The surge in oil prices to above $100 a barrel will push up inflation and depress sentiment among firms and households, it added

International News via Reuters:

The euro zone economy will slow in 2026 after war in the Middle East triggered the second energy shock in less than five years with the severity of the hit determined by how long the conflict drags on, the European Commission said on Thursday.

The surge in oil prices to above $100 a barrel will push up inflation and depress sentiment among firms and households, it added. 

“Before the end of February 2026, the EU economy was set to keep expanding at a moderate pace alongside a further decline in inflation, but the outlook has changed substantially since the outbreak of the conflict,” the EU executive said in a statement.

The European Commission now forecasts euro zone gross domestic product growth will slow to 0.9% in 2026 from 1.3% in 2025, with a rise of 1.2% in 2027. In its last set of forecasts in November, the expectations were respectively 1.2% and 1.4%.

The EU executive also raised its forecasts for inflation to 3.0% in 2026 from a previous 1.9% and to 2.3% in 2027 from 2.0%, reinforcing the case for a rise in European Central Bank interest rates.

The ECB is all but certain to increase borrowing costs at its next meeting on June 11 after disruption to the Strait of Hormuz shipping lane caused a spike in oil prices and pushed inflation in the euro area well above the bank’s 2% target. Financial markets expect one or two further moves in the following 12 months.

NO REBOUND SEEN IF WAR DRAGS ON

The Commission said the principal risk to its forecasts was the duration of the Middle East conflict. The data underpinning its estimates had cutoffs of late April to early May and although a fragile ceasefire is in place between the U.S. and Iran, Hormuz remains effectively closed. 

In view of the uncertainty, the EU executive said it had drawn up an alternative scenario based on longer disruption, in which energy prices would peak in late 2026 and only gradually return to baseline levels by the end of 2027. Inflation in this case would not ease and the economy would not rebound in 2027.

European Economy Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis said that under the adverse scenario the forecasts for growth this year and next would roughly halve.

In its main forecast, the Commission said domestic consumption was expected to remain the principal driver of growth, even though consumer sentiment dropped to a 40-month low when the United States and Israel launched air strikes their on Iran. Business investment is likely to be constrained by tighter financing conditions, lower profits and heightened uncertainty, while weaker overseas demand is curbing growth of exports.

Nevertheless, the EU executive said investments in supply diversification, decarbonisation and lower energy consumption meant the EU economy was better placed to manage the current shock than the one seen in 2022 following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. 

Reporting by Philip Blenkinsop; Editing by Toby Chopra

The move highlights growing pressure worldwide on Big Tech to do more to address the negative impacts of social media, particularly for children and vulnerable users

International News via Reuters:

Alphabet’s Google, Meta Platforms and TikTok were hit with complaints from EU consumer groups on Thursday for allegedly failing to protect users from financial scams on their platforms.

The move highlights growing pressure worldwide on Big Tech to do more to address the negative impacts of social media, particularly for children and vulnerable users.

The complaints, filed by the European Consumer Organisation (BEUC) and 29 of its members in 27 European countries, were submitted to the European Commission and national regulators under the Digital Services Act, which requires large online platforms to do more to tackle illegal and harmful content.

“Meta, TikTok and Google not only fail to pro-actively remove fraudulent ads but also do little when being notified about such scams,” BEUC Director General Agustín Reyna said in a statement.

“If they fail to address the financial scams circulating on their platforms, fraudsters will continue to reach millions of European consumers daily, leaving people at risk of losing hundreds to thousands of euros to fraud,” he said.

There was no immediate response from the companies to an email request for comment.

The consumer groups said they reported nearly 900 ads suspected of breaching EU laws between December last year and March this year but the platforms only took down 27% of the ads and 52% of the reports were rejected or ignored.

The groups urged regulators to investigate whether the companies were complying with the rules and to impose fines for breaches.

DSA fines can reach as much as 6% of a company’s global annual turnover.

Reporting by Foo Yun Chee;Editing by Elaine Hardcastle

Irish police said the man was detained by security guards on Dublin’s busy Henry Street last Friday in connection with an alleged shoplifting incident

International News via Reuters:

Irish Prime Minister Micheal Martin has called for a thorough investigation into the death of a Congolese-born man after he was restrained outside a Dublin department store in an incident that has shocked the nation.

