Brussels vets countries’ compliance with EU fiscal rules

Brussels vets countries’ compliance with EU fiscal rules

This week, the European Commission assessed the multiannual spending plans of the 21 member states who submitted them – giving passing grades to 20 and failing one. The passing countries: Croatia, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Luxembourg, Malta, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden. However, the…

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Amazon workers in Germany stage protest on Black Friday

Amazon workers in Germany stage protest on Black Friday

Hundreds of Amazon employees from across Germany staged protests on Friday against what trade union representative say are unfair working conditions and the company’s lack of a collective wage agreement. Demonstrators marched from two directions to a central rally in a hall in Bad Hersfeld in the state of Hesse. Amazon has two logistics centres…

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Israel prevents return to dozens of villages in southern Lebanon

Israel prevents return to dozens of villages in southern Lebanon

Israel’s army has banned residents of several villages in southern Lebanon from returning home until further notice. An Israeli military spokesman announced on X in Arabic that the military didn’t want the villagers to be put in danger of being targetted. He listed more than 60 villages near the Israeli border that are part of…

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Uniqlo faces online China backlash over Xinjiang cotton stance

Uniqlo faces online China backlash over Xinjiang cotton stance

Uniqlo is facing an online backlash in China after the boss of its parent company said the Japanese clothing retailer does not source cotton from Xinjiang. Fast Retailing’s chief executive Tadashi Yanai said Uniqlo was “not using” cotton from the western Chinese province in a BBC interview this week. Commentators in China picked up on…

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Chad cuts military agreement with France

Chad cuts military agreement with France

Chad has said it is terminating a key defence cooperation agreement with France, raising questions about Paris’s waning influence in Africa’s embattled Sahel region. Chadian Foreign Minister Abderaman Koulamallah said it was time for his country to “assert its full sovereignty”. The announcement came just hours after Koulamallah’s French counterpart, Jean-Noel Barrot, met Chad’s President…

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Chad ends a defense cooperation agreement with France, its former colonial ruler

Chad ends a defense cooperation agreement with France, its former colonial ruler

DAKAR, Senegal (AP) — Chad’s government said it is ending a defense cooperation agreement with France, its former colonial ruler, to redefine the nation’s sovereignty. The decision marks a historic turning point since the Central African nation gained independence more than six decades ago, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Abderaman Koulamallah said in a statement Thursday. It…

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Ukraine fights to keep the lights on as Russia hammers power plants

Ukraine fights to keep the lights on as Russia hammers power plants

Amid the monstrous heaps of twisted metal, pools of congealed oil and walls pockmarked by shrapnel, one incongruous detail catches my eye. Patches of snow. Inside a thermal power station. With another Ukrainian winter arriving, the vast turbine hall is full of activity. Engineers, dwarfed by the enormous scale of the place, repairing what they…

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Childcare worker who abused more than 60 girls jailed for life

Childcare worker who abused more than 60 girls jailed for life

A former childcare worker dubbed “one of Australia’s worst paedophiles” has been sentenced to life in prison for raping and sexually abusing almost 70 girls. Ashley Paul Griffith, 47, confessed to 307 offences committed at childcare centres in the Australian state of Queensland and Italy between 2003 and 2022. His victims were aged between one…

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