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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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;…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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.…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
Serbian Prime Minister Milos Vucevic resigned on Tuesday, as months of student and civic protests began to take their political toll. Vucevic is a member of the ruling Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) and a close political ally of President Aleksandar Vucic. The mayor of Novi Sad, Serbia’s second-largest city, and fellow SNS party member Milan Djuric also resigned. “This shows that we who were elected to assume responsibility are assuming responsibility so that the situation does…
A US judge temporarily blocks Trump’s freeze on aid. Trump’s plan to pause the disbursements of federal grants and loans minutes before it was set to go into effect late Tuesday. What to know about Trump’s plan to freeze federal aid The Trump administration late Monday directed federal agencies to pause federal grants and loans in the US on Tuesday evening, in a sweeping move that threatens to disrupt education, healthcare, housing assistance, disaster relief and…
Increased repression halts humanitarian aid in Yemen because of key decisions by Yemen’s de facto government, the Houthi army, seem to indicate the Houthis are on a zigzag course in the ongoing Yemeni conflict. Last Thursday, the Houthis kidnapped 7 UN employees in the country’s capital Sanaa. On Friday, they released the 25-member crew of the Galaxy Leader, a merchant ship they had seized in November 2023. The Israelis are also playing a long game in…
A Christmas gift for regional deputies accompanied by controversy. The Madrid Assembly table approved on December 26 a salary increase of 6% which was approved by the PP, PSOE, Vox’s rejection for extra spending in public requires a Link it to the revaluation of pensions in Congress, which was lying with the Omnibus decree. The text states that these salaries have been reduced between 10 and 15%, which have only increased twice (2% in 2020…
