MADRID, Feb 27 (Reuters) – A Spanish women’s rights activist who suffered online abuse, including AI-generated fake nude images, said the government’s pledge to regulate social media does not go far enough, calling for anonymous accounts to be made traceable to end impunity for digital violence.
As Europe’s push to rein in U.S.-based tech giants is shifting from fines and takedown notices to stiffer measures, Madrid wants to impose a ban on under-16s accessing social media and criminal liability for platform executives who fail to remove illegal or hateful content.
France, Greece and Poland are weighing similar measures after Australia became the first country to block social media for children under 16 in December.
Carla Galeote, a 25-year-old lawyer and prominent online feminist commentator, told Reuters governments were reacting only now because digital violence had become impossible to ignore, although the problem predated AI.
“Social media isn’t new – and the violence is brutal, systematic, 24/7,” Galeote said. “What hit me hardest wasn’t the deepfake, it was going to the police and being told it wasn’t even a crime.”
She dismissed plans to ban children from social media as “paternalistic”, arguing all users, regardless of age, need protection from digital abuse.
Spain’s proposed law has sparked backlash from tech company executives, who accuse Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez of threatening free speech. Galeote, however, believes regulation and freedom of expression can coexist.
“It’s impossible to think that a man on the street could shout that they’ll rape you and nothing happens, but that’s what we’re seeing online,” she said.
Instead of imposing easily absorbable fines, Galeote advocated barring platforms from major markets, like the European Union, for repeated violations.
While defending pseudonymous online use, Galeote emphasized the need for traceable identities behind all accounts.
“Call yourself ‘PeppaPig88’ if you want – fine. But there has to be a real identity behind that account,” she said.
(Reporting by David Latona; Editing by Aislinn Laing and Andrei Khalip)
LONDON, Feb 17 (Reuters) – As American and European policymakers know well, global currency dominance and exchange rate movement are different things. But there’s a decent argument that Europe’s push to widen euro usage necessarily involves some revaluation of the single currency.
As Transatlantic ties fray and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen warned of lines that “cannot be uncrossed” after President Donald Trump’s bid for the U.S. to acquire Greenland, European Union leaders and finance chiefs this past week have launched another push to bolster the bloc’s economic clout and reposition its defense.
With the Munich Security Conference as the backdrop, an informal EU summit last week brought renewed impetus to deepen European capital markets integration. Leaders also discussed possibly expanding joint euro debt sales and – led by the European Central Bank on Saturday – widening euro access, liquidity and financing worldwide.
Some of this has been on the table before. But the urgency for action is now evident in a willingness for a two-speed advance with six core countries – Germany, France, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands and Poland – in the vanguard if agreement among the 27 is too cumbersome or slow. An EU6 summit is due early next month.
The plans are likely necessary, even if not yet sufficient, to expand the role of the euro and allow it to absorb some of the nervousness about the world’s overexposure to dollars at a time of enormous U.S. political and economic upheaval.
Whether that greater global role brings a less welcome appreciation of the euro’s value is another question.
As finance chiefs on both sides of the Atlantic ponder the potential for at least some shift in the scale of dollar dominance in reserves, trade, invoicing and commodity pricing, they have differing takes on any related exchange rate fallout.
Trump’s administration sees a “strong dollar” primarily in terms of the currency’s reach and pervasive use in cross-border finance – an extension of American power unrelated to the ebbs and flows of the exchange rate itself. The presumption is that the Trump team sees an unwinding of the dollar’s overvalued exchange rate as an integral part of its global trade reset.
Currency experts, such as Cornell professor and former IMF official Eswar Prasad, think a gradual weakening of the dollar’s exchange rate is possible without damaging its international dominance.
But Prasad, in a new book published this month called The Doom Loop, says this dominance, even though durable for reasons of inertia and scale, may well be at the heart of mounting global economic instability. And if that reaches a crescendo, the search for adequate alternatives inevitably rises, as gold’s parabolic recent price gains attest.
“While dollar dominance might prove a saving grace at times of crisis, it is that very dominance which has a destabilizing effect worldwide,” he wrote. “It exposes other countries to the mercurial and often undisciplined economic and financial policies of the United States.”
Europe, on the other hand, clearly wants to lift the euro’s role but is far less keen on the exchange-rate appreciation that may follow, mainly because it would hurt export competitiveness at a time of great global trade uncertainty and further dampen inflation in the slower‑growth region.
Much like its U.S. counterparts, it would like the “exorbitant privilege” of being a bigger reserve currency but not the bloated exchange rate valuation that might go with it.
But if the U.S. side were happy with gradual dollar slippage on the exchanges and only a modest reduction in the dollar’s usage per se, would the Europeans be happy with the flipside of that scenario?
AXA Group Chief Economist Gilles Moec argued this week that disentangling the exchange rate impact from global usage was theoretically correct, but it would be hard to see any significant one-off shift not affecting the euro’s value.
Moec makes the point that during the last transition between dominant reserve currencies over a century ago, between the two world wars, when sterling ceded prominence to the dollar, the dollar appreciated on trend.
Even though the U.S. unsuccessfully tried to resist that rise by devaluing the dollar against gold at the time, he points out, demand from global investors for the new reserve currency mechanically won out.
“Our point here is that the European Central Bank cannot completely disconnect its support for an upgrade in the euro’s global role from monetary policy,” he concluded.
