The investigation began after the disappearance of 14 minors from state-run centres on the Canary Islands between late 2024 and mid-2025

International News via Reuters:

Spanish police said on Thursday they had dismantled an international crime ring accused of trafficking minors from the Canary Islands to France, arresting 11 people in an operation that spanned Lanzarote, Madrid and Las Palmas de Gran Canaria.

“Four of the suspects have been placed in pre-trial detention on charges related to organised crime, document forgery and child pornography,” police said in a statement.

The investigation began after the disappearance of 14 minors from state-run centres on the Canary Islands between late 2024 and mid-2025.

Police said the group used routes and contacts in Morocco, Ivory Coast and Spain to move the children and provide them with fake documents for their transfer to France.

Two homes were searched in Lanzarote, where officers seized personal documents, electronic devices and cash.

The investigation remains open to locate the missing minors and trace international links, police said.

Reporting by Jesus Calero, Editing by Alexandra Hudson

The attacks were the deadliest on French soil since World War Two, scarring the national psyche and prompting emergency security measures

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France paid an emotional tribute on Thursday to 130 people killed 10 years ago during a rampage by Islamic State gunmen and suicide bombers targeting cafes, restaurants and the Bataclan concert hall.

The attacks were the deadliest on French soil since World War Two, scarring the national psyche and prompting emergency security measures, many of which are now embedded in law.

The assault on November 13, 2015, began with suicide bomb blasts that killed one person, bus driver Manuel Dias, outside the Stade de France sports stadium and continued with gunmen opening fire at five other locations in central Paris.    

‘AN EMPTINESS THAT CANNOT BE FILLED’

“Since that November 13, there is an emptiness that cannot be filled,” Dias’ daughter Sophie said at the ceremony, her voice trembling with tears as she recalled the family’s endless phone calls through the night, trying to reach her father, before they were told he had been the attackers’ first victim.    

“May we raise awareness among younger generations, pass on the values of our republic, and remind them of all those innocent lives lost, like my dad, who left far too soon, for no reason at all,” she said.

President Emmanuel Macron was among officials who paid their respects to Dias and the other victims with a minute of silence and the laying of wreaths before the Stade de France.

Throughout the day Macron, survivors and relatives of victims will honour those killed and wounded at each of the sites of the attacks.

Victims’ associations say two survivors of the attacks later committed suicide, bringing the total death toll to 132.

ATTACK ON FRANCE’S CULTURE

Historian Denis Peschanski said what made the November 13 attacks – which targeted places where people were out and about having fun – unique “was that everyone was a potential victim”.

Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo told RTL radio: “The terrorists wanted to attack this culture that is ours — this culture of joy, celebration, diversity, sharing, and music.”

A decade on, the threat of such attacks in France has mutated.

“An attack like the one we unfortunately experienced ten years ago, on November 13, is less likely. The weakening of the Islamic State makes it much less probable,” Interior Minister Laurent Nunez told BFM TV.

“However, the threat remains high … with individuals present on national territory who radicalize very quickly and plot violent actions.”

Officials will later pay tribute to the 90 people killed at the Bataclan.

Sebastian Lascoux remembered being there 10 years ago listening to the Eagles of Death Metal rock band and how people “ended up all squashed together and collapsed as one”.

“And then (there was) the smell of blood,” said Lascoux, now aged 46. One of his friends was shot dead trying to shield another member of their party.

Lascoux still suffers from post-traumatic stress and cannot be in crowded places or enclosed spaces, even cinemas. Loud pops remind him of gunshots.       

Reporting by Bertrand Boucey, Inti Landauro, Alessandro Parodi, Elissa Darwish, Antony Paone;Writing by Ingrid MelanderEditing by Richard Lough, Frances Kerry and Gareth Jones

Such a move would enable the fund to take stakes in 14 defence companies with a combined market capitalisation of about $1 trillion

International News via Reuters:

Unnerved by the Ukraine war and U.S. President Donald Trump’s whiplash statements on defending Europe, Norway could allow its $2.1 trillion sovereign wealth fund, the world’s largest, to invest in major defence companies from 2027 after a more than 20-year hiatus.

Such a move would enable the fund to take stakes in 14 defence companies with a combined market capitalisation of about $1 trillion, and which it cannot currently invest in under ethical guidelines because they make components of nuclear weapons.

On November 4, parliament voted in favour of reviewing the fund’s ethical guidelines, in place since 2004.

The companies that could become open to the fund are: Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Airbus, BAE Systems, Safran, Thales, BWX Technologies, Northrop Grumman, Fluor, General Dynamics, Huntington Ingalls Industries, Jacobs Solutions, L3Harris Technologies and L&T.

Once spurned by ESG-minded investors, defence stocks are becoming more acceptable, as Russia continues to wage war in Ukraine, and European countries hike defence spending under pressure from the Trump administration.

The new security environment has also made defence stocks a potentially lucrative investment.

“Freedom is more important than ESG,” Knut Kjaer, the fund’s founding CEO, who served between 1998 and 2007, told Reuters. “Europe has to defend itself from the aggression from Russia. Why should we not invest in weapons?”

Norway was buying arms from the very same companies it has forbidden its fund from investing in, he said.

NORWAY’S FUND HAS SET INVESTING TRENDS

Any changes to the fund’s guidelines could see other ESG-minded investors follow suit, such as when in 2016, it decided to shun companies that derive 30% of revenues from coal.

Last Friday, Norway’s finance ministry named a commission to review the guidelines and which will make recommendations in October 2026, to be voted on in parliament in June 2027.  

