Tag Archives: Europe

European Union Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and U.S. President Donald Trump are set to meet this Sunday in Scotland in a decisive attempt to break the months-long trade stalemate. The United States has threatened to impose tariffs as high as 30 percent on a wide range of European goods if no agreement is reached by August 1, escalating …

Concerns rippled through diplomatic circles as officials in the United States and Europe indicated that Israel appeared to be preparing for an imminent attack on Iran, the New York Times reported. Such a move, sources warned, held the potential to severely escalate tensions across the Middle East and jeopardise the Trump administration’s ongoing efforts to negotiate a deal aimed at …

A lab technician inspects filled vials of drug. — Reuters/File MADRID: Massive shipments of previously unknown recreational designer drugs and potent new opioids are threatening Europe, while traffic of cocaine and cannabis is worsening, according to the European Union Drugs Agency’s annual report published on Thursday. Seizures of synthetic cathinones – stimulants chemically akin to the active ingredient in khat, …

Russia and Ukraine on Monday swapped plans for ending their three-year war during talks in Istanbul aiming to find a way out of Europe’s largest conflict since World War II. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said any deal must not “reward” Russian leader Vladimir Putin, but said Kyiv was willing to take the “necessary steps for peace”. Urged on by US …

A huge plume of ash, gas and rock spewed forth Monday from Italy’s Mount Etna, Europe’s largest active volcano, after a portion of its southeastern crater likely collapsed, authorities said. Images showed a massive grey cloud billow forth from the volcano on the island of Sicily, beginning about 11:24am local time (0924 GMT), according to the National Institute of Geophysics …

Russian and Ukrainian negotiators met in Istanbul on Friday at their first direct peace talks in more than three years, under pressure from US President Donald Trump to end Europe’s deadliest conflict since World War Two. Live television showed Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan addressing Russian and Ukrainian negotiators at the lavish Dolmabahce Palace on the Bosphorus. Half of the …

Hendrik Dierendonck, a second-generation butcher who has become, as he describes it, “world famous in Belgium” for his curated local beef, thinks Europe’s way of raising cattle results in varied and delicious cuts that European consumers prize. “They want hormone-free, grass-fed,” Mr. Dierendonck explained recently as he cut steaks at a bloody chopping block in his Michelin-starred restaurant, which backs …

Insulin, heart treatments and antibiotics have flowed freely across many borders for decades, exempt from tariffs in a bid to make medicine affordable. But that could soon change. For months, President Trump has been promising to impose higher tariffs on pharmaceuticals as part of his plan to reorder the global trading system and bring key manufacturing industries back to the …

President Trump’s decision to move a step closer to imposing tariffs on imported medicines poses considerable political risk, because Americans could face higher prices and more shortages of critical drugs. The Trump administration filed a federal notice on Monday saying that it had begun an investigation into whether imports of medicines and pharmaceutical ingredients threaten America’s national security, an effort …

President Trump has big ambitions for the global trading system and is using tariffs to try to rip it down and rebuild it. But the European Union is taking action after action to make sure the continent is at the center of whatever world comes next. As one of the globe’s biggest and most open economies, the E.U. has a …