EU says Russia hit Ukrainian emergency services responding to strikes

ANOTHER DAY ANOTHER WAR CRIME

16.04.2026, DPA

Photo: Markus Lenhardt/dpa-ENR Pool/dpa

European Council President António Costa has accused Moscow of targeting first responders in the latest massive wave of Russian airstrikes across Ukraine overnight.

At least 14 people were killed and dozens injured in missile and drone attacks on the cities of Odessa, Kiev and Dnipro, officials said on Thursday.

"Russian armed forces deliberately carried out follow-up strikes on Ukrainian emergency services as first responders arrived to save lives," wrote Costa on X.

"Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine has failed, and so it chooses to deliberately terrorize civilians," he said, adding that "Russia must stop this war of terror."

Costa said that the EU will continue to increase pressure on Russia and uphold its support for Ukraine.

Hopes are high in Brussels that a new package of sanctions on Moscow and a €90 billion ($106 billion) loan for Ukraine can finally be implemented after Kremlin-friendly Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán is set to leave office after an election defeat.

• António Costa on X

(c) 2026 dpa Deutsche Presse Agentur GmbH

At least 14 killed, scores injured as Russia pounds Ukrainian cities

16.04.2026  DPA

Photo: Natasha Rudenko/ZUMA Press Wire/dpa

By Holger Mehlig, dpa

At least 14 people were killed and scores injured in a massive wave of Russian airstrikes across Ukraine overnight, officials said on Thursday.

The southern port of Odessa was hit hard, with the head of the city's military administration, Serhiy Lysak, reporting eight dead and 16 injured in several waves of missile and drone attacks.

In Kiev, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said on Telegram that four people were killed and 45 injured in the bombardment. He said the dead included a 12-year-old child and urged residents to remain in shelters as the city was attacked again.

Journalists from The Kyiv Independent reported multiple explosions as missiles struck the city in several waves.

Damage to residential and commercial buildings was reported across several districts, said the city's military administration head, Tymur Tkachenko.

Emergency services rescued a child from the rubble of a damaged apartment block. The child and the mother were receiving treatment.

Air raid alerts were also issued in other regions. In Dnipro, at least two people were killed and 27 injured in a missile strike, Governor Oleksandr Hanzha said on Telegram.

Five of the injured were in a critical condition and several residential buildings caught fire.

Ukraine has been defending itself against Russia's full-scale invasion for more than four years. Since the start of the war, Moscow has repeatedly attacked areas far behind the front line, also hitting civilian infrastructure.

• Klitschko on Telegram, in Ukrainian
• Kyiv Independent report
• Hanzha on Telegram, in Ukrainian
• Tkachenk on Telegram, in Ukrainian
• Kiper on Telegram, in Ukrainian
• Klitschko update on Telegram, in Ukrainian
• Lysak on Telegram, in Ukrainian

(c) 2026 dpa Deutsche Presse Agentur GmbH

files.libcomhttps://files.libcom.org  › files  › 2025-12  › nestor-makhno-memoirs-vol-3.pdf

nestor-makhno-memoirs-vol-3.pdf

The Ukrainian revolution (July - December 1918) / Nestor I. Makhno ; introduction by Vsevelod Volin.

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Nestor Makhno — Anarchy's Cossack: The Struggle for Free Soviets in the Ukraine 1917-1921 : Alexandre Skirda : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

From Makhno’s imprisonment, to battles with the Bolsheviks and the White Army, to the final exile in Paris, Skirda captures the life of Makhno and...

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The Anarchism of Nestor Makhno 1918-1921 ‒ An Aspect of the Ukrainian Revolution : Michael Palij : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

Epub based on the copy by The Anarchist Library. Added from ditext.com front cover, Chapter 21 Epilogue, Conclusion, Abbrevations, Bibliography and...

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Nestor Makhno: Archive of the Ukrainian Anarchist Leader

–Nestor Makhno, The Struggle Against the State and Other Essays

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The Nestor Makhno Archive

An Archive of material relating to Nestor Makhno and the Makhnovshchina

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Nestor Makhno (1907-1933) : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

This book is a collection of Makhno's writings from 1907 to 1933 and includes a history of his correspondence with Errico Malatesta in...

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Works of Nestor Makhno

At which point, it was intimated to them by highly placed nationalist leaders that any move against Makhno would be construed as an act of hostility towards...

