of global advocates for the rule of law, as it hosts the 2025 World Justice Forum. The event, co-organised by Poland's Ministry of Justice,Read More... -
Germany to add 11,000 military personnel by year’s end: Bild
Germany plans to expand its armed forces by 11,000 personnel by the end of 2025, according to a report by Bild on Saturday. Citing government sources, the tabloid said the increase includesRead More... -
Sharp rise in Belgian property prices following tax cuts
House and apartment prices in Belgium have surged, driven by a recent cut in registration fees for property purchases, according to new data released by the Belgian statistics agency Statbel.Read More... -
Dutch residents smoking and drinking less, exercising more, and feeling healthier
People in the Netherlands are making healthier lifestyle choices and increasingly following the World Health Organization’s (WHO) guidelines, according to the 2024 Health Monitor by StatisticsRead More... -
French financial giants launch European defence investment fund
Four leading French financial institutions have joined forces to launch a new investment fund focused on European defence and security, amid growing momentum across the continent toRead More... -
Flanders becomes largest shareholder in Brussels Airport with €2.77 billion Investment
The Flemish government is making a major investment in Brussels Airport, acquiring a 39% stake through its investment arm PMV. This €2.77 billion move makes Flanders the airport’s largestRead More... -
EU tackles military mobility challenges
In a bid to improve the rapid and efficient movement of military personnel, equipment, and assets across the European Union and beyond, the European Commission and theRead More... -
French police detain Palestinian man after Rabbi attacked with chair
French police detained a Palestinian man from Gaza on Friday after Rabbi Elie Lemmel was struck with a chair in the Paris suburb of Neuilly-sur-Seine, marking the second assault against theRead More...
Most Read
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Economics
Boys with a low resting heart rate in their late teens run a higher risk of turning to a life of violent crime when grown, a study suggests.
The findings could lead to improved ways to stop certain people from indulging in crime before it is too late.
Experts say that low resting heart rate (RHR) is either an indicator of a chronically low level of psychological arousal, which may lead some people to seek stimulating experiences, or a marker of weakened responses to aversive and stressful stimuli, which can lead to reckless behavior.
"Our results confirm that, in addition to being associated with aggressive and antisocial outcomes in childhood and adolescence, low RHR increases the risk for violent and nonviolent antisocial behaviors in adulthood," the authors conclude.
Eating too much salt can cause high blood pressure, heart disease and strokes. And now New Yorkers will get that warning loud and clear when they browse a restaurant menu.
New York on Wednesday became the first city in the United States to demand that chain restaurants put salt warnings on their menus in a measure unanimously approved by the health board.
It is the latest in a long line of public health measures, including a pioneering ban on smoking since adopted across the world designed to encourage healthier behavior.
"High sodium intake is dangerous. It is linked to increased blood pressure and risk of heart disease and stroke," said the city health department.
Eritrea is a day's trek through dusty hills from the refugee camp in Ethiopia, a way station for tens of thousands of Eritreans who have fled their oppressive homeland.
But while life is tough in the town-like camp of thousands -- living in baking heat in simple canvas tents or brick houses -- no one thinks of going back, or of staying in the camps.
Escape from the hermetic Red Sea state means only one thing -- to travel onwards for a better life.
"We want to go, to go anywhere," 25-year old Abraham told AFP in Hitsats camp in northeastern Ethiopia, just south of the Eritrean border.
For those who have fled the dictatorial regime of President Isaias Afwerki, which has created a repressive system in which people are routinely arrested on a whim, detained, tortured, killed or disappeared, a return home offers only a prison sentence -- or worse -- for treason.
Once they have left, the only possible move is onwards abroad - and for most, that dream is of an eventual life in Europe.
The Horn of Africa nation is no war zone, yet the people of the England-sized arid country of some six million people make up the third-largest number of those risking the dangerous crossing to Europe, after Syrians and Afghans.
New arrivals in the camp dismiss the risks of ruthless people smugglers and treacherous waters to plot travel onwards north to Sudan, and then on to Europe.
But for many their dreams are stalled, waiting for the hard cash needed to pay the traffickers to smuggle them onwards.
- 'We have no choice' -
"Germany, Canada, England, Switzerland," the young people say in turn, all countries with significant Eritrean communities.
Like most refugees here, they worry of reprisals against their family still in Eritrea if they give their full name.
"If it is possible to go illegally to Sudan, we will go. We know it's dangerous," Abraham added. "We know we can lose our lives, but we have no choice."
Officially, Hitsats camp houses nearly 45,000 refugees, although in reality, the number is far lower, according to aid workers.
Ethiopian authorities mark arrivals but not departures of the 112,000 registered Eritrean refugees into the country.