The plus side is that a “more assertive role” for the euro could be positive for the EU by triggering regular inflows from foreign investors into euro assets at a time when Europe needs it. What’s more, a stronger euro could aid a shift from an export-led economy to a domestically led growth mode.
“To ease the transition, though, a flexible monetary policy would be necessary to avoid a too brutal decline in competitiveness,” Moec concluded.
If Europe now feels it also needs to cross lines that cannot be uncrossed, then maybe it just has to take all that on the chin.
The opinions expressed here are those of the author, a columnist for Reuters.
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Agadir – Royal Air Maroc (RAM) is taking a major step forward in strengthening connectivity between Morocco and Spain through the launch of a dozen new regular routes connecting the two countries.
With over fifty years of presence in the Spanish market, Royal Air Maroc is connecting many Moroccan cities, including Casablanca, Tetouan, Tangier, Nador, and Spanish destinations such as Madrid, Barcelona, Málaga, Bilbao, and Alicante.
RAM unveiled these routes at a press conference in Madrid on February 13, attended by Moroccan Ambassador to Spain Karima Benyaich, sharing its most ambitious expansion plan in decades.
Benyaich highlighted the role of this initiative, reinforcing the longstanding and mutually beneficial ties between the two countries, noting that Spain hosts the largest Moroccan diaspora, whose mobility needs are increasingly supported by such air links.
Under the expansion, Tetouan will now be connected to Barcelona, Málaga, and Madrid, while Tangier will also offer flights to the same Spanish cities. Nador will link directly to Barcelona, and Casablanca will add Bilbao and Alicante to its Spanish network.
These new connections will bring RAM’s total presence in Spain to nine airports, with more than 80 weekly frequencies across five Moroccan cities.
RAM Vice President Amine El Farissi emphasized that this growth aligns with the airline’s long-term strategy of transforming from a regional hub carrier into a transcontinental airline.
“We aim to increase our annual passenger traffic from 7.5 million to over 31 million by 2037,” he said, highlighting plans for a fleet expansion to 200 aircraft and the addition of more than 100 new international destinations, spanning Europe, Africa, the Americas, Asia, and the Middle East.
The expansion is also strategically timed ahead of the 2030 FIFA World Cup, jointly hosted by Morocco, Spain, and Portugal. El Farissi explained that RAM began developing these new routes four years in advance to ensure sufficient connectivity for tourists, diaspora communities, and business travelers. Some routes will eventually offer up to four or five weekly flights, according to demand.
To support this growth, RAM has already integrated new B-787-9 Dreamliner and B-737 MAX aircraft into its fleet, with plans to increase the number of aircraft from 62 to 72 by the end of 2026.
A tender for 188 additional aircraft has been launched to gradually scale up capacity through 2037, enabling further expansion of both regional and long-haul networks to destinations including Los Angeles, São Paulo, Toronto, Munich, Beijing, and Abuja.
RAM’s expansion reinforces Morocco’s strategic plan to facilitate access to Africa and other global markets. It also promotes tourism and business exchange, and supports the mobility of Moroccan and African diaspora communities across Europe.
Ask any Spaniard you know, and they’ll tell you the same thing: The country has its own version of the Oscars, and they’re called the Goya Awards.
Consider some of Hollywood’s favorite Spanish-speaking talent — Pedro Almodóvar, Guillermo del Toro, Javier Bardem, Penélope Cruz, Antonio Banderas — all of them have earned at least one Goya (in Bardem’s case, the most acting Goyas ever), taken to the stage, and spoken proudly about what it means to be recognized by Spain‘s Academy of Cinematographic Arts and Sciences in front of their peers.
The 40th Goya Awards, set for a star-studded ceremony with Susan Sarandon — this year’s international Goya Award honoree — on Feb. 28 at the Auditori Fòrum in Barcelona, will spotlight an area of the country like never before. As the Basque Country continues to leave its mark on global cinema thanks to unparalleled film and TV investment in the region, its talent is arriving at the 2026 event with a record 45 nominations, up from 25 nods the previous year.
Don’t be fooled — this hasn’t just happened. It is the product of years of hard work from creatives all over the region, including the Basque government’s culture department, its public broadcaster, ETB, as well as those behind Spain’s biggest film festival in San Sebastian, who continue to champion local cinema and burgeoning talent.
“There’s a very healthy combination of institutional support, a strong professional ecosystem, and a generation of creators with very clear, distinctive voices,” says Goya Award-nominated producer Iván Miñambres about the Basque cinema boom over the last 10 years. “Internationally, the Basque Country is increasingly seen as a strong place to produce films and to develop high-quality projects rooted in the territory.”
It helps, of course, that the region boasts a 60 percent rebate that industry professionals can claim on their productions, which increases to 70 percent if shot in the Basque language, Euskera. This not only incentivizes Basque talent to shoot at home, but international stars are being lured from all over: Catherine Zeta-Jones’ revenge thriller Hey Jackie and Nanni Moretti’s next movie It Will Happen Tonight are among the more intriguing projects to have recently shot in northern Spain.
And it’s not just A-listers reaping the rewards of the Basque Country’s investments in the sector. Miñambres, for example, has scored a nod in the best animated feature film category for his work on the black comedy-drama Decorado, and tells The Hollywood Reporter that animation is a valued craft in the region. “Animation is recognized as a strategic discipline, backed by both the Basque Government and public television,” he says.
