Entertainment
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Stolen Renaissance masterpiece returns to Italy after 52 years
After more than half a century, a stolen Renaissance painting has finally returned home to Italy. *Madonna with Child*, a tempera-on-wood masterpiece by Venetian painter Antonio Solario,31 July 2025Read More... -
Belgian seaside resorts: highlights of royal De Panne
While Ostend is often dubbed the queen of Belgium’s seaside resorts, the country’s coastline offers many other gems worth discovering. In this series, Belga English explores four distinctive20 July 2025Read More... -
Louis Vuitton named suspect in Dutch money laundering probe
Luxury fashion house Louis Vuitton has been named a suspect in a Dutch money laundering investigation, according to the Dutch Public Prosecution Service (OM). The OM alleges that18 July 2025Read More... -
Brussels tops global rankings for international meetings as tourism soars to new heights
Brussels has once again secured its position as the world’s top city for international meetings, according to the latest annual report from the Union of International Associations (UIA).26 June 2025Read More... -
Coffee prices keep climbing in Czech establishments
The cost of a cup of coffee in Czech restaurants and cafés has increased by 4% over the past year, now averaging CZK 57.80, according to data from the Dotykačka point-of-sale system.15 June 2025Read More... -
Swiss tourism set for record-breaking Summer
Following a record-setting winter in 2024/25, Swiss tourism is poised for continued growth this summer. According to economist Simon Flury from BAK Economics, the number of overnight27 May 2025Read More...
News
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Germany set to order 15 additional U.S.-made F-35 jets, parliamentary source says
The German government is preparing to purchase an additional 15 of the U.S.-manufactured F‑35A fighter jets from Lockheed Martin, according to a parliamentary source who spoke to Reuters.Read More... -
Netherlands and Ukraine to jointly produce drones as The Hague pledges €200 million
The Netherlands and Ukraine are joining forces to co-produce drones, marking a major step forward in their defense cooperation. The announcement came Friday during a visit to Ukraine byRead More... -
Leuven named European Capital of Culture 2030
Leuven has been selected to represent Belgium as the European Capital of Culture in 2030. The announcement was made Wednesday at the Royal Library of Belgium in Brussels, with the cityRead More... -
Fewer internationals buying homes in the Netherlands, NVM report shows
International buyers are purchasing fewer homes in the Netherlands, according to a new report from estate agents’ association NVM and its data division Brainbay.Read More... -
Amsterdam library exhibits hundreds of banned U.S. books
If you’re in Amsterdam this month, the city’s main public library near Central Station has a thought-provoking exhibition going on. It’s called Index Americana, and it’s all about books that...Read More... -
Jewish students at Amsterdam University launch hotline against anti-semitism
Jewish students at the University of Amsterdam have started a new helpline, L’Chaim, to give their peers a place to report anti-Semitism and seek support. The initiative was born out of aRead More... -
Holocaust memorial in Lyon vandalized with “Free Gaza” slogan
A Holocaust memorial in Lyon has been vandalized with the words “Free Gaza,” local authorities confirmed on Sunday, sparking condemnation amid heightened concerns overRead More... -
Belgium’s retirement age hike to 66 saves government €100 million
Belgium’s decision to push the official retirement age from 65 to 66 is already showing big effects on both people’s lives and the state budget.Read More... -
Hackers threaten to release more stolen medical data from Dutch clinic
A ransomware group calling itself ‘Nova’ is threatening to publish even more sensitive medical records stolen from Clinical Diagnostics, a test lab in Rijswijk, unless the clinic pays upRead More...
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Politics
Reeling from the murder of MP Jo Cox, the EU referendum campaigns resumed Sunday, with just four days to go until the critical vote that will shape Britain's future.
The Remain and Leave camps suspended campaigning for three days after the killing of Cox on Thursday. A 52-year-old man has appeared in court charged with her murder.
But with the polls too close to call, leaders were to hit the television studios on Sunday to begin their final push for votes.
Prime Minister David Cameron, who wants Britain to stay in the European Union, said the country was facing an "an existential choice" from which there would be "no turning back".
Meanwhile Britain's Sunday newspapers picked sides in their final editions before the referendum.
The Mail on Sunday and The Observer gave their support to the Remain camp, while The Sunday Times and The Sunday Telegraph broadsheets backed quitting the EU.
The head of Britain’s Euro 2016 policing operation on Sunday said Russian football fans attacked their English rivals wearing gum shields, martial arts gloves and carrying knives.
Assistant chief constable Mark Roberts told Britain’s Guardian daily the clashes in Marseille were the most serious he had seen in 10 years of investigating football violence.
Roberts admitted “a small minority” of England fans were out to cause trouble, but said there were hundreds of “Russian troublemakers”.
“Our spotters in Marseille saw them putting in gum shields and putting on martial arts gloves and bandanas before attacking England fans in the port,” Roberts was quoted as saying.
“We know some were carrying knives because one England fan was stabbed. They wore a kind of uniform — all in black T-shirts and clothing and most carried bum bags, possibly to conceal weapons,” he told the Guardian.
