Joanna Gill

European Union countries have signed off on the bloc's largest-ever trade deal with countries in South America's Mercosur group after months of wrangling over safeguards for European farmers who launched protests across the EU.

The deal passed despite opposition from France, Hungary and Poland, and faces final approval in the European Parliament in April or May.

After military operations in Venezuela, U.S. President Donald Trump has restated his desire to make Greenland part of the United States.

Acquiring the world's largest island has been on Trump's wish list since his first term, and any takeover would expand U.S. influence, as well as counter Russian and Chinese competition in the region.

Once visitors who braved the 200 steps of the Lörmecke-Turm tower in Germany's Arnsberg forest park would be rewarded with a stunning view across a dense canopy of giant Norwegian spruce.

Now all they see from the 35-metre viewing tower is a denuded plateau. The trees have gone, struck down after a devastating infestation of bark beetles in 2018.

The number of climate lawsuits is growing - at times reaching the highest courts and scoring big wins, too - as politics and diplomacy struggle to coerce countries into climate action.

From Peru to the Philippines, plaintiffs are increasingly turning to the law to win justice where negotiations fail, a trend sent to continue in the year ahead.

This year, European countries have tightened migration policies and are preparing for a major overhaul of existing measures when the European Union's new asylum and migration pact comes into effect in 2026.

The new policies come despite a 35% drop in irregular arrivals in the year to July.

Albania's new public procurement minister, an AI-generated bot named Diella, may be impervious to bribes and political pressure but experts doubt the world's first virtual cabinet member will be immune to mistakes or manipulation.

"This is huge and it could actually set a precedent," Bojana Zorić, a policy analyst at the European Union Institute for Security Studies told Context.

Philosopher A.C. Grayling says anti-discrimination campaigners should reclaim the word 'woke' from extremists who willfully stoke divisions in society for their own political gain.

Polarisation - over touchstone issues from climate change to choice of gender - is nothing new, said Grayling, just part of a long-running cycle of progress followed by pushback that began post-war with the civil rights and feminist movements.

The European Union (EU) is tainting its green credentials with a deregulation drive that has watered down progressive laws ahead of this week's U.N. COP30 climate summit, policy analysts warn.

Several EU laws that were designed to reduce Europe's role in driving deforestation and greenhouse gas emissions have been hit with delays and limitations.

Former Irish Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, the country's first openly gay leader, says the day Ireland voted in favour of same-sex marriage was one of his proudest in politics.

He came out as gay just months before the May 22, 2015 referendum, while serving as health minister, and said a 'cast of thousands' had played a part in the historic result.

A French court has penalised TotalEnergies for misleading consumers over its carbon neutrality claims in what activists called an unprecedented 'greenwashing' victory over an oil and gas giant.

Brought by Greenpeace and two other environmental NGOs, Thursday's win in a Paris court could set a legal precedent for accountability, and comes as the European Union seeks to clamp down on false and exaggerated green claims by business.