Global News

[ad_1] BRUSSELS : EU member countries and the European Parliament said Wednesday they have reached a preliminary agreement on curbing industrial emissions , including those from intensive poultry and pig farms and from ore mines. The deal, struck late Tuesday, would "reduce harmful emissions from industry and improve public access to information," the European Council, representing member states, said in a statement. The lead EU lawmaker on the file, Radan Kanev, said it would "significantly" reduce emissions "without creating further red tape for industries and farmers" while bringing in stiff fines for companies violating it. The agreement, which still has to be formally adopted, aims to bring down air, soil and water pollution from companies by revising existing rules on emissions and landfill of waste. It would also update a European pollutant release and transfer register known as E-PRTR. The parliament noted in a statement that emissions from...

[ad_1] MADRID : Spain's high court suspended 194 million euros ($209 million) in fines imposed on Amazon and Apple by the local antitrust watchdog in July, pending an appeal by the tech giants, an Amazon spokesperson said on Thursday. CNMC , as the watchdog is known, fined Amazon and Apple for colluding to prevent dealers other than Amazon from selling Apple wares on Amazon's websites in Spain. Apple was fined 143.6 million euros and Amazon 50.5 million euros and both companies at the time said they would appeal. The court decision to suspend the payment is part of the appeal process, the Amazon spokesperson said. Amazon said in July that as a result of the deal with Apple, the number of discounts on Apple devices on Amazon's websites increased. The suspension of the fine does not anticipate the court will rule in favour or against the tech giants. An Apple spokesperson did not immediately responded to request for comment. CNMC said a contract signed by the tw...

[ad_1] The world just had its hottest year ever recorded, and 2024 has already set a new heat record for the warmest January ever observed, according to the European Union's climate change monitoring service Copernicus.  The service said that January 2024 had a global average air temperature of 13.14 degrees Celsius, or 55.65 degrees Fahrenheit. That temperature was 0.70 degrees Celsius above the 1991 to 2020 average for the month and 0.12 degrees Celsius above the last warmest January, in 2020.  It was also 1.66 degrees Celsius warmer than the pre-industrial average for the month.  Surface air temperature anomaly for January 2024 relative to the January average for the period 1991-2020. Data source: ERA5 Copernicus Climate Change Service/ECMWF "2024 starts with another record-breaking month," Samantha Burgess, deputy director of the Copernicus Clima...

[ad_1] ALEXANDROUPOLIS: Firefighters on Tuesday found the burnt bodies of 18 people believed to have been migrants who had crossed the Turkish border into an area of northeastern Greece where wildfires have raged for days. The discovery near the city of Alexandroupolis came as hundreds of firefighters battled dozens of wildfires across the country amid gale-force winds. On Monday, two people died and two firefighters were injured in separate fires in northern and central Greece. With their hot, dry summers, southern European countries are particularly prone to wildfires. Another major blaze has been burning across Tenerife in Spain's Canary Islands for a week, although no injuries or damage to homes was reported. European Union officials have blamed climate change for the increasing frequency and intensity of wildfires in Europe, noting that 2022 was the second-worst year for wildfire damage on record after 2017. In Greece, police activated the country's Disaster Vi...

[ad_1] BRUSSELS: A hard-won deal on the European Union 's negotiating stance for this year's UN climate talks has revealed regional rifts that anticipate global tensions at the COP28 summit . Diplomats from the 27 EU countries spent weeks debating their COP28 position before their climate ministers agreed on Monday to push for deals to phase out CO2-emitting fossil fuels, triple production of renewable energy and halt the building of coal power plants. The stance sets the EU up to be among the most ambitious major economies at the COP28 gathering of nearly 200 countries, which begins on November 30. But even EU countries clashed over how ambitious to be - and their ministers were locked in talks into the evening on Monday. The faultlines tended to fall between wealthier EU members seeking rapid climate action, and poorer economies concerned about the cost of quitting fossil fuels. The toughest issue concerns fossil fuels - with the EU only agreeing to support a phas...

[ad_1] The United Nations Human Rights Council Wednesday approved a Pakistan-backed motion on religious hatred in the wake of the burning of the Holy Quran in Sweden — a move major Western powers opposed. Major Western powers — the United States, European Union, and the United Kingdom — opposed the resolution, claiming it was against their views on human rights and freedom of expression. Pakistan had moved the resolution titled "countering religious hatred constituting incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence" after a man in Sweden burned pages of the holy book, triggering a diplomatic backlash across the Muslim world. As many as 28 countries — including China, India, South Africa, and Ukraine — voted in favour, 12 voted against, and seven countries abstained. Among countries other than the UK and the US, Belgium, Costa Rica, Czechia, Finland, France, Germany, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Monte Negro, and Romania voted against the resolution. Pakistan's ...

[ad_1] ISLAMABAD: EU Ambassador to Pakistan Dr Riina Kionka has said that her organisation wanted to see more improvement in the country in certain areas, including freedom of expression; situation of minorities; rights of women and gender equality; and also labour rights if it wished to have its GSP+ status renewed. In a video message, she noted that the EU also hoped to see freedom of the media in Pakistan as well as that of religion and belief. The EU envoy expressed her concern over the crackdown on the PTI and its supporters in the aftermath of May 9. “[That] certainly is something that we’re paying a lot of attention to,” she added. “We also are well aware that international NGOs and experts are looking at this. Specifically, the issue of the use of military courts and anti-terrorism courts,” Kionka elaborated. The EU ambassador said her organisation was also well aware that there was a lively debate in Pakistan over both of the issues. Criticising the military court...