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Nestor Makhno and the

Автор: Archipenko: the Parisian Years. The museum of modern art, New York, Julry 20-Oktober 18,, 1970 · Опубліковано: New York, 1970

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Nestor Makhno and Rural Anarchism in Ukraine 1917 - 21 : Colin Darch : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

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Streaming trap: Most musicians earn peanuts but can't afford opt-out

16.04.2026, DPA

Photo: Robert Michael/dpa

Musicians work hard to get streams from fans, yet their bank accounts remain empty. Spotify isn't profitable for most musicians, and yet hardly any artists can do without it, research shows.

Streaming has become essential for musicians worldwide, yet for most artists Spotify, Apple Music and the like don't pay the bills, a new international study found.

A survey by the UK’s Oxford Internet Institute and the Netherlands’ University of Groningen focused on musicians "who are neither rich nor famous and make up the vast majority of music artists around the world."

Researchers highlight what they call a "streaming paradox" - artists depend on platforms like Spotify for visibility, but earn little from them.

Last year, the researchers surveyed 1,198 musicians from Brazil, Chile, the Netherlands, Nigeria and South Korea. While 42% said they already work in music full-time, 53% hope to do so in the future.

The financial reality, however, is stark: 77% earned less than €10,000 annually from their music in the year prior to the study. Nearly a third (29%) made under €1,000, and 26% reported no income at all from their musical activities.

This "streaming paradox" is a global phenomenon, researchers found.

Little money, high dependence

Income from streaming varies widely - but is often minimal. A quarter of respondents said streaming accounts for just 0%-5% of their earnings. Only 8% reported that more than 75% of their income comes from streaming.

"Artists rely on digital platforms to be seen, to grow their audiences and to stay relevant. Our report shows that while streaming and social media contribute very little to artists' actual income, the work they require is changing what it means to be a musician," said Robert Prey, the study's author and professor of digital culture at the Oxford Internet Institute.

Despite this, 81% of those surveyed said streaming is "somewhat" or "extremely" important for their careers, "yet fewer than half say their situation has improved since streaming became dominant," the researchers said.

Furthermore, 83% are dissatisfied with the royalties they receive from streaming.

Frustration grows among artists

The issue is not confined to any one country. In Germany, artists have increasingly criticized the economics of streaming, despite the industry generating billions in revenue.

German rapper LGoony recently highlighted the problem in a video posted to social titled: "I can’t take it anymore."

He questioned how long he can continue releasing music under current conditions, saying that large corporations have "completely devalued" music.

For an artist to earn €1, "you'd have to listen to nothing but that artist's music for over 15 hours," the rapper calculated.

In South Korea, solo indie songwriter CHICKA dee told researchers: "The only way to survive as a musician is to get another job, which makes it harder to focus and create music."

• Link to the study
• LGoony post on Instagram, in German

(c) 2026 dpa Deutsche Presse Agentur GmbH

EU top court sides with users of online gambling seeking restitution

16.04.2026, DPA

Photo: Arne Immanuel Bänsch/dpa

Users of online gambling services can sue the betting operator for reimbursement of their losses if online gambling is prohibited in their home country, the European Union's top court ruled on Thursday.

The decision is linked to the case of a German resident seeking restitution for losses playing virtual slot machines and other games online provided by two Maltese companies, even though online gambling was largely prohibited under German law at the time.

The European Court of Justice (ECJ) in Luxembourg ruled that EU law neither precludes national online gambling bans nor a civil action for restitution brought forward by a consumer.

The ECJ also clarified that a later reform of German online gambling legislation does not restrict the user's rights to claim restitution.

Despite the freedom to provide services across the bloc under EU law, member states can restrict this freedom for "consumer protection and the protection of social order," the court said.

Online gambling qualifies for such an exemption as it poses a particular risk to consumers "due to the permanence of access, the isolation and anonymity of the player, the absence of social control, the potentially unlimited frequency, and its attractiveness to young and vulnerable persons."

The court in Malta dealing with the claim for restitution had asked the ECJ for guidance in the case. The court has to take Thursday's ruling into account in taking a decision.

