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With a cast of characters including a former prime minister, some of the richest executives in France and Germany, Paris' biggest-ever corporate crime trial continued this week with 37 defendants in the dock. France's largest-ever corporate corruption trial resumed in Paris this week with more drama than your average Mexican soap opera. The case offered further tales of illicit backroom dealing, a €5 million divorce settlement tab picked up by French taxpayers and allegations that a former French prime minister accepted bribes in connection with a string of acquisitions made by the state-owned French oil conglomerate Elf Aquitane in the...

Eric Clapton cut short a concert in Madrid last week after someone in the audience threw an object that struck him in the chest, several news outlets report. Mr. Clapton had just finished performing “Cocaine” at the Movistar Arena last Thursday when someone hurled what appeared to be a vinyl record sleeve. The Clapton fan club Where’s Eric! said the incident occurred during the famed guitarist/songwriter’s first appearance in Madrid in 25 years. Mr. Clapton, 81, was not seriously injured and went on to perform in Barcelona on Sunday.

A Russian cargo vessel suspected of carrying components for two nuclear submarine reactors, possibly destined for North Korea, sank in the Mediterranean Sea under mysterious circumstances in December 2024, according to a CNN investigation published today. The Ursa Major (also known as Sparta 3), a heavy-lift ship linked to Russia’s “shadow fleet” and previously used in military operations in Syria, went down approximately 60 miles (about 100 km) off the coast of Spain near Cartagena on December 23, 2024. The sinking followed a series of explosions that killed two crew members and left 14 others rescued by Spanish authorities. Spanish...

Repsol, has confirmed that (his) company and its partners are abandoning drilling offshore Cuba, representing a major blow to the island's ambitions to secure oil self-sufficiency.... The decision follows reports that the Jaguey-1 exploration well drilled by Repsol and partners Statoil (Norway) and ONGC (India) on Block N26, in Cuba's Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) in the Gulf of Mexico, had come up dry.

Florida has long fought to prevent oil drilling anywhere near its white sandy beaches. But as the state continues to deal with oil from the Gulf of Mexico spill washing up on its shores, it faces a new threat: deepwater drilling in nearby Cuban waters. Maria Ritter, a spokeswoman for Spanish oil company Repsol YPF SA, said it plans to drill off Cuba, about 60 miles south of Key West, Fla., early next year. If successful, this would likely kick off a spate of exploration. Only one deepwater well has been drilled in Cuban waters, by Repsol in 2004. The...

IRAN AWARDS ENERGY BIDS TO WESTERN MAJORS NICOSIA [MENL] -- Iran has decided to award energy development contracts to Western majors. An Iranian state oil firm said the Oil Ministry would grant Total, Royal Dutch Shell and Repsol upstream development contracts in the South Pars gas field in the Gulf. The Pars Oil and Gas Co. said the three Western contractors would develop phases 11 and 13 of South Pars. France's Total was expected to be awarded the contract to develop Phase 11 of South Pars, regarded as the largest reservoir of natural gas in the world. Iran wants Total...

Another sterling week for the Trump administration, another interval of agony for his opponents. The attention of those less politically minded is focused on the disappearance of Savannah Guthrie’s mother, Nancy -- always fodder for the would-be Colombos and Miss Marples -- and the Olympics. Yet this week saw some victories for the administration along with some serious unfinished business. The ousted dictator Nicolás Maduro seems isolated, depressed, and devoid of funds sufficient to hire teams of lawyers to defend him. Any claims he might have for immunity seem destined to fail. The evidence establishes he was born in Colombia;...

RTÉ and other public service broadcasters in Slovenia and Spain will not show the Eurovision Song Contest this week as they boycott the event over Israel’s participation. The world’s biggest live televised music event holds its first semi-final in the Austrian capital Vienna on Tuesday, bringing together participants from 35 countries — the fewest since entry was expanded in 2004. Five countries — Iceland, Ireland, the Netherlands, Slovenia, and Spain — are boycotting the contest over Israel’s war in Gaza. […] During Saturday’s grand final, RTÉ One will show the animated family comedy Mummies and the acclaimed John McGahern adaptation...

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said on Monday she would not support any decision by President Donald Trump to withdraw U.S. troops from Italy. "It is a decision that doesn't depend on me and one that I personally would not agree with," Meloni told reporters in Yerevan, Armenia, on the sidelines of a European Political Community summit. Asked whether Washington would consider pulling its troops out of ​Italy and Spain, Trump last week answered "probably". Meloni added she would likely meet with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who is due to travel to Rome later this week for talks,...

The German chancellor Friedrich Merz has desperately backflipped on his criticism of US President Donald Trump after he threatened to remove thousands of US troops from Germany. German chancellor desperately backtracks on Trump criticism after savage threat to remove troops | 4:55 | 6.18M subscribers | 368,472 views | May 4, 2026

The concentration of knife attacks in the Barcelona metropolitan area widens the gap between the official discourse on crime and public perception of security. Crime scene cordoned off iby the regional police in Barcelona on May 4, 2026 - @AlertaMundoNews on X, May 4, 2026 Barcelona and its metropolitan area saw an unusual sequence of knife violence this weekend: four stabbings in just 24 hours, two of them fatal. The most serious incident occurred on Saturday morning. A woman was killed in broad daylight in one of the quietest residential areas of the municipality. It did not take place in...

