Author: Olga Winter - EU Newsdesk

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…

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…

A newfound “spirit of optimism” echoed throughout speeches at the Left Party’s (Die Linke) convention in Berlin on Saturday, signalling a potential turnaround for Die Linke as Germany’s February 23 parliamentary elections approach.

  Indian police in Mumbai on Sunday arrested a 30-year-old suspect in the stabbing of Bollywood star Saif Ali Khan. “Primary evidence suggests that the accused is a Bangladeshi citizen and after entering India illegally he changed his name,” senior police officer Dixit Gedam told a press conference. The suspect, who was arrested on the outskirts of Mumbai, was working with a domestic help agency after coming to the city five or six months ago,…

  Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko’s youngest son, Nikolai, has been appearing ever more frequently in the media lately. The 20-year-old, who used to accompany his father on state visits, now appears to be influencing national politics. Young Nikolai Lukashenko is currently touring the country to play piano concerts for a “unity marathon”—propaganda events to gain support for the nomination of his father to another term in office. The elder Lukashenko has ruled the country for…

  In Kazakhstan, the penalties for so-called bride kidnapping are to be toughened up. The local parliament is working on changing laws to try to eradicate what is now considered an outdated custom. Almost every young woman in Kazakhstan is only too well aware that she too could become a victim of bride kidnapping. If that happens to a young woman, it puts paid to any personal plans for her future. This is what happened…

The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, stated this Sunday that “Spain is going from strength to strength” in employment and social and territorial cohesion and has promised a new increase in the interprofessional minimum wage (SMI) this year. At the closing of the 15th congress of the PSOE of Extremadura, in which Miguel Ángel Gallardo revalidated his position as general secretary, Sánchez focused his speech on boosting the economy in the face of an…

When more than 3.5 million Syrian students took exams this week, the first since the fall of longtime ruler Bashar Assad, they didn’t have to answer questions on “Syrian nationalism” anymore. The transitional education minister, Nazir al-Qadri, annulled the exam subject on short notice. The subject was based in large part on the glorification of Assad and his regime. “For my older son this was good news, but for us, it rang a lot of [alarm] bells. We’ll…

Croatian Deputy Prime Minister Josip Dabro resigned on Saturday after a video surfaced of him firing a gun out of a moving car. The Croatian Deputy was left with no choice after his actions disgraced his party. Dabro was also agriculture minister in the Cabinet of conservative Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic. What do we know about the video? The video, seemingly taken at night, showed Dabro laughing while shooting a handgun out of an open…

The vice president and Minister of Labor, Yolanda Díaz, assured this Saturday that she has “no concern” about Junts’ announcement that it is breaking sectoral negotiations with the Government and has defended the need to “take care of the legislative block.” No concern about the breakdown of negotiations with Junts In statements to the media before attending the showings of the short films ‘Cafuné’ and ‘Semillas de Kivu’, Díaz insisted on the need to “dialogue…

Why is the Panama flag so popular among shipowners? is it as obvious as you think. Almost at the same time as an operation to secure the Eventin oil tanker stranded off Germany’s coast, another tanker — called Jazz — that had set sail from Russia reported problems in the Baltic Sea near Rügen, Germany’s biggest island. According to agency reports, the crew was able to resolve the problems linked to the engine failure it…

Tens of thousands of Serbians, led by university students, on Friday protested outside Serbia’s state television headquarters in the capital, Belgrade, to call for objective reporting. The students condemned what they called pro-government bias and smear campaigns against them on the public broadcaster Radio Television Serbia and demanded objective coverage of the protests. They say the state television is reporting President Aleksandar Vucic’s claims that the students were funded by foreign secret services to topple his government. What…

The governor of the Bank of Spain, José Luis Escrivá, has vindicated this Friday the work of central banks in an increasingly complex world. In a conference with Agustín Carstens, director of the Bank for International Settlements (the central bank of central banks), and Mário Centeno, governor of the Bank of Portugal and member of the Governing Council of the European Central Bank (ECB), Escrivá put the focus on how difficult it is to set…

Senior United Nations officials met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv to discuss a $3.32 billion humanitarian support package aimed at aiding millions affected by the ongoing war with Russia.

