Category: Europe
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A total solar eclipse crosses Greenland, Iceland, Portugal and northern Spain on 12 August. Why it happens, what you’ll see — and how to watch without damaging your eyes.
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Why refineries, not oil fields, are the target — and the counterintuitive result: strikes on refining can cut a country’s fuel supply while increasing its crude exports.
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Thirteen people, including a child, were killed in a Ukrainian drone attack on a refinery in Tatarstan. Why refineries are targeted, what “dual-use” means, and why we count all the dead.
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A three-year-old boy and his grandparents were killed by a drone strike in Ukraine. Why casualty lists in this war fall so heavily on the very young and the elderly.
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Spain and Italy have imposed border checks on each other’s travellers after the mass arrival of migrants in Ceuta — inside a zone built to abolish exactly those checks.
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Boris Nadezhdin, the politician who tried to run against Putin on an anti-war platform in 2024, says he has left Russia. Who he is, why his campaign mattered, and what his exit removes.
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A German diocese criticised a donor who offered money in exchange for baptisms. Why paying for a sacrament has a name — simony — and why churches have banned it for centuries.
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The Vatican has confirmed Pope Leo XIV will meet abuse victims during his visit to France. Why these meetings have become standard, what survivors say about them, and why papal trips are diplomatic events too.
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Poland is appealing a Brussels ruling ordering it to pay €1.3 billion for COVID vaccine doses it doesn’t want. How advance purchase contracts worked, and why both sides have a real case.
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Italy’s health ministry issued red alerts for a record 25 cities in the country’s fourth heatwave of the summer. What a red alert means, and why heat kills more quietly than other disasters.