Irish police said the man was detained by security guards on Dublin’s busy Henry Street last Friday in connection with an alleged shoplifting incident.

He subsequently became unresponsive at the scene and was later pronounced dead, police said.

A video of the incident shared since on social media showed the man, Yves Sakila, being pinned to the ground by five men for almost five minutes as bystanders watched on. Two of the men held his face to the ground and at one point one of them appeared to kneel on his head or neck for a few seconds.

“The full circumstances of what happened need to be examined and investigated fully and thoroughly. The situation is deeply concerning,” Martin told parliament on Tuesday. 

Police said on Wednesday that investigations into all of the circumstances of the incident were ongoing. A man in his 80s was also injured at the scene as Sakila attempted to flee, they said. 

FLOWERS LAID AT THE SCENE

The Irish Network Against Racism expressed concern that excessive force may have been used against Sakila and said in a statement that “the death of a black man in such circumstances is extremely worrying.”

Passers-by stopped on Henry Street on Wednesday where flowers were laid at the spot Sakila was detained outside Arnotts, one of the country’s best known department stores.

“I couldn’t sleep at night. I just kept watching it (the video) time over time,” said Sanaa Basit, a translator and mother of two who moved to Ireland from Sudan 10 years ago.

“It was horrific, absolutely brutal,” said Irishman Darren Collins, 31. “I think racism and discrimination in Ireland is very, very high and something needs to be sorted.”

Laure Zoya, vice president of the Congolese Community in Ireland group, said its members, who she said were among the first black communities to move to Ireland, were shocked, disturbed and no longer felt safe.

Sakila, whom police said was in his 30s, moved to Ireland when he was very young, she added. 

“The Ireland that they knew 30 years ago is no longer the same,” Zoya told national broadcaster RTE.

Reporting by Padraic Halpin and Conor Humphries; editing by Gus Trompiz

The provision was spent in areas like expanding renewable energy or strengthening defences against extreme weather

International News via Reuters:

Developed countries provided a record $136.7 billion to help poorer countries cope with climate change in 2024, the OECD said on Thursday.

• The provision was spent in areas like expanding renewable energy or strengthening defences against extreme weather. It was up 3% from 2023, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development said in a report.

• In 2009, wealthy countries promised to transfer $100 billion a year by 2020 to poorer nations to help them cope with worsening climate-change-fuelled disasters, meeting the target for the first time in 2022.

• Data for 2025 could show a drop after the Trump administration halted contributions to international climate funds.

• Countries agreed at the COP29 summit in 2024 to hike their climate finance provision to $300 billion by 2035.

• Even that would fall short of the trillions of dollars economists have said developing countries need to invest in clean energy fast enough to meet climate goals and protect their societies from extreme weather.

• Developing countries argue they cannot agree to more ambitious deals to limit global warming if the world’s economic powers do not deliver on their financial promises.

• Despite being the world’s second-biggest economy, China is not counted as a “developed” country at the U.N. so its international climate finance is not included in the data.

Reporting by Kate Abnett;Editing by Elaine Hardcastle

The ECB is all but certain to increase borrowing costs at its next meeting on June 11 after disruptions to the Strait of Hormuz caused a spike in oil prices and pushed inflation in the euro area well above the bank’s 2% target

International News via Reuters:

The European Central Bank may raise interest rates to preserve credibility in the face of a war-driven rise in fuel costs but there is little to suggest yet that high inflation is taking root in the euro area, ECB policymaker Olli Rehn said in an interview. 

The ECB is all but certain to increase borrowing costs at its next meeting on June 11 after disruptions to the Strait of Hormuz caused a spike in oil prices and pushed inflation in the euro area well above the bank’s 2% target. 

Rehn, Finland’s central bank governor, echoed several of his colleagues in saying the euro area was sliding towards the ECB’s “adverse scenario” of slower growth and higher inflation, which may force it to raise rates “for the sake of credibility”.