(c) 2026 dpa Deutsche Presse Agentur GmbH

ANALYSIS

Orban ousted: What Magyar’s victory means for Hungary and the EU

Peter Magyar's landslide victory over Viktor Orban in Sunday’s Hungarian legislative elections marks a seismic shift for Hungary and the EU, but Brussels may need to temper its enthusiasm. On the rule of law, migration and LGBTQ rights, the road ahead is neither straight nor guaranteed.


Issued on:  14/04/2026 
FRANCE24
By:Mehdi BOUZOUINA

Peter Magyar speaks to the media in Budapest, Hungary, Monday, April 13, 2026, after defeating Prime Minister Viktor Orban's party in the country's parliamentary elections. © Denes Erdos, AP

The images from Budapest said it all. Tens of thousands of Hungarians, many in tears, waving flags along the Danube as Peter Magyar declared: "We have freed Hungary." After 16 years, Viktor Orban, the man who turned his country into a template for European "illiberalism", had been swept from power.

With 53.56 percent of the vote and 138 seats out of 199 in parliament, Magyar's Tisza party secured a two-thirds supermajority, the same constitutional lever Orban once used to dismantle checks and balances. Magyar has promised to use it to rebuild them.

For the European Union, Sunday's result was greeted with undisguised relief. "Hungary has chosen Europe," said European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen on X. But the jubilation in Brussels will be getting ahead of the reality on the ground.

"One can be cautiously positive," Ian Bond, director of the Centre for European Reform in London, told FRANCE 24. "But not everything is going to change."

WATCH MORE'Love has triumphed': Hungarian papers react to Orban loss in historic elections

Magyar is a conservative, a former Fidesz insider who broke with Orban in 2024. His Tisza party draws a strikingly mixed crowd: 43 percent of his voters identify as liberal, 22 percent as left-wing, 10 percent as Green, and only 11 percent as right-wing conservative. Keeping that coalition together while delivering on sweeping institutional reform will be a balancing act of its own.

"His first priority is rule of law, and that will keep him very busy," says Denis Cenusa, an associate expert at the Geopolitical Security Studies Centre in Vilnius. "Because it will depend entirely on his ability to revive the Hungarian economy, including by regaining access to EU structural funds."
The corruption mountain

The economy was among the top priorities that drove Hungarians to the polls in record numbers, with a historic turnout of 79.5 percent, the highest since the country adopted democracy at the end of the Cold War.

Prices in Hungary have surged by 57 percent since 2020, the highest increase in the EU, and nearly double the bloc's average of 28 percent. The average monthly salary stands at €1,037, compared with a €2,654 average in the euro area.

Behind those numbers lies a deeper malaise. Hungary ranked last in the EU on Transparency International's 2025 Corruption Perceptions Index, scoring just 40 out of 100, its worst result ever. Its score has dropped 15 points since 2012, the most significant decline of any EU member state.

Magyar’s first announced move after his victory was clear and pointed: Hungary would join the European Public Prosecutor’s Office, the EU’s powerful anti-fraud and anti-corruption body.

It is a promise that resonates, but one that will collide head-on with the institutional architecture Orban spent 16 years constructing. The judiciary, the media, the electoral system and the public procurement networks have been reshaped in Fidesz's image.

READ MOREHow Orban benefits from Hungary's tailor-made election system
Polish warning

Europe has been here before. When Prime Minister Donald Tusk's coalition ousted Poland's PiS government in late 2023, Brussels also celebrated. The lesson, according to Tania Rancho, a researcher in EU fundamental rights law at Paris-Saclay University, is to manage expectations.

"Tusk didn't overturn everything. Not on immigration, not on women's rights," she says. "The Polish precedent shows that a pro-European replacement doesn't automatically mean a progressive one."

The parallel is instructive. Magyar, like Tusk, is pro-EU and anti-corruption. But on the politically charged questions that defined the Orban era, his positions remain largely unknown or deliberately vague.

On LGBTQ rights, for instance, Magyar said almost nothing during the campaign. The EU is currently awaiting a landmark ruling from the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) on Hungary's 2021 anti-LGBTQ law, a piece of legislation that, in the words of the Court's Advocate General, "establishes systematic discrimination" against LGBTQ people. In May 2025, twenty EU member states had already denounced the law as a violation of fundamental freedoms. What Magyar will do if and when the CJEU strikes it down remains to be seen.

