Published on 18/08/2026 – 7:54 GMT+2•Updated 9:31 Water is being diverted into the Danube in Hungary and barges are being deliberately sunk in an effort to raise critically low river levels and prevent another shutdown at the country’s Paks Nuclear Power Plant. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT Since noon on Monday, an additional…

As part of its Tobacco Control Framework Evaluation, the European Commission reviewed current tobacco laws and found that, while older rules successfully lowered traditional cigarette consumption, they are nowcompletely outdated and failing to stop a massive surge in digital marketing and novel nicotine products. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT As a result, the…

Sophie Adenot has become the first French female astronaut to venture outside the International Space Station (ISS) for a spacewalk on Tuesday, accompanied by American astronaut Anil Menon. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT The spacewalk is scheduled to last six and a half hours, with the goal of replacing a space-to-ground antenna on…

Published on 18/08/2026 – 15:16 GMT+2•Updated 15:18 Eight non-EU countries have agreed to align themselves with the European Union’s latest sanctions against Belarus due to Minsk’s support for Russia’s war in Ukraine. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Norway, and Ukraine will ensure that their…

Germany has opened a new drone security research centre as the country steps up efforts to protect airports and critical infrastructure from hostile and unauthorised aircraft. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt, Research Minister Dorothee Bär and Saxony-Anhalt’s state premier Sven Schulze officially opened the facility on Tuesday in Cochstedt,…

Published on 18/08/2026 – 13:03 GMT+2 A German court on Tuesday handed a jail sentence of one year and three months to a Ukrainian man for spying for Russia and helping prepare possible acts of sabotage. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT The court in Stuttgart acquitted two other Ukrainian men who were on…

Published on 18/08/2026 – 12:12 GMT+2 A coalition of 26 businesses and civil society organisations representing more than 11,500 companies is urging the European Commission to make low-carbon criteria mandatory in EU public procurement rules ahead of a revision expected on 9 September. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT In a letter sent to…

The Veterinary Directorate-General of Greece’s Ministry of Rural Development and Food has lifted the ban on the transport of local dairy products off Lesbos by private individuals visiting the island. Their transport had been prohibited for months because of an outbreak of the animal disease foot-and-mouth in herds on the…

A Russian attack on a village in the Kharkiv region of northeast Ukraine killed at least 10 people, the local governor said on Tuesday. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT The strike comes amid a surge in civilian deaths in the four-and-a-half-year war. Russian forces “carried out a rocket strike on Pechenigy,” a village…

Published on 18/08/2026 – 9:13 GMT+2 Ukraine’s parliament returns to work on Tuesday after its summer break, reconvening with two of the government’s most sensitive wartime portfolios still without heads. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT When the Verkhovna Rada voted in Prime Minister Sergii Koretskyi’s new cabinet on 16 July, it approved every…