‘Decorado’
Courtesy of PÖFF
“It’s not seen solely as a cultural expression, but also as an industry, since these are long-term projects involving a large number of technicians and artists — mostly young professionals with a high level of training and expertise.” Grants are available for development, production and internationalisation, he adds, as well as a support network that accompanies projects long-term. “All of this makes it possible to take creative risks and to bring ambitious projects to life that would otherwise be very difficult to realize.”
It’s this kind of creative freedom that has remained the driving force for Mar Izquierdo at Zineuskadi. Her business works strategically to promote the Basque audiovisual sector, partnering with every production output in the region and working with the Basque government to help facilitate co-productions, distribution and sales deals, as well as getting films a coveted slot at major fests such as Berlin, Cannes, and Venice.
“People can do bigger films, and they’re losing the fear of doing the film that they thought they were supposed to be making, because years before, they were adjusting the film to the budget they had, and now they can dream and actually do the movie that they wrote,” Izquierdo tells THR about the strides taken for Basque cinema and its mighty film output in 2025.
One of the buzzier films heading into the Goyas this year is Alauda Ruiz De Azúa’s Sundays (Los Domingos), which nabbed San Sebastian’s Golden Shell. Ruiz de Azúa’s Basque-language feature, following a 17-year-old who announces to her family she wants to become a cloistered nun, has racked up 13 Goya Award nominations — more than any other film, including those that aren’t Basque productions.
Sundays is up for best picture and Ruiz de Azúa for best director. She tells THR that the history-making record is particularly meaningful when it’s awarded to you by your colleagues: “It’s given by someone who knows how hard it is to build a movie, to defend a movie, to promote a movie, you know?”
When asked what it is that sets Basque storytelling apart, Ruiz de Azúa is full of praise for her fellow nominees, such as Jose Mari Goenaga and Aitor Arregi, whose drama Maspalomas will also compete for best picture. “It’s beautiful,” she begins, “because it’s very diverse, but also with a lot of soul. We are not so extroverted with our feelings when we make movies,” she says about the Basque people. “We really love to explore the emotional intimacy.” Miñambres concurs with that sentiment: “It’s a kind of filmmaking that doesn’t usually aim for spectacle, but rather for deep emotion,” he says to THR. “That allows itself to be personal, bold and sometimes uncomfortable, [and] that approach leads to very singular stories, films that truly connect with audiences and stay with them over time.”
The region has been full to the brim with talent for as long as Ruiz de Azúa can remember, though investment in studios, tech, and expanding crew numbers has really bolstered Basque cinema’s strength. What she does think has made an impact recently, however, is the work being put in to showcase their films around the world: “Basque cinema [has] began to travel more,” she says, referencing her 2022 directorial debut Lullaby premiering at the Berlinale and Maspalomas‘ screenings at film fests in Palm Springs, Dublin, London, São Paulo, and Greece. “We are the first generation [to] travel abroad with our cinema.”
Alauda Ruiz De Azúa accepts her Golden Shell at the 2025 San Sebastian Film Festival.
Getty
Producer Ander Sagardoy, whose films Maspalomas, Gaua and La Misteriosa Mirada Del Flamenco have accrued nearly a third (13) of the total Goya nominations for Basque film, calls 2025 “an exceptional year” for his fellow industry members. “It doesn’t happen every year,” he says. “So we are really happy.”
Such is the wealth of production in the north of Spain that Sagardoy deems it important to differentiate between Basque productions and Basque-language films or shows. “A lot of production companies [are coming] from foreign countries,” he explains, “but also the rest of Spain are coming to the Basque Country to produce films that they could be shooting in any other place.” Despite the crowdedness and unending need for even more investment, the health of the Basque audiovisual industry, according to the producer, “is really good.”
Sagardoy admits to often feeling like a cynic about the film industry, but even he can’t deny Basque cinema’s strength at the upcoming Goya Awards. “We always try to think that our films are not defined by nominations or by prizes,” he tells THR. “But the reality is that the industry works like this… It’s important to continue believing in ourselves, but also convincing to the rest [of the world] that it is worth it to invest in these types of movies,” he adds, saying all three of his nominated projects — one following a closeted elderly man (Maspalomas), the other a witch-hunting fantasy (Gaua), and the third a 1982-set drama about an AIDS-like epidemic in a Chilean mining town (La MisteriosaMirada Del Flamenco) — are “quite radical movies.”
And while Ruiz de Azúa is more than pleased with her box office tally for Sundays in Spain (a healthy $4.6 million), she also admits a Goya Award nomination is, as they might say in Euskera, tartaren gaineko gerezia (the icing on the cake). “It’s our Spanish Oscars!” she grins. “Susan Sarandon is coming.”
Bergen, Norway — In the frigid waters off the coast of Norway, America’s NATO allies scour the depths for clandestine Russian activity.
The stretch of ocean, viewed as a gateway to the Arctic, is where Europe’s high north meets the Russian high north, home to the Kremlin’s Northern Fleet.
Nuclear-armed Russian submarines are dispatched regularly from the vast naval base on the country’s freezing Kola peninsula, slipping silently beneath the waves before heading into the North Atlantic.
