Pope Francis on Monday deplored the desperate humanitarian situation of Palestinians in Gaza and called for an immediate ceasefire and the freeing of hostages in his Christmas message.

British billionaire Jim Ratcliffe has agreed a deal to buy a 25 percent stake in Manchester United for about $1.3 billion, vowing to return the Premier League club to the “top of world football”.

A plane with 303 Indian passengers detained near Paris over suspicions of human trafficking will be free to leave Monday, French judicial officials said, though its destination remains unclear.

A Russian politician calling for peace in Ukraine hit a roadblock in her campaign Saturday, when Russia’s Central Election Commission refused to accept her initial nomination by a group of supporters, citing errors in the documents submitted.

Poverty is set to be one of the key issues dominating the 2024 European elections. The EU is home to 95 million people who live below the poverty line – that is, who live on less than 60 percent of the median income for their country. In all, that’s one in five Europeans who live at risk of social exclusion.

Talking Europe hosts Austrian author Robert Menasse, the winner of the 2023 European Union book prize. The award was set up in 2007 to foster a European spirit and promote understanding of the EU from a cultural perspective. The prize has previously been bestowed on such towering figures as Jonathan Coe, Philippe Sands and Tony Judt. Menasse is the only writer to have won the award twice. We discuss his prize-winning novel “The Enlargement”, which takes places against the backdrop of the actual enlargement of the European Union. It forms the second novel in his trilogy, after “The Capital” in 2019.