WATCH MORE‘Change is feasible’ in Hungary after Magyar victory: FT reporter Marton Dunai

On migration, arguably Orban's most resonant wedge issue, the picture is equally complex. Magyar has nationalist instincts on the topic, says researcher Denis Cenusa, "but he won't make a political brand out of it. That means he'll be more likely to find common ground with Brussels,” as it is moving in a harder direction.

Orban's Hungary was a grotesque extreme of that tendency, deporting asylum seekers at the border while quietly issuing work visas to Asian migrants in the name of economic need. But the underlying logic of "chosen" versus "imposed" migration is one that resonates well beyond Budapest.
Geopolitical ripple effects

For the rest of the EU, Sunday's result removes a persistent irritant from the bloc's decision-making machinery. Orban had used his veto power to block or delay EU aid to Ukraine, sanctions against Russia, and the accession process for Kyiv.

But Bond, the former senior diplomat, urges caution on Ukraine in particular. Magyar, he notes, "still has reservations", as he has opposed sending weapons to Kyiv and remains sceptical of Ukrainian EU membership. "I don't believe in an overnight conversion," Bond says flatly. Magyar reiterated that stance on Monday, saying: "We are talking about a country at war. It is completely out of the question for the European Union to admit a country at war."

WATCH MORE'Undeterred': Hungarian journalist faces threats, espionage claims from Orban

Cenusa is equally measured on the wider geopolitical significance. "The Orban factor on EU integration was slightly exaggerated," he says. "He was creating problems, but he was not the only one. With or without him, EU integration will proceed."

What does change, he argues, is the symbolic register. The defeat is "a blow to European illiberalism" but it may also, paradoxically, be "an incentive for far-right forces to learn from Orban's mistakes."

EXPLAINER


Spain launches programme to offer amnesty to 500,000 undocumented migrants


As countries on both sides of the Atlantic ramp up deportations of undocumented migrants, Spain’s left-wing government on Tuesday prepared to give legal status to hundreds of thousands of irregular workers. Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has championed the amnesty as a way to not only give informal workers legal protections, but to also bring more money into a social security system increasingly under stress by the country's ageing population.


Issued on: 15/04/2026 
FRANCE24
By: Paul MILLAR

An immigrant worker from Mali works in a restaurant in San Sebastián on January 27, 2026. © Ander Gillenea, AFP

With a few scratches of a pen, Spain’s Socialist-led government on Tuesday prepared to grant legal status to roughly half a million people now living and working in the country without documentation.

Foreign nationals with clean criminal records who arrived before the end of 2025, and who can prove they’ve lived in Spain for at least five months, are now eligible for renewable one-year residence permits. People who applied for asylum in the country before December 31 will also be able to apply.

This extraordinary mass regularisation – the first in Spain in more than 20 years – was born from a citizen-backed proposal signed by some 700,000 people and supported by hundreds of civil society groups, including the Catholic Church.

While most immigrants in Spain have legal status, the country’s booming economy has also drawn hundreds of thousands of largely working-age people from across the world to work in the country’s underground economy. Undocumented migrants work on construction sites, on farms, in shops and restaurants or in people's homes, cooking and cleaning and caring for children.

Spain bets on migration to drive economic growth, bucking European trend

The bulk of these workers come from the country’s former colonial holdings across Latin America and North Africa such as Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador and nearby Morocco.

And while footage of migrants scrambling over the barbed-wire fences surrounding Spain’s North African exclaves or lurching towards the Canary Islands in flimsy dinghies weigh heavily on the public imagination, the reality is usually less dramatic.

Most undocumented migrants are people who entered Spain legally, going on to overstay their visas and find cash-in-hand work in what has become known as the country’s “black economy”.

Bucking the trend

The decision sits in stark contrast to a hardening approach to irregular immigration that has flourished across Europe and the US in recent years as the far right gains ground.

Despite declining numbers of irregular arrivals, European Union states in December last year backed harsher migration measures that would allow rejected asylum seekers to be deported to offshore “return hubs” or countries with which they have no connection.

In France, last year’s figures show rising numbers of deportations paired with fewer cases of undocumented migrants being granted legal pathways to work.

Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has maintained that – far from being a drain on the country’s social services as critics claim – migrants play a crucial role in keeping the country’s welfare state standing. Bringing half a million workers into the formal economy, he argues, will only strengthen the country’s social security system.