CBS News joined the crew of a NATO warship taking part in drills aimed at detecting, tracking and — if necessary — taking out these subs before they pass through the narrow gap between Greenland, Iceland and the U.K., and onward to the United States’ eastern seaboard.
If a war were to break out between Russia and the U.S. and its NATO allies, the area would become a strategic chokepoint.
Commanders see Operation Arctic Dolphin — an exercise involving ships, submarines and aircraft from Spain, Germany, France, the U.K. and many other nations — as essential to maintaining cohesion in a military alliance that has endured for 75 years.
“Norway has the great advantage of being a part of such a huge alliance,” said Commodore Kyrre Haugen, commander of the Norwegian Fleet overseeing Arctic Dolphin. “But every nation is taking advantage of being a part of something that is bigger than themselves.”
The commander said Norway has operated in the Arctic since the Cold War, and the “special focus” on the region now highlights how crucial it is to the security of both Europe and the U.S.
Arctic map shows Greenland and the Northern Hemisphere with locations of NATO and Russian military bases.
AFP via Getty Images
“Those missiles can attack Europe, can attack America by being deployed in the deep seas, all into the Atlantic,” he said, referring to Russia’s arsenal.
The NATO drill is just one aspect of a race to secure a region that has become a “front line for strategic competition,” according to U.S. Air Force General Alexus Grynkewich, NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander in Europe.
Russia’s already using the Arctic as a testing ground for its hypersonic missiles, designed to evade U.S. air defenses.
But threats to regional stability have also emerged closer to home.
President Trump angered NATO partners by repeatedly insisting the U.S. needed to take ownership of Greenland — and by threatening last month to impose tariffs on allies if they didn’t comply.
Undeniably, the alliance is playing catch-up in the Arctic and the high north. Seven of the eight Arctic states are NATO Allies. Yet Russia, with more than half the Arctic coastline in its territory, has almost as many permanently-manned bases in the region as all NATO members combined.
On the bridge of the Spanish frigate ESPS Almirante Juan de Borbon, the commander defended to CBS News the contribution to NATO by Spain, which Mr. Trump recently accused of not being “loyal” to the alliance.
“I’m not going to dig into political dynamics,” said Rear Admiral Joaquín Ruiz Escagedo, before gesturing to the young naval officers busy in front of maps and radar screens. “But I would say the contribution of Spain, you can see here.”
Escagedo said the country has “a lot of capabilities,” and is committed to NATO’s collective defense principle.
“We cannot be isolated. The power of NATO is the unity,” he said. “That’s the success of NATO for decades.”
That unity is about to be tested with a new mission.
NATO planning new Arctic Sentry mission for “enhanced vigilance” in the far north
A spokesperson for Gen. Grynkewich, NATO’s American commander in Europe, confirmed to CBS News that planning is underway for a mission in the Arctic region.
Arctic Sentry will be an “enhanced vigilance activity to even further strengthen NATO’s posture in the Arctic and High North.”
The spokesperson told CBS News that planning for the new mission has “only just begun, but details will follow in due course.”
The possibility of an Arctic Sentry mission was first mentioned by Britain’s top diplomat last month, as an element of the negotiations that resolved Mr. Trump’s standoff with Europe over the fate of Greenland.
Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper said the U.K. had proposed working “through NATO on a new Arctic sentry, which is similar to what we already have through NATO — a Baltic Sentry and an Eastern Sentry,” referring to existing regional security partnerships among NATO allies.
“This is now going to be a focus of work through NATO, with different Arctic countries coming together and supported by other NATO countries on how we do that shared security,” she told CBS News’ partner network BBC News on Jan. 22.
Spain will join the growing list of countries banning access to social media for children, Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez Tuesday. The law will apply to users under 16 years of age amidst a broader push to hold social media companies accountable for hate speech, social division and illegal content.
at the World Governments Summit in Dubai, Prime Minister Sanchez excoriated social media, calling it a “failed state” where “laws are ignored and crime is endured.” He spoke to the importance of digital governance for these platforms, highlighting recent incidents like X’s AI chatbot Grok sexualized images of children, and the myriad that have taken place on Facebook.
In light of what Sanchez called the “integral” role social media plays in the lives of young users, he said the best way to help them is to “take back control.” Next week, his government will enact a slew of new regulations, with a ban on users under 16 years of age among them. Social media companies will be required to implement what he calls “effective age verification systems” and “not just checkboxes.” A specific timeline on enforcement of the coming ban has not been announced.
Spain will also make “algorithmic manipulation and amplification of illegal content” into a new criminal offense and Sanchez says tech CEOs will face criminal liability for hateful or illegal content on their platforms. The Prime Minister further announced that Spain has formed a coalition with five other unnamed European nations to enact stricter governance over social media platforms.
Sanchez said children have been “exposed to a space they were never meant to navigate alone,” and that it’s the government’s job to intervene. He added social media has fallen from its promise to be a “tool for global understanding and cooperation.”
enacted an under-16s ban on social media last year, which has prompted many nations to follow suit. It is under in the UK, while and have announced plans to enact similar bans.
LISBON, Feb 2 (Reuters) – Portugal is bracing for a new storm that authorities warn could trigger floods and further devastation, as the country still struggles with the aftermath of Storm Kristin.
The Portuguese Institute of the Sea and the Atmosphere (IPMA) said late Monday that the new storm, named Leonardo, is expected to begin impacting mainland Portugal from Tuesday afternoon through Saturday.