Perhaps less than 40,000 are in the country today: Eritreans use Ethiopia only as a stepping stone to travel onwards.
"No one wants to stay in the camps where they have nothing else to do," said Dennis Likule, a resettlement expert from the United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR.
"If we had opportunities for the refugees to be out of camps and have something meaningful then we would be encouraging a certain percentage to stay around and integrate."
It's been nearly 40 years since Soko Phay fled Cambodia with her parents to France where she was welcomed with "an extraordinary generosity," but now she sees a country that "has changed, and not for the better".
For many years, France topped the list of destinations for asylum-seekers in Europe, but by last year, it had dropped to fourth -- behind Germany, Sweden and Italy.
With 64,130 applications in 2014 it even saw a slight drop, despite the huge 44-percent increase in refugee arrivals across the continent.
This year hundreds of thousands more have headed to Europe.
Like many of its neighbours, France lacks the resources to cope with newcomers, with only 30,000 hostel beds for asylum-seekers and ever-longer waiting times for cases to be decided.
Soko Phay contrasts the difficult stories of Syrian exiles with her own arrival in Paris in 1976, aged seven, after her family fled the horrors of the "Killing Fields".
"Maybe I just had a child's point of view, but I have wonderful memories," she said, recalling holidays with French families and caring teachers.
Now she views with sadness "the nationalist turn" in her beloved adopted home.
Part of the reason may be context. France's economy is sluggish, with unemployment over 10 percent and widespread disillusionment with its leaders.
That has been fertile ground for the far-right National Front (FN), which blames much of the country's woes on foreigners and openly opposes all immigration -- "both legal and clandestine," as leader Marine Le Pen reiterated last weekend.
The FN's views are rubbing off on voters -- a 2013 poll found three-quarters of French people thought there were too many foreigners, up from 46 percent in 2009, and the party is soaring in the polls, coming first in European elections last year.
Its political rivals feel the need to match its hardline language. Opposition leader and former president Nicolas Sarkozy recently compared the influx of migrants to "a burst water-pipe".
- Historical refuge -
This is not how the French Republic was first conceived. The vow to provide "asylum to foreigners banished from their countries in the cause of liberty" was written into the 1793 constitution.
For a decade up to 1985, France welcomed 110,000 "boat people" escaping communist regimes in Cambodia and Vietnam. It took some 15,000 Chileans after the 1973 coup by General Augusto Pinochet.
The International Monetary Fund said Thursday that the Federal Reserve has the room to hold off from raising interest rates for the moment amid a "pretty bumpy" global economic situation.
Most seabirds have already eaten plastic in the oceans, and scientists project that 99 percent will have done so by 2050.
Plastics are pervasive in the world's waters due to pollution, and birds -- including albatrosses, penguins and gulls -- can mistake brightly colored bottle tops or other fragments for food.
Birds can become sick and die if they ingest too much plastic.
Researchers reviewed studies on 135 bird species between 1962 and 2012, then made projections based on the currently known level of plastics in the oceans.
"For the first time, we have a global prediction of how wide-reaching plastic impacts may be on marine species -- and the results are striking," said Chris Wilcox, senior research scientist at Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO).
"We predict, using historical observations, that 90 percent of individual seabirds have eaten plastic. This is a huge amount and really points to the ubiquity of plastic pollution."
Research done in the early 1960s showed that, back then, less than five percent of seabirds had ingested plastic.
But that number has soared in recent decades, reaching 80 percent in 2010, with even more birds likely to be affected in years to come, the study found.
"We predict that plastics ingestion is increasing in seabirds, that it will reach 99 percent of all species by 2050, and that effective waste management can reduce this threat," said the study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), a peer-reviewed US journal.
Ever since commercial plastic production began in the 1950s, production has doubled every 11 years, according to background information in the article.
"Thus, between 2015 and 2026, we will make as much plastic as has been made since production began," said the study.
Scientists have documented concentrations of up to 580,000 plastic pieces per square kilometer in the world's oceans.
But the full extent of plastics' impact on birds is not yet known.
Barack Obama arrives in Alaska on Monday for a trip aimed at highlighting the pace of climate change - but not everyone in this oil-rich state is welcoming the US president with open arms.
Rising sea levels, shrinking glaciers, melting permafrost: the effects of climate change are stark in this vast but sparsely populated state.
Obama, who will speak at the closing of an international conference on the Arctic, wants to shore up public support to tackle what he calls "one of the greatest challenges we face this century."
His visit comes just months before a crucial conference in Paris -- known as COP21 -- in December that will aim to cap global temperature increases by two degrees Celsius (3.6 degree Fahrenheit) over pre-industrial levels.
