Wildfires fanned by heatwave and strong winds rage across Europe
World 16:02 14/08/2025PATRAS, Greece/MADRID -- Wildfires caused by arsonists or thunderstorms and fanned by a heatwave and strong winds wreaked destruction across southern Europe on Wednesday, burning homes and forcing thousands of residents and tourists to flee.
'Cooked alive': Europe's wildfires hit tourism spots and forests
World 15:17 13/08/2025Firefighters across Spain, Portugal, Greece, Turkey and the Balkans were battling wildfires on Tuesday, with another heatwave pushing temperatures above 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) across parts of Europe.
Europe stresses need to protect Ukrainian interests ahead of Trump-Putin talks
World 16:12 10/08/2025European leaders on Saturday welcomed U.S. President Donald Trump's plans to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin on ending the conflict in Ukraine, while stressing the need to keep pressure on Moscow and protect Ukrainian and European security interests.
Europe's old power plants to get digital makeover driven by AI boom
World 16:09 06/08/2025Some of Europe's ageing coal and gas fired power plants can look forward to a more high-tech future as big tech players, such as Microsoft and Amazon, seek to repurpose them as data centres, with ready-made access to power and water.
'Silent killer': the science of tracing climate deaths in heatwaves
World 15:25 31/07/2025A heatwave scorching Europe had barely subsided in early July when scientists published estimates that 2,300 people may have died across a dozen major cities during the extreme, climate-fuelled episode.
World risks up to $39 trillion in economic losses from vanishing wetlands, report says
World 11:34 16/07/2025NAIROBI - The global destruction of wetlands, which support fisheries, agriculture and flood control, may mean the loss of $39 trillion in economic benefits by 2050, according to a report by the Convention on Wetlands released on Tuesday.
Solar becomes Europe's main energy source in June: consultants
World 13:31 11/07/2025Solar power became the European Union's biggest single energy source for the first time in June, an energy think tank said Thursday.
Europe's illegal pesticide trade surges as farmers cut costs
World 17:14 10/07/2025As the cost of spraying crops with pesticides becomes increasingly expensive, farmers in Greece's agricultural heartland have turned to a cheaper alternative: liquids in unlabeled plastic bottles smuggled over land and sea.
European grid investment plans face 250 billion euro shortfall
World 16:58 10/07/2025LONDON - The European electricity transmission system operator's (TSO) investment plans to upgrade and expand power grids over the next five years face a 250 billion euro ($293 billion) shortfall, a report by Boston Consulting Group (BCG) said on Thursday.
June was hottest on record in western Europe: EU monitor
World 11:20 09/07/2025Western Europe sweltered through its hottest June on record last month, as "extreme" temperatures blasted the region in punishing back-to-back heatwaves, the EU climate monitor Copernicus said Wednesday.
Development banks to invest 3 billion euros in ocean plastics fight
World 14:01 10/06/2025LONDON - A group of development banks plans to invest at least 3 billion euros ($3.4 billion) by the end of the decade in tackling plastic pollution in the sea, expanding the scope and financial firepower of what remains the world's biggest effort to fix the growing problem.
Over half of Europe and Mediterranean basin hit by drought in mid-May
World 18:35 04/06/2025More than half, or 53 percent of land in Europe and the Mediterranean basin were hit by drought in mid-May, according to an AFP analysis of data from the European Drought Observatory (EDO) from May 11-20, 2025.
