Europe

You can read more on Wikipedia. When does your country celebrate a similar holiday?

The oil crisis triggered by the Iran war has changed the fossil fuel industry for ever, turning countries away from fossil fuels to secure energy supplies, the world’s leading energy economist said.

Fatih Birol, the executive director of the International Energy Agency (IEA), also said that, despite pressure, the UK should forgo much of its potential North Sea expansion.

Speaking exclusively to the Guardian, Birol said a key effect of the US-Israel war on Iran was that countries would lose trust in fossil fuels and demand for them would reduce.

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This will have permanent consequences for the global energy markets for years to come.”

On exploring new oil fields in the North Sea:

Birol said: “It is up to the government, but these fields would not change much for the UK’s energy security, nor would they change the price of oil and gas. They would not make any significant difference to this crisis.”

I think the same will be true for fracking, what the German goverment is considering.

Birol also said:

• Continuing high fossil-fuel prices could tempt developing countries to turn to coal, but solar was competitive with coal on cost and was growing faster.

• Renewables offerred a no-regrets alternative and nuclear power was also likely to be increased. Building renewables was an option “I never heard that anybody ever regretted”, he said. “I don’t see any downsides for renewable energy.”

Experts and campaigners said the views of the IEA chief should be heeded. Ed Matthew, the UK director of the thinktank E3G, said: “Birol is simply reflecting what every sane, independent energy analyst can see. The UK’s fossil fuel reserves have been depleted by 90% and will do nothing to bring down bills.

He added: “The only effective path to energy and economic security is homegrown clean energy. All political parties should now be uniting around that mission. Their failure to do so tells you a lot about whose interests they truly represent.”

French police are investigating suspicions that a hairdryer may have been used to tamper with official weather readings to make thousands of dollars in Polymarket bets.

Temperature readings at Paris’s Charles de Gaulle airport have unexpectedly spiked twice in the last month, reaching levels much higher than expected.

On both days, gamblers on Polymarket, the world’s biggest prediction market, appear to have made huge sums by betting on unlikely weather patterns. The site relied on readings from the Charles de Gaulle temperature sensor.

Météo-France, the country’s official weather agency, said it had complained to police after noticing a change to one of its temperature sensors.

Measures of “richest countries” can be misleading. A new prosperity index — looking at income, GDP and how wealth translates into quality of life, social cohesion and long-term development — does not place the US, Germany, or France in the top ten.

Europe dominates global wealth rankings, but what it actually means to be a “rich country” depends heavily on how prosperity is measured and who benefits from it.

“Being the richest country in the world is not just about producing a lot,” the analysis from a financial services comparison platform HelloSafe states.

“It is measured by how that wealth concretely translates into the daily life of the ordinary citizen. In 2026, the answer is Norway.”

The group argues that GDP per capita alone can distort comparisons, since it assumes national output is evenly shared across the population.

Ireland illustrates the issue. GDP per capita stands at around $150,000 in purchasing power terms, but much of this is driven by multinationals such as Apple, Google and Pfizer.

The gap between output and household income is estimated at around $70,000 per person. Related

Addressing these limitations, HelloSafe’s “Prosperity Index” ranks more than 50 countries using a combined score out of 100.

It draws on data from the IMF, World Bank, UNDP, Eurostat and OECD, bringing together income, inequality and wider social indicators into a single measure of prosperity.

On this basis, Europe dominates the top of the ranking, with the five richest countries all located in the region. Small countries push through

Norway leads the table, supported by the world’s highest GNI (Gross National Income, the total income earned by a country’s people and businesses, including income earned abroad)and a highly balanced social model.

Ireland is second, with high real incomes despite an inflated GDP figure. Luxembourg is third, slipping from the top position for the first time since the index began.

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President Volodymyr Zelensky is scheduled to meet with EU leaders Thursday in Cyprus as the bloc prepares to approve a €90 billion loan for Ukraine, ending a prolonged deadlock. Hungary premier Viktor Orban had vetoed the funds until Kyiv repaired a pipeline hit by a Russian strike – work now completed, allowing oil flows to resume – shortly after his electoral defeat to pro-EU rival Peter Magyar.