Storm Adam brought torrential rain to eastern Spain earlier this week. In Pego, Alicante, 632mm fell in 36 hours with 430mm of this falling in just six hours, while the Valencian town of Olivia received 600mm in 24 hours. As a result, 145 municipalities, approximately 850,000 people, across Valencia and Alicante were placed in a temporary lockdown on Monday due to the severe flooding. At least five people have died and 500 have been rescued and 2,100 evacuated. The storm also affected the Balearic Islands, with more than 130 incidents…
Tag: UK news
Why Britain should reject the lure of cheap – and scary – Chinese AI
There is much to fear from artificial intelligence developed in China and handed to businesses and governments in the west almost free of charge. Every month Chinese AI developers such as DeepSeek and Xiaomi dispatch the latest versions of their “open-weight” models that allow users to take the core software and use it without paying an expensive ongoing licence. In Britain, we love cheap Chinese kit, usually setting aside any concerns about how it was made and who by. The row over whether to allow Chinese electric cars unfettered access…
No 10 leaves option open to impose Chinese EV tariffs if UK joins EU scheme
No 10 has left the door open to imposing tariffs on Chinese-made electric vehicles as part of the Made in Europe package, prompting a warning from Beijing that such a move would be “discriminatory”. Downing Street said on Friday that it would “welcome the objective to have the UK included in the Industrial Accelerator Act” after France dropped its opposition to Britain joining the scheme. The aim of the rules is to curb subsidised Chinese imports by giving EU-made products preferential treatment, but the UK and others such as Norway…
France drops opposition to UK being included in ‘Made in Europe’ legislation
France has dropped its opposition to the UK being included in the EU’s “Made in Europe” legislation as long as the British government aligns with the bloc’s position over tariffs on Chinese EVs. In a breakthrough for Andy Burnham, France on Thursday came round to backing Germany, which has always supported the UK’s calls to be designated European for the purposes of the Industrial Accelerator Act. The legislation, which is in its draft stage, is designed to protect domestic manufacturing from cheap Chinese competition. According to a joint Franco-German paper…
UK’s ‘incoherent’ approach to China plagued by lack of expertise, report says
The UK’s approach to China is “beset by incoherence” and plagued by a lack of senior expertise, according to a report warning of the risks inherent in misjudging the bilateral relationship. An audit by the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (Ipac), an international grouping of China-sceptic legislators, says past engagement with Beijing has often exposed the UK to the risks of interference without delivering the opportunities promised. “Successful UK engagement with China must always be framed by an understanding that the PRC (People’s Republic of China) is an inherently hostile authoritarian…
Excluding UK from ‘Made in Europe’ law will hurt entire EU car industry, Mercedes boss warns
Locking the UK out of the EU’s flagship industrial “Made in Europe” legislation would amount to a “deliberate choice” by EU leaders to “hurt” the car industry across the bloc, the head of Mercedes-Benz has said. Speaking in his capacity as president of the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association (ACEA), Ola Källenius said such a move would “weaken the industry on both sides”. He was speaking just weeks before political leaders hope to reach agreement on the Industrial Accelerator Act (IAA), potentially keeping the UK car industry out of key contracts…
‘Super app’ aimed at UK students uses servers owned by Chinese firm on US blacklist
A new messaging and payment “super app” marketed at British students uses servers owned by a Chinese company that has been put on a US military blacklist for its alleged affiliation to the People’s Liberation Army. ZyMix, which is being pushed on university campuses as the UK’s first super app designed “for gen Z”, combining chat, payments and community features, has a contract with a German-based subsidiary of Tencent Holdings, a Chinese conglomerate in Shenzhen. Tencent Holdings was added in January 2026 to the US Department of Defense’s (DoD) list…
Stellantis and Renault back UK to get EU car industry protection
Stellantis and Renault have backed the UK car industry for inclusion in proposed rules to protect EU industry, but urged the British government to consider limiting imports of Chinese cars. Emanuele Cappellano, who leads Stellantis’s European brands including Fiat, Citroën, Opel and Vauxhall, and François Provost, the chief executive of France’s Renault, said the UK should effectively be counted as one of the EU’s 27 member states for the purposes of the proposed “Made in Europe” legislation. The new rules aim to ensure EU subsidies and government procurement benefits Europe’s…
UK considering tariffs on Chinese car imports to align with EU
The UK is considering whether to impose tariffs on Chinese car imports to align itself with the EU and strengthen its case to be included in new legislation designed to protect the European manufacturing sectors including autos and chemicals. It is understood the EU has raised the question of tariffs with the UK as part of the discussions on the upcoming “Made in Europe” legislation, known as the Industrial Accelerator Act. The UK is an outlier in choosing not to put import taxes on Chinese vehicles, even as the US…
UK car industry faces ‘difficult trade-off’ between Chinese and EU markets
Britain’s car industry is grappling with a “difficult trade-off” between China and Europe, as manufacturers struggle to balance the benefits of both markets ahead of looming trade measures that could restrict UK exports to the EU. The UK is an outlier in choosing not to put import taxes on Chinese vehicles, even as the US has shut them out almost entirely, and the EU imposes duties of up to 45%. EU officials reportedly warned Andy Burnham last month that the UK must put tariffs on cheap Chinese vehicles otherwise Brussels…