Prime Minister David Cameron warned on Sunday (June 12) that Britain faces a "lost decade" if it leaves the EU, as he races to persuade undecided voters less than two weeks before a close referendum.
With several recent opinion polls suggesting momentum is with the "Leave" camp, Cameron is making a string of television appearances to try to convince people to back "Remain" on June 23.
A string of global institutions including the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and G7 have backed Cameron's argument that Britain's economy would be damaged by Brexit.
The rival camps in Britain's EU membership referendum tore into each other Thursday in an ill-tempered first television debate dominated by accusations of lies and scaremongering.
Former London mayor Boris Johnson and Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon traded barbs in a two-hour, six-way spat fought on the main battlegrounds of immigration and the economy.
The debate ended two hours before the extended deadline to register to vote in the June 23 referendum on whether Britain should stay in the European Union or leave the 28-country bloc.
Brexit campaigners accused the government of trying to rig the referendum and threatened legal action after MPs approved emergency legislation to push back the deadline by 48 hours, due to the registration website crashing on Tuesday due to overwhelming demand.
The move has infuriated the "Leave" camp because many late online requests have been from broadly pro-EU younger voters.
David Cameron argued Tuesday that remaining part of the EU was the "British thing to do" as he faced senior eurosceptic Nigel Farage in a TV grilling two weeks before a knife-edge referendum.
Urgently seeking a breakthrough, the prime minister spoke out against what he called Farage's "little England" vision and played the patriotism card by saying a June 23 out vote would mean "quitting, and I don't think we're quitters".
Despite an assured performance, Cameron faced repeated hostile questions from the audience on high immigration from the European Union to Britain, the "Leave" side's trump card during the campaign.
"I really fear if we leave that we're going to see the economy suffer," Cameron said at London's Olympic Park in a programme for the broadcaster ITV.
"I would say the right thing to do, the British thing to do is to fight for a Great Britain inside the EU and not take the Nigel Farage little England option," he added.
The earliest dated handwritten document from Britain has been unearthed in the heart of London, archeologists announced Wednesday, among a trove of Roman writing tablets revealing the city's commerce-driven beginnings.
The wooden tablet, a notice of debt owed dated January 8, 57 -- less than 14 years after the Roman invasion of 43 -- was found deep beneath what is now the City of London financial hub.
A man slashed the throat of a London Underground passenger for his "Syrian brothers", a court heard on Tuesday.
The aftermath of the incident in December (2015) was captured on mobile phone footage, and a bystander's retort to the attacker - "You ain't no Muslim, bruv" - became famous in Britain.
Muhiddin Mire, a 30-year-old Somali-born taxi driver, is accused of attacking 56-year-old musician Lyle Zimmerman at Leytonstone Tube station in east London.
More than 45 million men, women and children globally are trapped in modern slavery, far more than previously thought, with two-thirds in the Asia-Pacific, a study showed Tuesday.
The details were revealed in the 2016 Global Slavery Index, a research report by the Walk Free Foundation, an initiative set up by Australian billionaire mining magnate and philanthropist Andrew Forrest in 2012 to draw attention to the issue.
It compiled information from 167 countries with 42,000 interviews in 53 languages to determine the prevalence of the issue and government responses.
It suggested that there were 28 percent more slaves than estimated two years ago, a revision reached through better data collection and research methods.
The report said India had the highest number of people trapped in slavery at 18.35 million, while North Korea had the highest incidence (4.37 percent of the population) and the weakest government response.
Modern slavery refers to situations of exploitation that a person cannot leave because of threats, violence, coercion, abuse of power or deception.
They may be held in debt bondage on fishing boats, against their will as domestic servants or trapped in brothels.
London Olympics chief Sebastian Coe said it would be "delusional" to think the 2012 Games in the British capital may have been the dirtiest in history in the wake of more positive drugs tests.
A total of 23 positive results came from 265 retested samples, the International Olympic Committee said, on top of over 30 previous failed tests from competitors who had been caught either during the Games or since.
The high percentage of apparent doping offences sparked suggestions on Friday that London was rife with cheating, but Coe denies that is the case.
Coe, now the president of world athletics' governing body the IAAF, served as the London 2012 organising committee chairman.
The former middle-distance track star claims in the Sunday Telegraph that at the time of the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles, where he competed and won 1500 metres gold, technology was "prehistoric" and says many athletes would pick and base their schedules on the athletics circuit "in large part on the avoidance of testing".
A cross-party parliamentary committee on Friday condemned the "arms race of ever more lurid claims" on both sides of Britain's European Union referendum debate, saying it was confusing the public.
Lawmakers on the Treasury committee highlighted the "highly misleading" claim by the "Vote Leave" campaign that Britain could save £350 million (460 million euros, $512 million) a week by leaving the bloc.
They also criticised the "Remain" camp for suggesting that three million jobs depended on continued membership of the EU, and that households could be up to £4,300 a year worse off in the event of a so-called Brexit.
"The arms race of ever more lurid claims and counter-claims made by both the leave and remain sides is not just confusing the public. It is impoverishing political debate," said committee chairman Andrew Tyrie, a member of the ruling Conservative party.