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[The European climate service Copernicus says Earth just sweltered to its hottest summer on record] Summer 2024 sweltered to Earth's hottest on record, making it even more likely that this year will end up as the warmest humanity has measured, European climate service Copernicus reported Friday. And if this sounds familiar, that's because the records the globe shattered were set just last year as human-caused climate change, with a temporary boost from an El Nino, keeps dialing up temperatures and extreme weather, scientists said. The northern meteorological summer — June, July and August — averaged 16.8 degrees Celsius (62.24 degrees...

Polish-Ukrainian relations are fraying over the legacy of the Second World War era Volhynia (Wołyń) genocide, in which Ukrainians massacred up to 120,000 ethnic Poles, mostly women and children. The slaughter was instigated by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) in then-German-occupied eastern Poland, in territory that belongs to modern-day Ukraine as a result of Soviet-orchestrated land transfers. However, many of the killers were ordinary Ukrainians armed with agricultural implements who used the German occupation as an opportunity to ethnically cleanse the area to prepare it for incorporation into an independent Ukrainian nation-state. The Ukrainian Insurgent Army and its leader, Stepan...

1:53 Germany’s army rushed an Iris-T air-defence system into service on its own soil for the first time Wednesday having delivered several of the sophisticated systems to war-torn Ukraine to take down Russian rockets, drones and missiles mid-flight. AFP reports Chancellor Olaf Scholz said the surface-to-air system was part of a long term build-up of German and European defences initiated in the wake of Russian President Vladimir Putin launching the Ukraine invasion in 2022. “Russia has been massively rearming for many years, especially in the field of rockets and cruise missiles,” Scholz said at the inauguration ceremony at a base...

Volkswagen is contemplating factory closures in Germany for the first time as it grapples with increasing pressure from cheaper Asian competitors. This development signifies a major conflict between Chief Executive Oliver Blume and influential company unions, which have a history of blocking management decisions.The company's works council has identified a large vehicle plant and a component factory as obsolete, vowing strong opposition to the executive board's plans. Lower Saxony, Volkswagen's second-largest shareholder, supports a review of potential closures, increasing tensions within the company.Facing decreased competitiveness, a challenging economic environment, and aggressive Chinese automakers entering Europe, Volkswagen plans to cut costs...

📝 Co-chairman of the Alternative for Germany Tino Chrupalla: We clearly state: stop supplying weapons to Ukraine! €30 billion - what madness!, We demand a broad mix of energy: coal, nuclear, gas from Russia. This ensured our prosperity. ▪️On Nord Stream: Germany was attacked, our infrastructure was destroyed. Ostashko reports

The incident took place in the western town of Moers. Germany is on high alert after three people were killed in Friday's knife attack in nearby Solingen. German police on Tuesday said they had shot dead a man suspected of attacking passers-by with knives in the western town of Moers, days after a deadly knife attack in nearby Solingen. Emergency services were called at around 2:45 pm (1245 GMT) on Tuesday and told that a man had "assaulted and threatened several passers-by" in the town, police in nearby Duisburg said in a statement.

The regime of Russian leader Vladimir Putin has been able to expand its position as an energy supplier to Europe. The EU now imports more from Russia than from the United States, reports Die Welt. According to the newspaper, for the first time in almost two years, EU countries imported more gas from Russia than from the United States in one quarter. This is evidenced by the data of the Brussels-based consulting company Bruegel. According to these data, for the quarter from April to June, the EU purchased 12.7 billion cubic meters of gas from Russia, and 12.3 billion from...

The far-right Alternative for Germany won a state election for the first time Sunday in the country's east, and was set to finish at least a very close second to mainstream conservatives in a second vote, projections showed. A new party founded by a prominent leftist also made an immediate impact, while the parties in Chancellor Olaf Scholz's unpopular national government obtained extremely weak results. Projections for ARD and ZDF public television based on exit polls and partial counting showed Alternative for Germany winning 32-33% of the vote in Thuringia — well ahead of the center-right Christian Democratic Union, the...

Elon Musk is rapidly transforming his enormous wealth – he’s the richest person in the world – into a huge source of unaccountable political power that’s now backing Trump and other authoritarians around the world. Musk owns X, formerly known as Twitter. He publicly endorsed Donald Trump last month. Before that, Musk helped form a pro-Trump super political action committee. Meanwhile, the former US president has revived his presence on the X platform.

