BRUSSELS, BELGIUM - Business activity in the eurozone slumped at a faster rate in December, weighed down by a deeper downturn in France, a key survey said on Friday.The HCOB Flash Eurozone purchasing managers' index (PMI) published by S&P Global fell to 47 in December from 47.6 in November. A figure below 50...

Brussels, Belgium - The EU demanded on Thursday that Apple and Google provide more details on how they identified risks concerning their respective software hubs, the App Store and Google Play.The request for information is the first step in a process begun under the EU's Digital Services Act (DSA), but does...

The agreement will see states given the "possibility to exclusively support" the acquisition of new renewable generation, in line with member countries' decarbonization plans, said the EU Council statement. The deal also empowers the Council, which represents member states, to declare a union-wide "crisis" based on market conditions.

Colombia, whose left-leaning government has aggressively promoted environmentalism, warned that COP28 was also failing on raising financing for countries to adapt to the effects of climate change. If countries block "goals on adaptation but at the same time oppose the phase out fossil fuel, they need to be held accountable....

BRUSSELS, BELGIUM - Margrethe Vestager is preparing to return to her day job as the European Union's competition chief after a hard-fought and ultimately unsuccessful bid to lead the bloc's lender.She stepped down temporarily in September after entering the race to become the next head of the European Investment Bank but...

PARIS, FRANCE - The family of Mahsa Amini, the Iranian Kurdish woman who died in custody, have been banned from traveling to France to collect a top rights prize awarded posthumously, their lawyer said on Saturday.Amini died aged 22 on September 16, 2022, while being held by Iran's religious police for...

Inside the negotiating rooms and on the sidelines of the COP28 climate talks, simmering tensions over wealthy countries' "green trade" policies have been bubbling to the surface, with developing nations fearful they will be penalized. A particularly sore point has been the European Union's new carbon border tax, which sets...

A tentative "phasedown/out" was included in a first draft of an agreement on climate action that delegates are haggling over during talks that are scheduled to finish on December 12. But Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman told Bloomberg that Saudi Arabia, the world's biggest oil exporter, would not agree.

The SUVs produced by Toyota, Volkswagen, and Hyundai-Kia have all posted sales increases of more than 150% over the past decade, meaning the companies are moving "in the opposite direction" of efforts to curb CO2 emissions, Greenpeace said. The analysis came out a day before the COP28 climate summit is...

Stockholm, Sweden - Fine particle pollution caused the deaths of over 250,000 people in the European Union in 2021, according to a report by the European Environment Agency (EEA) published on Friday.Fine particulate matter, or PM2.5, is a term for fine particulates that are typically the by-product of car exhausts or...

Germany on November 2 banned Hamas and Samidoun. According to official figures, Germany hosts an estimated 450 members of Hamas, proscribed as a "terrorist" organization by the European Union, the United States and Israel. The ministry said that while Hamas members had not staged "violent action" in Germany so far,...

Founded in 1957, the European Economic Community (later renamed the EU) started out with six members Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg,  the Netherlands and West Germany.

The tech giant said it made a profit of $23 billion.

The number of people using Facebook monthly rose slightly to 3.05 billion in a year-over-year comparison while monthly active users of Meta's "family" of apps was 3.96 billion in a 7 percent increase from the same quarter in 2022, the company reported. Meta had suffered a rough 2022 amid a...

There have also been increasing cross-border exchanges of fire along Israel's northern border with Lebanon, between Israeli troops and Hezbollah, an ally of Hamas.

Jerusalem - The Israeli military said on Saturday that Gaza City residents must not delay their departure before a military offensive starts, as people leaving the north of the territory again jammed roads south.Ahead of an expected Israeli ground offensive against Hamas, which attacked southern Israel on October 7, Israel...

EU internal market commissioner Thierry Breton raised the alarm in letters sent to Musk and Mark Zuckerberg, whose Meta group includes Facebook and Instagram. He demanded late on Tuesday each of them provides details within 24 hours on how "illegal content and disinformation" is being removed from their platforms in...