Migration Policy Institute Europe deputy director Jasmijn Slootjes said that Spain’s decision was partly in response to fears that the ageing native-born population won’t be capable of sustaining the kind of workforce the country needs to thrive.

“If you look at the demographic decline, the fertility rate in Spain is the lowest in Europe – so it's really, really low,” she said.

“There were a lot of skill shortages, labour shortages, and de facto a lot of irregular migrants are working, although in informal work. And through regularising you can, of course, get more tax payments, and you also get better matching [to] their skills – because people can actually work at their skill level. So it’s a very pragmatic approach.”

She said that the Sanchez government – which announced this decision as part of a deal struck with its erstwhile coalition partners, the leftist PODEMOS party – was championing migration as a fundamental driver of the country’s flourishing economy.

Official data released on Tuesday indicated that 52,500 of the 76,200 people who raised employment numbers in the final quarter of 2025 were born overseas, with that same quarter marking Spain's lowest unemployment rate in 18 years.

“That’s really something that's being mentioned time and again – this link to the economy, maintaining social welfare access and a healthy, competitive country. That is really a core argument in all of this, and the evidence is indeed pointing that way,” Slootjes said.

“I think one quote of [Sanchez's] is very clear in clarifying their approach – he says, ‘Spain needs to choose between being an open and prosperous country, or a closed-off and poor country’,” she said.

Migrant deaths at Melilla border post: Three years on, truth remains elusive

Billet retour © France 24
16:51

Since the last mass regularisation in 2005 – the sixth such amnesty since the fall of the Franco dictatorship – Spain has pursued a less dramatic approach to undocumented migrants, offering them a step-by-step pathway over several years towards gaining a legal right to live, work and eventually become a Spanish citizen.
'Sanchez hates the Spanish people'

Despite a turbulent 20 years of boom and bust as Spain weathered the 2008 global financial crisis and then the Covid-19 pandemic, the country has largely avoided the rising anti-immigration sentiment that has pushed far-right parties into prominence – and sometimes power – across Europe and beyond.

That changed in 2018 with the arrival of Vox on the political scene. Born out of a broader backlash to Catalan separatism, the far-right party won the third-most seats in parliament in 2019 on an increasingly anti-immigration platform.

Unsurprisingly, Vox party leader Santiago Abascal was incensed by the announcement.

“The tyrant Sanchez hates the Spanish people. He wants to replace them,” he posted on social media, adding that Sanchez wants to "accelerate the invasion”, echoing oft-repeated right-wing narratives.

Abascal instead called for “remigration” – another far-right rallying cry that champions the mass deportation of people born overseas, sometimes including naturalised citizens.

Spain's far-right resurgence raises spectre of Franco 50 years after his death

Alberto Nunez Feijoo, leader of the conservative People’s Party – which oversaw several of the amnesties in previous decades – has also criticised the decision, as the party struggles to head off rising support for the anti-immigration Vox.
Support for immigration remains 'largely stable'

Slootjes said that while Spain was not immune from the rising tide of nativist sentiment, levels of anti-immigration feeling had not reached the same heights as in other parts of Europe.

“Spain is also witnessing similar trends that we’ve been seeing in other countries in Europe and also across the Atlantic, of course, which is this increasing restrictive narrative around migration and a rise of support for the far right,” she said.

“This is really a moment where Vox is very vocal and really pushing this issue. So for those who are anti-migrant and agree with them, of course this can bolster their support."

Spanish think-tank Funcas in May last year found that local support for immigration was among the highest in Europe, with just 28 percent of respondents favouring restricted immigration in 2024. Those attitudes appeared to endure even as the country reeled from mass unemployment in the wake of the 2008 crash.

"Even during years when unemployment exceeded 25 percent, support for immigration remained largely stable," the report said.

And with more and more countries across Europe facing similar demands for workers, giving those people already practicing their livelihoods without legal protections a pathway out of precarity could well be a way forward, she noted.

“It's food for thought for policymakers across Europe and across the world, especially as this competition for talent and skill shortages, and ageing and demographic decline are plaguing our economies and societies, and it will all ramp up,” she said. “So it's going to be interesting to see how this may become more of a tool in the future, maybe if the tides are shifting and Spain is really testing it out and really creating this evidence to build future policies on how to do it – and how to do it well.”