Spain’s Foreign Ministry has called for the immediate release of a Spanish citizen detained by Israel following the interception of a Gaza-bound flotilla, after an Israeli court extended his detention by two days. Saif Abu Keshek, a resident of Barcelona, and Brazilian national Thiago Ávila appeared before a court in Ashkelon on Sunday, several days after Israeli forces intercepted multiple vessels attempting to breach Israel’s maritime blockade on Gaza. The flotilla consisted of dozens of boats carrying activists from numerous countries. Israeli authorities stated that over 170 individuals were removed from the vessels, with Abu Keshek and Ávila transferred to...

Estibaliz Kortazar, a far-left Spanish activist, did what good comrades do, she opened her home to a North African migrant. Once he got what he wanted, the man started sexually harassing her, insulting her, and beating her. Then he threw her out, changed the locks, and took over the house. She called the police for help. Their response? “We can’t do anything without a court order.” Now she’s sleeping at relatives’ houses, seeing a psychologist after a nervous breakdown, and has launched a petition to fast-track the legal process and get her home back.

President Trump announced Friday he would soon raise tariffs to 25% on vehicles imported from the European Union, claiming the bloc was non-compliant with its US trade deal. “I am pleased to announce that, based on the fact the European Union is not complying with our fully agreed to Trade Deal, next week I will be increasing Tariffs charged to the European Union for Cars and Trucks coming into the United States,” he said in a post to Truth Social. Companies that build vehicles in the United States will be exempt from the tariff, he added. “Many Automobile and Truck...

At a time when secularization has long been treated as an irreversible trend in Western Europe, new data indicate that a significant segment of Spanish youth may be rediscovering religious identity... Preliminary findings from the forthcoming “Spanish Youth Report 2026,” produced by the SM Foundation and based on data collected in 2025, suggest that 45 percent of young people in Spain identify as Catholic. The figure marks a notable increase from 31.6 percent in 2020... Several dynamics appear to be at work. One is demographic: religious families... tend to have higher birth rates and transmit faith more consistently. Immigration also...

Donald Trump has eight days before he will be forced to make up his mind on Iran. He wants to end the unpopular war, but claimed on Thursday he was under “no time pressure” to do so. In fact, the US president is bound by the 1973 War Powers Resolution, which limits his ability to wage war without congressional approval to 60 days. That deadline passes on May 1, 60 days after his formal notification of the war to Congress on March 2. It will compel him to choose one of four options – seek congressional authorisation to continue the...

A survey in Spain found some 80.5 percent of individuals aged 17–25 reject the socialist government’s mass amnesty plans for half a million illegal migrants, the digital newspaper El Español reported on Sunday. The survey was conducted by the polling and research firm SocioMétrica for El Español between April 15 and 18 — the same week that the socialist government led by Prime Minster Pedro Sánchez began its mass amnesty process to benefit 500,000 illegal migrants in Spain with legal residence and work permits. The Spanish government launched the highly criticized amnesty process despite a fierce rejection from the nation’s...

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez on Sunday urged the EU to end its association agreement with Israel. In an escalation of his criticism against Israel, he said during a rally in Andalusia that “a government that violates international law or the principles of the EU cannot be its partner.” Spain will formally propose the termination of the agreement at a meeting of EU foreign ministers on Tuesday in Luxembourg. Sánchez has emerged as one of Israel’s most vocal critics in the EU. He accused Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of committing genocide in Gaza and denounced the joint U.S.-Israel strikes...

An international fugitive was arrested in Dubai this week following a years-long manhunt. Daniel Kinahan, the alleged leader of one of Ireland’s biggest criminal gangs, the Kinahan cartel, was arrested on organized crime charges on Wednesday in a covert operation involving Irish and United Arab Emirates authorities. The 48-year-old alleged crime boss is expected to face charges in Ireland related to a gangland feud between the Kinahan cartel and the Hutch gang that has left 18 people dead since 2015. Dubai police didn’t name Kinahan, saying they had “arrested an Irish fugitive for his alleged role in an organized criminal...

Elf Aquitaine, until its privatisation in 1994, was much more than a oil company - according to prosecutors at the trial of Elf's top managers. They claim the state-owned firm worked as an unofficial arm of France's murkiest diplomacy. The close relationship between Elf and French officials is well-documented, and goes back to the presidency of General Charles de Gaulle. As the company expanded into Africa in the 1960s and 1970s, Elf paid secret "commissions" to African officials with the blessing of French governments. By the 1980s Elf had operations in Gabon, Congo Brazzaville, Cameroon, Angola and Nigeria - which,...