The Iberian Peninsula has experienced a succession of storms bringing heavy rain, thunder, snow and strong gales in the last few months, with southern Spain facing what some residents describe as its wettest winter in 40 years.
IPMA said Leonardo may bring persistent and at times heavy rain, with wind gusts reaching up to 75 km/h (47 mph) along the coast south of Cabo Mondego in the country’s central region, and 95 km/h in the highlands.
The gusts, however, should be less intense than those exceeding 200 km/h unleashed by Storm Kristin, which battered central mainland Portugal from early last Wednesday, killing at least six people and leaving a trail of destruction across homes, factories and critical infrastructure.
Daniela Fraga, deputy commander of national emergency and civil protection authority ANEPC, told reporters late on Monday that heavy rain in the coming days could lead to floods and inundations, mainly in the regions that were affected by Storm Kristin.
Nearly 134,000 households were still without electricity, around 95,000 of them in the Leiria region in the centre of the country, power distribution company E-Redes said.
(Reporting by Sergio Goncalves; Editing by Hugh Lawson)
LISBON/LEIRIA, Feb 2 (Reuters) – Last week’s Storm Kristin left hundreds of homes in central Portugal without roofs, tens of thousands without power and residents lining up for emergency building materials, as authorities warned damage could run into billions of euros.
The storm swept across the region early on Wednesday, with wind gusts topping 200 kph (124 mph) and heavy rain uprooting trees and ripping off roofs. It killed at least six people and cut power to hundreds of thousands of households.
“The roof blew off, all the windowpanes are broken, everything is chaos and misery,” said Paula Franco as she queued in Leiria for donated tiles to repair her home.
Portugal’s government on Sunday approved a 2.5 billion-euro ($2.95 billion) package of loans and incentives to help people and businesses rebuild after the storm.
The government could apply for grants from the European Solidarity Fund and unused EU recovery funds to finance reconstruction, Environment and Energy Minister Maria da Graca Carvalho said on Monday at a joint news conference with EU Energy Commissioner Dan Jorgensen.
Leiria, one of Portugal’s main industrial hubs known for its plastics and metalworking industries, was among the hardest-hit areas.
Hundreds of houses, several roads, schools, factories and railway lines have been affected. At the Monte Real air base near Leiria, the storm damaged several aircraft, including F16 fighter jets.
Nearly 170,000 households were still without electricity on Monday, Graca Carvalho said.
Damage in the region could total between 1.5 billion euros and 2 billion euros, Henrique Carvalho, president of the Leiria Business Association, told broadcaster NOW.
The government on Sunday extended a state of calamity in 69 municipalities until February 8, with more heavy rain and flooding expected.
(Reporting by Sergio Goncalves and Miguel Pereira; editing by Charlie Devereux and Ros Russell)
Franco’s regime in Spain used tactics like economic isolation, church-state fusion and secret police that more closely mirror the president’s approach than Hitler’s Gestapo.
MADRID, Jan 27 (Reuters) – Spain will pay out 20 million euros ($24 million) in compensation to the victims of last week’s high-speed train crash that killed 45 people and left more than 150 injured, Transport Minister Oscar Puente said on Tuesday.
The nation is still reeling from the January 18 disaster in Adamuz near the southern city of Cordoba that caused one of the highest death tolls from a train crash in recent European history and the highest in Spain since 2013.
The families of those killed will receive 216,000 euros each within no more than three months, made up of 72,000 euros in tax-exempt aid from the government and an advance insurance payment of 72,000 euros. Another 72,000 euros will be paid from passengers’ mandatory travel insurance.
“We know that ordinary procedures and legal timelines do not always respond to the vital urgency of a tragedy like this,” Puente said, adding that victims could not afford to wait years to receive support.
“Economic uncertainty cannot be compounded on top of the emotional pain.”
Payments to those injured will range from 2,400 euros to 84,000 euros, according to Puente.
The minister has come under public pressure since the Adamuz crash and other incidents that same week, including the death of a train driver in Catalonia and two other accidents without fatalities. The main opposition People’s Party has demanded his resignation.
Asked about his future, Puente told reporters he had a calm conscience, performing his job to the best of his abilities and making every effort to communicate all available information to citizens.
Catalan commuter rail service Rodalies also faced heavy disruptions last week after many drivers refused to work over safety concerns, leaving thousands stranded, while a software failure collapsed its train traffic control centre on Monday.
(Reporting by Victoria Waldersee; Writing by David Latona; Editing by Andrei Khalip and Sharon Singleton)
BEIJING, Jan 26 (Reuters) – China’s vice president and foreign minister held talks with the secretary-general of the 57-nation Organization of Islamic Cooperation on Monday, according to a ministry statement and the official news agency, Xinhua.
The talks in the Chinese capital of Beijing come amid heightened Middle East tension after an Iranian official said the country would treat any attack “as an all-out war against us”.
Those comments followed U.S. President Donald Trump’s remark the previous day that the United States had an “armada” heading toward Iran, adding it was “just in case”, warning Iran not to kill protesters or restart its nuclear program.
An Iranian official in the region said on Sunday at least 5,000 were killed after a wave of protest over economic hardship.
In Monday’s talks, Foreign Minister Wang Yi called for the building of a regional security partnership and the political settlement of hot-spot issues, the ministry said.