Fifteen months after a Hamas-led terrorist attack in southern Israel triggered the unprecedented Israeli bombardment and ground campaign that has laid waste to Gaza, a way out of the conflict may be in sight. The human cost has been devastating: a Palestinian death toll close to 45,000, according to local authorities; more than 1,000 Israeli fatalities from the October 7, 2023, assault. The EU watched from the sidelines as the US, Egypt and Qatar mediated…

  Spain’s real estate market is experiencing a major boom. In the first nine months of the year, property prices rose by an average of 9%, according to the House Price Index from the INE statistics agency. Average prices have doubled over the past decade, marking a much-welcome recovery following the banking and real estate collapse during the 2008/9 financial crisis. That downturn was fueled by years of overbuilding and property speculation, ultimately forcing Spain to seek a…

  Cuba freed opposition leader Jose Daniel Ferrer and some other prisoners on Thursday as part of a deal with outgoing US President Joe Biden. Biden agreed to remove Cuba from Washington’s list of terrorism sponsors, after which Cuba on Wednesday started freeing about 553 prisoners. The Biden administration said many of these were political prisoners. “I am fine, surrounded by family and friends,” Ferrer said. “I had been arbitrarily imprisoned for the third time,…

The La Muela City Council has approved a reduction in the IBI tax rate for the installation of solar panels in homes. Specifically, a 50% bonus is established on the full tax rate on buildings whose cadastral use is predominantly thermal or electrical energy from the sun, that is, solar panels, during the 10 tax periods following the end of the tax period. the installation. This is the second modification that has been made, since…

The German government has approved measures allowing the military to shoot down suspicious drones near military installations and other critical infrastructure. Interior Minister Nancy Faeser emphasised the increasing drone threats since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, stating that the technology poses significant challenges for police forces.

South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol was arrested at his official residence in Seoul on Wednesday morning and was being questioned in the afternoon in connection with accusations he fomented an insurrection when he briefly declared martial law on December 3. More than 3,000 police officers and members of the Corruption Investigation Office for High-Ranking Officials (CIO) were involved in gaining access to Yoon’s official residence. The president has been holed up behind barbed wire and…

Plunging temperatures in recent weeks and the end of Russian gas deliveries via Ukraine have hurt gas inventories in the United Kingdom, the country’s main gas supplier Centrica said on January 10, warning that gas supplies were now”concerningly low.” Centrica reported that UK gas stocks were 26% lower last week than the same period in 2024, at about half full. The company added that the country had less than a week of stored gas to heat homes…

A documentary video has caused controversy in Taiwan after a Chinese businessman was filmed encouraging Taiwanese citizens to apply for Chinese IDs, apparently unaware that what he said would later become public. Lin Jincheng, the head of a startup incubator for Taiwanese youth in China’s Fujian Province, said in the video that those offered Chinese IDs would be allowed to retain their Taiwanese citizenship and passport, which would go against Taiwanese law. As indicated in…

The international community is closely monitoring Iran’s nuclear ambitions, with the E3 grouping of the United Kingdom, France and Germany voicing their readiness to trigger the powerful “snapback” mechanism of UN sanctions if Tehran continues its pursuit of nuclear weapons. The snapback is a diplomatic tool that is part of a faltering October 2015 nuclear deal, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), under which signatories agreed to lift crippling international sanctions related to Iran’s nuclear…

Germany’s government on Wednesday said it approved a plan that would allow the military to shoot down drones illegally flying in German airspace. As a last resort, as military initiatives in Germany come with global consequences Germany allows military to down suspect drones. Germany allows military to down suspect drones It comes against the backdrop of several sightings of suspicious drones being flown over key installations. German cabinet backs plan to shoot down suspicious drones…

Storm clouds have hovered over French politics for some time now but it was in the summer of last year that the thunder really began to roll. In July, early parliamentary elections resulted in an unclear outcome because no single party won a clear majority. Three large political blocs eventually entered parliament in Paris, and the new government, appointed by French President Emmanuel Macron, was forced to govern without a majority to call its own.…