Israel imposed a total siege on the Gaza Strip and cut off the water supply as it kept bombing targets in the Palestinian enclave in response to the Hamas surprise assault it has likened to the 9/11 attacks. Israel has counted over 700 dead and launched strikes on Gaza that...

Brussels is creating a trade armory to protect the bloc from actions by rival countries, including a tool aimed at punishing nations that seek to put pressure on one of its member states. The European Parliament is also set to give its final green light to a mechanism that would allow...

Telecoms giants say that they need more money to maintain and update the infrastructure to meet Europe's voracious data needs, and that it would be fairer if firms like Netflix contributed towards the cost. But tech behemoths say telecoms companies already get money from customers, while digital rights activists fear...

PARIS, FRANCE - Wavering ambition by governments and a growing belief that science is politically subjective are great causes for concern in a rapidly escalating climate crisis, an expert told AFP.A cascade of extreme weather events have inflicted devastation in 2023, which the European Union's climate monitor says is likely to...

Part of the aim of the revised policy is for European Union countries to act together should they be faced with a sudden large inflow of asylum-seekers, as happened in 2015-2016 when hundreds of thousands of migrants arrived, most of them Syrians fleeing the war in their country.

Brussels, Belgium - EU member countries on Monday adopted a watered-down deal on curbing car emissions, after auto manufacturers complained stricter measures could undermine electric vehicle investments.Led by France and Italy, the 27 nations voted for a less ambitious plan than the one put forward by the European Commission in November...

The EU trade commissioner is in China to press the bloc's case that it is not seeking an economic decoupling from China. His trip follows a report by the Chamber of Commerce of the European Union last week that showed business confidence was at one of its lowest levels in...

Istanbul, Turkey - President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Saturday accused the European Union of pulling away from Turkey, whose efforts to join the bloc have stalled amid criticism of Ankara's efforts to address democracy and rule of law concerns.Erdogan secured a pledge from Brussels to resurrect the membership talks first started...

Paris, France - Irish regulators on Friday handed out a 345-million-euro ($369-million) fine to TikTok over data breaches, part of a battle between the European Union and big tech firms on issues from tax avoidance and hate speech to data privacy and monopolistic practices.Here is a summary of the tussles between...

Copenhagen, Denmark - Danish shipping giant Maersk on Thursday launched the world's first container ship running on bio-methanol, a key step in its effort to lower its huge carbon footprint.Maersk, which sold its oil division to TotalEnergies in 2017, has set out a target to become carbon neutral by 2040.European Commission...

"We condemn the decision of the Tunisian authorities to refuse entry for the delegation," the delegation, made up of five MEPs, said in a statement. "This conduct is unprecedented since (Tunisia's) democratic revolution in 2011", it said.

Tel Aviv, Israel - Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has welcomed the launch of the ambitious India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC) as the "largest cooperation project in our history" that will have a profound impact on the Middle East, Israel, and the world.Leaders from the United States, India, Saudi Arabia,...

Washington, US - The REPO (Russian Elites, Proxies and Oligarchs) task force, set up to search and freeze Russia-related assets, estimates the overall value of sovereign Russian assets, blocked by the West, at $280 billion.“The total value of assets <…> is estimated at around $280 billion, the majority of which is held in the European Union,” the US Department of the Treasury said...

"I look forward to welcoming the AU as a permanent member of the G20", European Council president Charles Michel told reporters in New Delhi, where the two-day G20 summit begins on Saturday. In December, US President Joe Biden said he wanted the AU "to join the G20 as a permanent...

EU chief Charles Michel said last month that the bloc should get ready to admit new members from eastern Europe and the Balkans by 2030.

The European Commission, the EU's powerful antitrust body, named 22 "core platform" services belonging to five US tech behemoths identified as "gatekeepers" -- Google parent Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft -- and China's ByteDance. The services included Apple's App Store; Meta's Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp; Google's YouTube video platform and...