U.S. officials had said an aircraft carrier and several guided-missile destroyers would arrive in the Middle East in the coming days.
(Reporting by Colleen Howe; Editing by Christopher Cushing and Clarence Fernandez)
BERLIN/PARIS/, Jan 21 (Reuters) – European far-right and populist parties that once cheered on Donald Trump and gained in standing through his praise are now distancing themselves from the U.S. president over his military incursion into Venezuela and bid for Greenland.
The Trump administration has repeatedly backed far-right European parties that share a similar stance on issues from immigration to climate change, helping legitimize movements that have long faced stigma at home but are now on the rise.
The new U.S. National Security Strategy issued last month said “the growing influence of patriotic European parties indeed gives cause for great optimism.”
But those parties now face a dilemma as disapproval of Trump rises across the continent over his increasingly aggressive foreign policy moves and in particular his efforts to acquire Greenland from Denmark.
GERMANY’S AFD BERATES TRUMP
“Donald Trump has violated a fundamental campaign promise — namely, not to interfere in other countries,” Alice Weidel of the far-right Alternative for Germany said, while party co-leader Tino Chrupalla rejected “Wild West methods”.
The AfD has been cultivating ties with Trump’s administration – but polls suggest this may no longer be beneficial. A survey by pollster Forsa released on Tuesday showed 71% of Germans see Trump more as an opponent than an ally.
Wariness of Trump has grown since he vowed on Saturday to slap tariffs on a raft of EU countries including Germany, France, Sweden and Britain, until the U.S. is allowed to buy Greenland.
Those countries had last week sent military personnel to the vast Arctic island at Denmark’s request.
National Rally leader Jordan Bardella said on Tuesday Europe must react, referring to “anti-coercion measures” and the suspension of the economic agreement signed last year between the EU and the United States.
British populist party Reform UK, whose leader Nigel Farage has long feted his close ties with Trump, said it was hard to tell if the president was bluffing.
“But to use economic threats against the country that’s been considered to be your closest ally for over a hundred years is not the kind of thing we would expect,” Reform said in a statement published on Jan. 19.
Blunter still was Mattias Karlsson, often cited as chief ideologist of the far-right Sweden Democrats.
“Trump is increasingly resembling a reversed King Midas,” he wrote on X. “Everything he touches turns to shit.”
Political scientist Johannes Hillje said it would always be hard for nationalists to forge a common foreign policy “because the national interests do not always converge.”
Not all European far-right and populist parties have been so critical. Some, like the far-right Dutch Party for Freedom and Spanish Vox, praised Trump for removing Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro yet kept silent on his Greenland threats.
Others, such as Polish President Karol Nawrocki and the nationalist government of Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban have called for the issue of Greenland to be settled bilaterally between the United States and Denmark.
Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis posted a video on social networks on Tuesday in which he brandished a map and a globe to show how big Greenland was and how close it was to Russia if it were to send a missile.
“The U.S. has a long-term interest in Greenland, it is not just an initiative of Donald Trump now,” he said, calling for a diplomatic resolution.
MILD CRITICISM FROM MELONI
Italy’s right-wing Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who is seen as one of the closest European leaders to Trump, said his decision to slap tariffs on European allies was a “mistake”.
“I spoke to Donald Trump a few hours ago and told him what I think,” she said on Sunday, adding that she thought there was “a problem of understanding and communication” between Washington and Europe. She has not said anything since, but Italian media have said she is against slapping tariffs on the U.S. in response and is instead seeking to defuse the crisis with talks.
However, Italy’s Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini, the leader of the far-right League party, blamed the renewed trade tensions on the European nations who dispatched soldiers to Greenland.
“The eagerness to announce the dispatch of troops here and there is now bearing its bitter fruit,” he wrote on X.
(Reporting by Sarah Marsh and Andreas Rinke in Berlin, Crispian Balmer in Rome, Jesus Calero in Madrid, Bart Meijer in Amsterdam, Johan Ahlander in Stockholm, Alan Charlish in Warsaw, Jan Lopatka in Prague and Krisztina Than in Budapest, Elizabeth Piper in London and Elizabeth Pineau in Paris)
Latest news on the high-speed train crash in Spain that killed dozens – CBS News
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Spain is observing three days of national mourning after a massive train crash that killed at least 40 people, according to officials. CBS News’ Chris Livesay reports.
Spain began three days of national mourning on Tuesday for 41 people killed after two high-speed trains collided in the country’s deadliest rail disaster in over a decade.
The collision took place late Sunday when a high-speed train operated by rail company Iryo, travelling from Malaga to Madrid, derailed near Adamuz in the southern Andalusia region.
It crossed onto the other track, where it crashed into an oncoming train, which also derailed.
A crashed train remains on the train tracks on January 19, 2026 after yesterday’s train collision in Adamuz, Spain.
Pablo Blazquez Dominguez/Getty
The death toll rose to 41 after the body of another passenger was recovered Monday evening from one of the Iryo train carriages, the regional government said. More than 120 people were injured, and 39 were still hospitalized on Tuesday, including four children, it added.
Flags flew at half-mast on public buildings, television anchors wore black, and cabinet ministers curtailed public appearances as Spain observed the first of three days of national mourning. Members of the Assembly of Extremadura, the neighboring region, held a minute’s silence for the victims of the accident Tuesday morning.
