Deadly floods add to fiscal strains in central Europe Just a week ago, before deadly floods swept through central Europe, the Czech Republic looked on track to become the first country in the region since COVID-19 to pull its budget deficit firmly below the 3% of GDP cap set by European Union rules. Now that small victory…
Israel and Hezbollah trade fire after heaviest airstrikes yet U.N. peacekeepers in Lebanon urged immediate de-escalation as hostilities rumbled on at the Lebanese-Israeli border on Friday, following Israel’s most intense airstrikes in nearly a year of conflict with the Iran-backed Hezbollah. Israel’s military said on Thursday it had struck hundreds of Hezbollah rocket launchers that had been set to…
Cuban dissident leader wins Norwegian human rights award A Norwegian human rights foundation gave its annual prize on Thursday to jailed Cuban dissident leader Luis Manuel Otero Alcantara for his “fearless opposition to authoritarianism through art”. Four past laureates of the Rafto prize — Myanmar’s Aung San Suu Kyi, East Timor’s Jose Ramos-Horta, South Korea’s…