Resolving historical issues is primarily in Ukraine's interest, as it will not become a member of the European Union without Poland's consent, according to the Prime Minister of Poland Donald Tusk. As reported, on Wednesday, August 28, during a meeting between Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski and his Ukrainian counterpart Dmytro Kuleba, Kuleba was asked about the historical issues that "divide our countries." In response, Kuleba stated that if we start digging into history, Ukrainians and Poles could blame each other for various negative events. Therefore, it would be better for both countries to build the future together and leave...

Almost two-thirds of people, 64%, agree that Ireland should welcome people who move here to make a better life for themselves or their families, according to a new survey. The study, which was conducted by Ireland Thinks for the Migrant Rights Center Ireland (MRCI), showed that 18% of those surveyed disagree that Ireland should welcome people who move here. Asked what Government policy should be towards undocumented migrant workers, 25% of respondents said they should be required to leave the country immediately, while 69% said they should be given the opportunity to come forward and legalize their status, provided they...

The CEO of the social media platform Gab revealed that the company refused to comply with a request from German police to provide data on a user who made two posts mocking the weight of a female member of parliament. Gab CEO Andrew Torba shared the request on X that demanded information about the user because he had made two posts that “sexualized the German politician” Ricarda Lang and “denigrated her weight.” The official demand stated, “Throughout the sexualized and denigrated representation of ‘Ricarda Lang,’ the user attacks the honour of the politician and shows his own disrespect.” The request...

Taoiseach Simon Harris has said he is seeking information on reports that Israeli operated aircraft carrying weaponry from the United States to Israel flew through Irish airspace. Speaking in Government Buildings, he said there are very clear consent protocols that would need to be followed for that to happen. He said his understanding from the Department of Defense and the Department of Transport is no such consent was sought and he is expecting to hear an update from the relevant Government departments. …

PARIS/MOSCOW, Aug 25 (Reuters) - Pavel Durov, the Russian-born billionaire founder and owner of the Telegram messaging app, was arrested at Le Bourget airport outside Paris shortly after landing on a private jet late on Saturday and placed in custody, three sources told Reuters. The arrest of the 39-year-old technology billionaire prompted on Sunday a warning from Moscow to Paris that he should be accorded his rights and criticism from X owner Elon Musk who said that free speech in Europe was under attack. There was no official confirmation from France of the arrest, but two French police sources and...

A Dundalk restaurant visited by US President Joe Biden during his trip to Ireland last year has closed its doors. In a post on Facebook, McAteers The Food House said that it has ceased trading as of today. The business said that it was “impossible for us to continue trading”, and that, after a difficult few years, it had become “harder by the day to keep the ship afloat”. The restaurant cited numerous factors, including high costs, as being behind its decision. …

Two weeks after organizers scrubbed Taylor Swift's concerts in Vienna amid a foiled terror plot, the singer issued her first statement on the cancellations. “Having our Vienna shows cancelled was devastating,” she wrote in a statement posted to Instagram on Wednesday. “The reason for the cancellations filled me with a new sense of fear, and a tremendous amount of guilt because so many people had planned on coming to those shows.” She thanked authorities — “thanks to them, we were grieving concerts and not lives,” she wrote — and said she waited to speak until the European leg of her...

The World Economic Forum (WEF) is now warning countries across the globe to prepare for “an era of shock events” as the 2024 U.S. presidential election approaches. The report, titled “4 global risks to look out for in the post-pandemic era,” outlines what the world can expect in the “post-pandemic” era.

The European Union may have just given Tesla’s future sales in the region a boost by setting tariffs on its China-made vehicles considerably below those imposed on rival electric carmakers. The high-profile decision comes two months after the EU hiked tariffs on all electric cars imported from China, citing “unfair” state subsidies that unduly benefited the country’s electric vehicle makers at the expense of European manufacturers. Tesla, which has a factory near Berlin but exports many of the cars it makes in China to Europe, had requested that the EU recalculate its rate, initially set at 20.8%. On Tuesday, the...

August Hanning has claimed that there appears to have been a secret arrangement between Kiev and Warsaw Poland was likely involved in the underwater explosions that ruptured the Nord Stream underwater gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea in September 2022, the former president of Germany’s foreign intelligence agency has claimed. August Hanning also alleged that Warsaw has intentionally obstructed Berlin’s investigation into the incident. No one has so far claimed responsibility for the blasts, which brought an end to the supply of Russian gas to Germany via Nord Stream 1 and damaged the parallel Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which had...

The Baťa Skyscraper, in Zlín, Czechia, is a landmark of architecture. And the office of Jan Antonín Baťa... is an elevator.