Heavy machinery was deployed Monday to lift the most severely damaged train carriages and give rescuers better access.
The head of Andalusia’s regional government, Juan Manuel Moreno, warned Monday that it would take another 24-48 hours “to know with certainty how many deaths have resulted from this terrible accident.”
King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia were scheduled to meet with rescuers and officials in Adamuz later on Tuesday.
BARCELONA, Spain (AP) — The deadly train wreck in southern Spain has cast a pall over one of the nation’s symbols of success.
The collision Sunday killed at least 40 people and injured dozens more, according to officials as of Monday night.
Here’s a look at the history of a rail network that became a crown jewel of contemporary Spain, by the numbers.
34 years
The number of years since Spain inaugurated its first high-speed AVE, which means “bird” in Spanish.
Both before and after that milestone, successive Spanish governments devoted tax revenues and European Union development aid to its high-speed rail network that quickly caught up and surpassed high-speed pioneers Japan and France.
The first high-speed train to speed across Spain preceded the opening of the 1992 Summer Olympic Games in Barcelona by two months.
Both marked high points in Spain’s recent history after it emerged from the economic doldrums and cultural and political isolation of the 20th-century dictatorship of Gen. Francisco Franco.
3,900 kilometers
How many kilometers, equal to 2,400 miles, of high-speed rail that Spain has laid over the last three-plus decades for its 49 million residents.
Only China — with 45,000 kilometers (28,000 miles) for its 1.4 billion people — has more high-speed track, according to the International Union of Railways.
Spain’s commitment to high-speed rail, which the railway union defines as rails for trains going 250 kph (155 mph), has helped Spain shed its reputation of often being behind the industrial curve compared to other leading economies.
Spain’s train builders have been able to capitalize on its domestic expansion. A Spanish consortium built Saudi Arabia’s high-speed line connecting the holy cities of Mecca and Medina that opened service in 2018.
7 vs. 2.5 hours
The approximate number of hours a train trip took between Madrid and Barcelona before and after the 2008 adoption of high-speed rail.
On an old, slow train, the 600-kilometer (385-mile) journey between Spain’s biggest cities used to take around seven hours, meaning many business travelers opted to take a plane.
Now that trip can be done in 2.5 hours, and Spain announced plans in November to modernize the Madrid-Barcelona line to allow trains to reach 350 kph (218 mph), matching the fastest Chinese trains. That would bring the transit time down to less than 2 hours.
The AVE has helped unite a country whose main population centers other than Madrid are located on its coasts, separated by some of the most sparsely populated areas in Europe.
Every region and provincial capital has pushed hard for its own high-speed line. Some critics say the administrations may have spent too much on questionable lines to the detriment of investing in local commuter lines, which suffer many more delays than the high-speed rail does.
Missing out on an AVE line and stop has become synonymous with economic decline for a provincial city.
The move away from air travel to rail also remains a key plank of Spain’s green energy and electrification plan to fight climate change.
1 crash
The number of deadly accidents involving a high-speed train in Spain’s history. One official described Sunday’s collision as transforming a train into a “mass of twisted metal.”
Spanish officials say they are still at a loss to understand what went wrong Sunday night when one high-speed train jumped the track and collided with another fast train going the other direction.
Álvaro Fernández, the president of public train company Renfe, told Spanish public radio station RNE that both trains were traveling well under the speed limit and “human error could be ruled out.”
One of the two trains was operated by Renfe and another by a private company.
Spain’s worst train accident this century occurred in 2013, when 80 people died after a train derailed in the country’s northwest. An investigation concluded the train was traveling 179 kph (111 mph) on a stretch with an 80 kph (50 mph) speed limit when it left the tracks. That stretch of track was not high speed.
3 high-speed operators
The number of operators with high-speed trains in Spain.
Only in 2022 did Spain open its rail network to private companies to compete against Renfe.
The first company to get into the private high-speed market was Iryo, which is Italian-owned. It was followed by the French company Ouigo.
It was an Iryo train that first derailed on Sunday, knocking the Renfe train off its track. Iryo has said it is working with officials to determine the causes of the accident.
A high-speed train derailed and collided with an oncoming train in Spain on Sunday. At least 21 people are dead and more than 100 others are injured, some of them seriously.
A high-speed train derailed in southern Spain on Sunday, jumping onto the track in the opposite direction and hitting an oncoming train in an accident that left at least 21 people dead, authorities said.
The evening train between Malaga and Madrid went off the rails and slammed into a train coming from Madrid to Huelva, another southern Spanish city, according to the Spanish rail operator ADIF.
Spain’s Civil Guard police force told Agence France-Presse that at least 21 people had been killed. Emergency services in Andalucia, the province where the accident happened, said at least 25 people were seriously injured.
The regional Civil Protection chief, María Belén Moya Rojas, told local broadcaster Canal Sur that the accident happened in an area that is hard to reach.
Local people were taking blankets and water to the scene to help the victims, she said.
King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia of Spain said Sunday they were “following with great concern the serious accident between two high-speed trains in Adamuz.”
“We extend our most heartfelt condolences to the relatives and loved ones of the dead, as well as our love and wishes for a swift recovery to the injured,” the royal palace said on X.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in a post on X that she was following “the terrible news” from Cordoba.