INFLATION EXPECTATIONS STILL ANCHORED

But he said that the price of gas had not risen as much, wage growth was still moderating and longer-term inflation expectations were still anchored at 2% despite a rise at shorter horizons.

“From the standpoint of medium-term orientation, the critical thing is whether we see evident signs of second-round effects, and/or de-anchoring of inflation expectations,” he said in an interview. 

“If you look at those two things, we see some vibration in the short-term inflation expectations, but no significant deviation in medium- to long-term inflation expectations.”

Rehn said the decision in June will also be informed by the ECB’s new economic projections and any new development about a possible ceasefire between the United States and Iran.

Sources told Reuters that the case for a June hike was nearly sealed but that the bank was unlikely to commit to future rises.

MARKETS WON’T DICTATE ECB POLICY

Financial markets expect one or two further moves in the following 12 months, bringing the rate the ECB pays on bank deposits to between 2.50% and 2.75% from current 2%. 

Rehn said, however, such expectations will not force the ECB’s hand.

“Market forces have priced in some rate hikes, but our policies are not dictated by the market forces,” Rehn said. “We take our decisions independently.”

Rehn argued the situation in Iran would either morph into a prolonged conflict that would further hamper energy supply to the euro zone, or de-escalate in a ceasefire in which the Strait of Hormuz is reopened.

“If I had to put odds on those, I think it’s better that we prepare ourselves for a prolonged conflict, regrettably, and think about how to adjust and mitigate its effects, including maintaining our work on the green energy transition,” he said.

Rehn added this meant coming up with a “Plan B,” led by the European Commission, for sourcing jet fuel and other products that currently come via the Gulf while the economy adjusts.

Governments, in the meantime, should avoid stimulating demand for fuel with overly generous subsidies, not least because the fiscal space to do so is limited, he argued.

He noted Northern European countries, France and the Iberian Peninsula would be partly shielded from the energy shock by a greater reliance on nuclear and renewable energy, with Germany, Italy and Central Europe hit harder.

“You have obviously quite different impacts of the energy price shock because of that,” he said. “And that has an effect on monetary policy.”

Reporting by Francesco Canepa in Frankfurt; Editing by Matthew Lewis and Tomasz Janowski

The case in a rural area near the provincial capital of Bukavu marks an expansion of an outbreak that experts believe circulated for around two months in Ituri province before being detected last week

International News via Reuters:

A case of Ebola has been confirmed in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo’s South Kivu province – hundreds of kilometres from the outbreak’s epicentre – the rebel alliance that controls the area said on Thursday.

The case in a rural area near the provincial capital of Bukavu marks an expansion of an outbreak that experts believe circulated for around two months in Ituri province, several hundred kilometres to the north, before being detected last week.

The Alliance Fleuve Congo, which includes the Rwanda-backed M23 rebels who seized swathes of eastern DRC last year, said in a statement that the 28-year-old patient had died and been buried safely.

It said the person had come from the northern city of Kisangani, in Tshopo province, but it did not provide details about their recent movements.

The World Health Organization at the weekend declared the outbreak of the virus’ Bundibugyo strain, for which there is no vaccine, a public health emergency of international concern.

The outbreak has been linked to 139 deaths and there were 600 suspected cases in eastern DRC’s Ituri and North Kivu provinces as of Wednesday, according to the WHO. Two cases have also been confirmed in neighboring Uganda.

M23 REBELS PLEDGE TO WORK WITH INTERNATIONAL PARTNERS

South Kivu health spokesperson Claude Bahizire told Reuters earlier on Thursday that two suspected cases, including the patient who died, had been detected in the province. The other patient was in isolation awaiting test results, he said. 

Last week, an Ebola case was confirmed in M23-held Goma, the capital of neighbouring North Kivu province. 

M23 said earlier this week that it was committed to working with international partners to contain the outbreak. 

The response has been complicated by the virus’ presence in densely populated urban areas and widespread armed violence in eastern DRC. 

A 2018-2020 outbreak in the region of the Zaire strain of Ebola was the second-deadliest on record, killing nearly 2,300 people.

This time, first responders say they lack basic supplies, which some have attributed to foreign aid cuts by major international donors.

Additional reporting and writing by Aaron Ross; Editing by Hugh Lawson