Asia China “Bone ash apartments" will be illegal after new law prohibits use of residential properties to store ashes or bury remains outside dedicated areas; scarce space in cemeteries, low house prices made more affordable to entomb remains in an empty apartment
Europe North Macedonia Newsrooms in North Macedonia are shrinking and media production is increasingly reliant on PR and social media content, ‘ready-made’ sources, for lack of financial and human resources; professionals lament a lack of discovery, analysis, contextualization
Europe Bulgaria A convergence report on Bulgaria’s readiness to adopt the Euro from 2026 has been issued by the European Commission, while over 100 anti-Eurozone demonstrations were held, claiming that changing the Lev would represent a loss of national identity
Africa Uganda At 86, General Moses Ali - Uganda's longest serving politician, former MP, and General - is seeking re-election in Adjumani district; the announcement was welcomed with mixed reactions in the population
Asia China The first cluster of satellites for a planned AI supercomputer system have been launched; it will be the first-of-its-kind array and will enable scientists to perform in-orbit data processing
Europe Romania Romgaz has opened court proceedings to dissolve Greenpeace Romania for insolvency after it attempted to block work on the Neptun Deep gas project; it is an unprecedented legal attempt by a Romanian state entity to shut down an environmental organisation
Africa Seychelles An international conference has welcomed the arrival of Plastic Odyssey vessel, inaugurating 2 weeks of events, from entertaining-educational movies to support program for recycling entrepreneurs
Asia Qatar Adjusted working hours for the public healthcare sector -PHCC hospitals- during the Eid Al Adha holiday have been made public: emergency services, inpatient departments, Paediatric care and first aid, the Ambulance Service, will function around the clock
Europe Norway High food prices, higher than ever, led to political debate these days: food price issues come up before national elections, but few things change mostly because of Norway’s own high tariffs on food imports, seldom under scrutiny
Europe Italy Mount Etna, Europe's largest active volcano, erupted with a spectacular pyroclastic flow - an avalanche of hot lava blocks, ash, gas and volcanic material; the activity may have started following a collapse of material in South-East crater
Europe Montenegro Million euros have been offered by Montenegro for information on the murder of journalist and editor Dusko Jovanovic outside his newspaper's office on 28 May 21 years ago - a case that remains unresolved
Asia Malaysia New amendments to the Personal Data Protection Act took effect, imposing stricter obligations on businesses to protect personal data, aligning Malaysia with global privacy standards
Europe Austria What has been called celestial concert saluted European Space Agency's 50th anniversary and the 200th birthday of Johann Strauss II, composer of renown The Blue Danube Vienna waltz; the melody was transmitted in the interstellar space towards Voyager1
Asia East Timor Over 100 school inspectors from all levels of education have completed the 'Literacy and Numeracy Training program' in Dili to ensure they can effectively oversee the standard within the national system