European Union

The Russian currency has plunged to a record low. At the beginning of the year the rouble exchange rate was 76 per euro but in the last two months it has dropped from 89 to 106 roubles per euro. On the Moscow foreign exchange market the US dollar and the euro are currently trading at rates even higher than those triggered by the panic shortly after the war with Ukraine began. The main reason for the drop in value is the slump in foreign exchange revenues due to sanctions and increased imports.

Some 41 people drowned en route to Italy, while 27 others died of heat-related complications in the Libyan desert this week.

Forty-one migrants including three children are feared dead after being shipwrecked last week in the Mediterranean, UN agencies said, citing four survivors brought to the Italian island of Lampedusa Wednesday (9 August).

EUobserver spoke to Marie Asano, head of the food and nutrition team at the European Circular Bioeconomy Fund, an independent 'dark green' venture capital fund — focused on innovative companies that aim to bring bio-based foods to the general public.

Germany’s Rhine region got a foretaste of things to come during the 2018 summer drought. And it doesn’t look good.

"In China, they're building skyscrapers of pigs," says Greenpeace. And in Brussels, the Big Meat lobby is spending millions to stop so-called 'vegan radicals' from shaping EU policy.

Last month's coup in Niger has raised questions over whether the United States can continue the 1,100-strong military presence in the country that officials and analysts say has been key to fighting Islamist militants in the Sahel region.

Tourists and tour operators are expected to head to northern Europe in the future after a summer of crippling heatwaves hit southern Europe and left travelers wondering if cooler temperatures might suit them better.

A Kremlin official involved in what international prosecutors call the illegal deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia was associated online as a teenager with white supremacist and neo-Nazi movements, a journalistic investigation has found.

Ecuador presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio, a vocal critic of corruption and organised crime, was killed on Wednesday evening (9 August) during a campaign event in northern Quito, authorities said.

The United States and Canada issued new sanctions against Belarus on Wednesday (9 August), designating several entities and individuals over alleged human rights abuses and support for Russia amid the war in Ukraine.

The German government passed the budget for its flagship climate and transformation fund (KTF) that will accelerate the green transition by providing €212 billion to various projects in building renovation, decarbonisation and the industry between 2024 and 2027.

Poland will send an additional 2,000 troops to reinforce its eastern border with neighbouring Belarus, a deputy interior minister said Wednesday (9 August), as a record number of migrants try to cross.