The wildfire smoke recently suffocating cities from Athens to New York may be the most visible sign of air pollution brought on by heat waves. But extreme heat can also induce a whole host of other chemical processes that are hazardous for human health, the United Nations' World Meteorological Organization...

Adults and children over five require a single shot "irrespective of their Covid-19 vaccination history" while younger children may get "one or three doses depending on whether they have completed a primary vaccination course or have had Covid-19" the Amsterdam-based EMA said.

Moscow, Russia -- Moscow considers threats by European Union High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell to take medical supplies away from the Russian people as inadmissible and neo-Nazist, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said at a briefing."EU restrictions are above all an instrument of intimidation...

The landmark Digital Services Act (DSA) compels tech companies to better police content to protect European users against disinformation and hate speech. And it also demands the firms are more transparent about their services, algorithms and how ads are targeted. "These systemic platforms play a very, very important role in...

EU rules will apply from Friday to Google, alongside 18 other large social media platforms and websites including Meta-owned Instagram, Twitter (rebranded as X) and TikTok, forcing the companies to better police content, or face the risk of billions of euros in fines. Among the Google products listed were YouTube,...

The merger is expected to be completed by the end of Oct.

Cypriot authorities say there has been a rise in the number of migrants arriving by boat this year, with a 60 per cent increase recorded in the first five months. Most irregular migrants arriving by sea board boats in the Syrian port of Tartus, and these vessels are usually detected...

Tehran, Iran -- Trade between Iran and the European Union member states reached 2.3 billion euros ($2.5 billion) in the first half of 2023, according to Statistical Office of the European Union (Eurostat).Trade between Iran and Germany accounted for half the value, Tasnim News Agency reported, adding the Iran-EU trade...

As Middle Eastern countries rise economically and their populations grow, Malaysia sees a bigger role in fulfilling the region's growing demand for edible oils and fats.

The confrontation occurred in Pyla, an ethnically mixed village in the UN-patrolled area between the internationally recognised Republic of Cyprus in the south and a breakaway Turkish Cypriot statelet in the north. Video widely shared on social media showed bulldozers pushing away UN-marked SUVs, cement barriers and razor wire as...

The speedy filling of storage facilities means the bloc is "in a much more stable position than it was this time last year," when Russia's invasion of Ukraine sent energy prices soaring, EU Energy commissioner, Kadri Simson, said.

Jerusalem--The European Union has disbursed $24 million for the payment of social allowances to 71,162 vulnerable Palestinian families through the National Cash Transfer Program.The European Union for the past 17 years has been a steadfast supporter of the Palestinian Authority's (PA) Ministry of Social Development (MoSD), collaborating to ensure that...

Ankara, Turkey -- Turkey intensified talks with Ukraine, the United States, and the European Union on the grain deal in preparation for a possible meeting between Turkish and Russian Presidents Tayyip Erdogan and Vladimir Putin, TASS reported."The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Defense, and the Ministry of Trade...

Oslo, Norway - Norway's data protection agency said Tuesday it would start fining Facebook and Instagram owner Meta nearly $100,000 per day for defying a ban on using users' personal information to target ads.The Norwegian watchdog, Datatilsynet, said Meta would be fined one million kroner ($97,000) per day, starting August 14.Tobias...

The drop in exports was bigger than expected and the heaviest since a 17.2 percent plunge in January-February 2020, when the economy came to a standstill in the early weeks of the Covid-19 pandemic. Apart from a brief rebound in March and April, exports have been in constant decline since...

The African Union demanded Niger's military "return to their barracks and restore constitutional authority" within 15 days as the EU intensified pressure on the coup leaders by suspending security cooperation with the country. General Abdourahamane Tiani, head of the Presidential Guard since 2011, appeared on state television to declare himself...

Twitter continues to dominate its space as a platform for online comment and news, and Musk "would have to completely destroy it" to drive away its audience for good. Threads was quickly billed as a potential death knell for Twitter, but weeks later, Threads has since seen a "material decline...