A NEW GLOBAL SECURITY SITUATION PROMPTS A RETHINK

Like Kjaer, the government has highlighted it is already a direct customer of many of these defence companies.

“On the one hand, we consider it ethically acceptable to transfer large sums to such (defence) companies as payment, while we consider it is unethical to receive much smaller amounts as returns from the same companies,” Finance Minister Jens Stoltenberg, an ex-NATO chief, told parliament on October 24.

In the commission’s mandate, the finance ministry highlights a “dilemma”: Norway buys fighter jets from Lockheed and frigates from BAE Systems, yet 20 years ago agreed its wealth fund would not invest in them. 

“Since then, both companies’ involvement in weapons production and the security policy situation have changed. Nuclear weapons are fundamental to NATO’s deterrence strategy, of which Norway is a part,” it continued.

The minority Labour government would have the backing of enough parties to support a change to the guidelines.  

“We can dislike nuclear weapons but it is a part of NATO’s strategy and we are a NATO member. So it is hard to see the logic in not being able to invest,” Hans Andreas Limi, the parliamentary leader for the second-largest party, Progress, told Reuters.

The third largest party, the Conservatives, is also supportive. Its incoming leader, Ine Eriksen Soereide, proposed such a change earlier this year.

Asked whether the government already backed a change ahead of the commission’s recommendations, Deputy Finance Minister Ellen Reitan said the ministry would not comment beyond what had already been communicated in the mandate.

Not everyone agrees that a fund whose aim is to safeguard future generations of Norwegians should invest in companies that help produce weapons of mass destruction threatening the survival of humanity.

“We have … heard it is a paradox that Norway cannot invest in companies we otherwise trade with. Is it really? Is there really no big difference between buying equipment our country needs and, for example, investing in nuclear weapons?,” asked Kirsti Bergstoe, the leader of the Socialist Left party, in parliament on October 23.

DIVESTMENTS ON ETHICAL GROUNDS HAVE BEEN PAUSED

Norway, a NATO country of 5.6 million, is not part of the European Union and shares a border with Russia in the Arctic. 

A former head of the fund’s ethics watchdog, the body that issues recommendations on stocks to divest from the fund, says the ethical guidelines had to change to reflect events.

“We should be able to rework the ethical guidelines to say that ‘we are in a pre-war period, or an inter-war period, and so we have to look at these weapons exclusions in another manner’,” Ola Mestad, head of the Council on Ethics from 2010-2014, told Reuters.

That means, too, that Norway must tread more carefully when it issues ethical decisions to divest from international companies because the backlash can be more damaging than before, analysts said. Last week parliament paused such divestments.

“In the new regime of more politicised markets, we must be more aware of where we can be diluted, capital controls being introduced, have our assets confiscated, or being used as part of a weaponising of financial transactions where we may have to wait 100 years for getting our return back,” said Kjaer.

Some 52.4% of the fund’s assets, or $1 trillion, is invested in the U.S. across stocks, bonds and real estate.

In September, the U.S. State Department said it was “very troubled” by the decision to divest from Caterpillar over the use of its products by Israeli authorities in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.

Reporting by Gwladys Fouche in Oslo; Editing by Alexandra Hudson

The European Commission investigation follows a series of dawn raids into the company in 2023 and after allegations of anti-competitive tactics from its U.S. rival Monster Energy

International News via Reuters:

EU antitrust regulators on Thursday opened an investigation into Austrian energy drinks maker Red Bull, saying that it may be restricting competition, in particular the energy drinks sold by its closest rival.

The European Commission investigation follows a series of dawn raids into the company in 2023 and after allegations of anti-competitive tactics from its U.S. rival Monster Energy.

The EU antitrust enforcer said it has indications that Red Bull, well known for its 250 ml energy drink, may have developed a Europe-wide strategy to restrict competition from energy drinks larger than 250 ml sold in supermarkets and petrol station shops.

It said the strategy, implemented in the Netherlands where it has market power, allegedly targeted energy drinks sold by its closest rival, but did not name the company.

“We want to see if these practices may be keeping prices high and limiting choice of energy drinks for consumers,” EU antitrust chief Teresa Ribera said in a statement.

Red Bull declined to comment.

The Commission said the alleged anti-competitive practices include granting monetary and non-monetary incentives to supermarkets and petrol station shops to stop selling rival drinks larger than 250 ml and the misuse of its market power as a category manager.

Breaches of EU antitrust rules can cost companies fines of as much as 10% of their global annual sales.

Reporting by Foo Yun Chee; Editing by Sharon Singleton

The case was brought by Verband Sozialer Wettbewerb, a German association against unfair competition, targeting PB Vi Goods

International News via Reuters:

The name ‘gin’ is reserved solely for alcoholic beverages, the European Court of Justice ruled on Thursday.

The case was brought by Verband Sozialer Wettbewerb, a German association against unfair competition, targeting PB Vi Goods, which sold a drink called “Virgin Gin Alkoholfrei”.

The German court handling the case referred it to the European Court of Justice for a ruling.

Under EU law, gin must be made by flavoring ethyl alcohol of agricultural origin with juniper berries and have a minimum alcohol content of 37.5%.

The court said the prohibition protects consumers from confusion and ensures fair competition among gin producers.

“The fact that the legal name ‘gin’ is accompanied by the term ‘non-alcoholic’ is irrelevant in that regard,” the court added.

PB Vi Goods did not immediately reply to an emailed request for comment.

Reporting by Charlotte Van Campenhout; Editing by Jan Harvey