"What's happening in Alaska is happening to us," Obama said before leaving Washington. "It's our wakeup call. And as long as I'm president, America will lead the world to meet the threat of climate change before it's too late."
Obama, who will visit glaciers and also meet fishermen who work the front lines of a changing environment, is clearly looking for strong images to highlight his message.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Friday approved the makeup of the provisional government that will run the country until November 1 elections, including for the first time pro-Kurdish MPs.
"Our president... approved the interim cabinet formed under the leadership of Prime Minister Mr Davutoglu," the presidency said in a statement after a nearly one-hour meeting between Erdogan and Premier Ahmet Davutoglu.
The two pro-Kurdish lawmakers are from the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), marking the first time a Kurdish party has been represented in the government.
The newly appointed cabinet will not have to undergo a vote of confidence in parliament, as required in the constitution. The president's approval is considered enough for interim governments.
Erdogan called new elections after Davutoglu -- whose ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) lost its overall majority in parliament in June polls -- failed to form a coalition government with the opposition.
He appointed Davutoglu to form an interim "election government" which according to the constitution must be made up of all parties represented in parliament.
It is the first time in modern Turkish history that post-election talks on forming a coalition government have failed.
The cabinet spots are divided up according to the parties' share of seats in parliament -- with 11 going to AKP, five to the second-placed Republican People's Party (CHP) and three a piece to the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) and the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP).
In half a century of space travel more than 500 people have glimpsed the Earth from the unique vantage point of the cosmos, yet no black African has been among them.
Now a Nigerian and two South Africans are in a race to become the first after being shortlisted in a global talent search to send a "young icon of the future" into the heavens.
The winner will undergo intense training, experiencing extreme G-forces and weightlessness before taking off in American developer XCOR's Lynx spacecraft, on a voyage loosely envisaged for next year.
Among the three is Freeman Osonuga, who is competing with 30 hopefuls shortlisted for the Rising Star Programme run by talent agency Kruger Cowne and the One Young World charity, both based in London.
"It feels great, being on the verge of making history. And to be in a position to inspire a generation and the continent," said Osonuga, a doctor at a teaching hospital in Lagos, Nigeria's largest city.
"It would be a rare opportunity to be a beacon of hope to the continent, that truly we can literally reach for the stars and fulfil our potential."
Osonuga, who grew up in poverty in the southeastern state of Ogun, the youngest of six children, is no stranger to risk.
The 30-year-old returned in May from six months in Sierra Leone as part of the African Union's Ebola response team, for which he was given the country's Meritorious Service Award.
He acknowledges the danger in which he placed himself but maintains that "every effort to save fellow human lives" is worth the potential pitfalls.
"My risk-taking ventures aren't just for pleasure or fun, but for humanitarian purposes," said the medic, who told AFP he had always wanted to experience weightlessness.
- Goose bumps -
XCOR offers one-hour flights for $95,000 (84,000 euros) on a shuttle that takes off from the Mojave Desert in California. It has already sold hundreds of tickets, although it has yet to start commercial trips.
Its Lynx Mark II spacecraft is capable of carrying a pilot and a passenger over the 100-kilometre (62-mile) limit known as the Karman line -- the border between the atmosphere and outer space.
Deep in the pristine Amazon jungle, Brazil's newest skyscraper has a mission unlike any other: to save the world.
The white and orange metal frame called Amazon Tall Tower Observatory, or ATTO, is a bold new tool in the push to understand climate change and the vital role of rainforests.
At 325 meters (1,066 feet), the ATTO is a meter (3.3 feet) higher than the Eiffel Tower and a good bit taller than London's loftiest building, the Shard.
But instead of the typical city din of honking horns and engines, the loudest noise around the skinny structure is the chatter of cicadas and tropical birds.
Built in the Uatuma nature reserve, 350 kilometers (217 miles) from the city of Manaus and reachable only after hours of rough roads and a boat ride, the ATTO is seriously remote -- and for the climate scientists that's the point.
"Being far from towns and man's influence ensures we can collect relatively pure data," said Meinrat Andrae, director of the Max Planck Institute of Chemistry, which is partnering with Brazilian research agency Inpa on the German-Brazilian funded project.
The Amazon is seen as a big piece of the global warming puzzle, since trees are a key weapon in safely capturing destructive carbon gasses. And at 3,000 kilometers wide, the Amazon is the greatest of all rainforests, known to many as the lungs of the world.
"Thanks to this tower we'll be able to better understand the role of the Amazon, its effect on the local climate and also on the global climate," said Antonio Ocimar Manzi, one of the Brazilian scientists.