“Tonight you are in my thoughts,” she wrote in Spanish.
ADIF said train services between Madrid and cities in Andalucia would not run Monday.
On Monday, Queen Sofia will cross the threshold of Tatoi again. This time, it will be to say goodbye to Princess Irene, who died last week at age 83. But for Sofia, the one-time summer palace of the former Greek royal family is more than a scene of pine trees and melancholic ruins: it is a place of farewells, stretching back to February 1981, when she returned to Greece and Tatoi for the first time as queen, in circumstances exceptional and sad.
Unlike Monday’s burial for Princess Irene, which follows a Saturday prayer service in Madrid and a funeral Monday at Metropolitan Cathedral of Athens, the Tatoi interment for Sofia’s mother, Queen Federica of Greece, was not official, and took place almost furtively.
According to chronicles of the time, such as the one published by El País, the government of the Hellenic Republic would not even authorize the plane carrying the mortal remains of Federica to land at the Athens airport. Instead, Sofia accompanied her mother’s coffin directly to Tatoi, where King Juan Carlos; Princess Irene of Greece; and the exiled Constantine and Anna Maria of Greece convened for the funeral.
In Tatoi, the atmosphere that cold February day reflected the political tension of a Greece still digesting the end of its monarchy—in fact, Queen Sofia was required to secure special permission from the Greek government for the burial, which only allowed the family six hours for the services. The kings moved in a guarded enclosure, where the affection of the few royalists who also wanted to pay homage to Queen Federica was mixed with the official attitude of disdain. It was a lightning-fast trip that left Queen Sofia with the pain of a half-return to the place where she’d grown up.
“Only the Spanish flag flew at half mast yesterday in Athens as a sign of mourning for the death of Queen Frederica of Greece,” said the special envoy of El País at the time. “It was personally King Juan Carlos who decided that the Spanish Embassy in Athens should apply the protocol of mourning agreed in Madrid, preventing the Spanish flag from reaching the top of the mast. This gesture contrasts in the central avenue of Vassilissis Sofia, with the ostentation of the immediate official buildings, where the flags are flying full.”
“I think I had never seen the queen in such a state of distress and crying with such bitterness,” said Jaime Peñafiel, one of the few Spanish journalists who managed to circumvent the press veto of the Greek authorities to access the Tatoi compound. In a remembrance of that day, he noted that Queen Sofia had to ask for extra permission to enter her former home for a few minutes, just before the time she had been granted to visit the estate ran out.
Another seventeen years passed before Queen Sofia could make a less contentious return to Greece. In May of 1998, King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofia made their first state visit to Greece, a milestone that symbolized the definitive reconciliation between the personal history of the Spanish consort and the reality of diplomatic relations between the two countries: Greece was the only country of the European Union that the King and Queen of Spain had not yet visited.
On that occasion, the reception was very different: there was a state welcome and the streets of Athens were filled with hundreds of royalists shouting “vivas” to Sofia, reported the chronicle of El Pais, as the queen toured the Acropolis or visited the school where she had studied as a child. Queen Sofia also took the opportunity to return with King Juan Carlos to Tatoi, where, without the restrictions of 1981, she was able to calmly visit the tombs of King Paul and Queen Frederica and lay wreaths on behalf of other relatives such as Constantine.
Since then, Queen Sofia’s visits to Greece have become more frequent, both for family events and institutional acts. At the same time, the scene at Tatoi has also changed: in ruins for years and years, the Greek government has begun to transform it into a museum about the Hellenic monarchy, in which displays will feature the rich history of Sofia’s family and the years they lived in the storied estate.
Members of Spain’s royal family gathered Saturday in Madrid for a special memorial service for Princess Irene of Greece, who died Thursday at age 83. Spanish emeritus Queen Sofia, who earlier this month had canceled her royal engagements to care for her ailing sister, was joined by son King Felipe and his wife, Queen Letizia, as well as their eldest daughter, Princess Leonor and her sister, Infanta Sofía of Spain.
The family came together at Madrid’s Greek Orthodox Cathedral of St. Andrew and St. Demetrius, at a prayer service also attended by relatives including Infanta Elena, Victoria Federica de Marichalar, Infanta Cristina, and Princess Alexia of Greece.
King Felipe and Queen Letizia
Carlos Alvarez/Getty Images
The Infanta Margarita and her husband, Carlos Zurita;Jaime de Marichalar;Kyril of Bulgaria; and Madrid mayor José Luis Martínez-Almeida were also on hand for the memorial, which was held in advance of the official funeral for Princess Irene, planned for Monday in Athens.
Irene’s brother-in-law, emeritus King Juan Carlos, was not in attendance: According to El País, he decided yesterday not to make the trip from his some-time home of Abu Dhabi on the advice of his doctors. He will also miss Monday’s funeral, his representatives say.
The Royal Family at Saturday’s service for Princess Irene of Greece
MADRID, Jan 15 (Reuters) – A Turkish Airlines flight from Istanbul made an emergency landing at Barcelona-El Prat Airport on Thursday after an unspecified threat on board, Spanish airports operator AENA said, adding that the airport was operating normally.
The Guardia Civil police force said they were investigating the incident, without providing more information. Turkish Airlines officials were not immediately available for comment.
(Reporting by Jesus Calero, editing by Andrei Khalip and Tomasz Janowski)
