The election of Mahnaz Maimanat (pictured) to lead the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran highlights more than three decades of continuous female leadership within one of Iran’s principal organised opposition movements. An important development has taken place within the Iranian democratic opposition. On 6 September, the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK), the principal organized component of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), elected Mahnaz Maimanat as its new Secretary-General, at the beginning of the organisation’s 62nd year.
The election took place through three successive rounds involving PMOI members in seven countries — France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Sweden, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Albania. In the first round, Maimanat received 56% of the votes, ahead of Badri Pourtabbakh and Narges Azdanlou. The position is for a two-year term and may be renewed by the PMOI’s Central Council. Born in Tehran in 1959, Maimanat has spent most of her adult life in the movement.
She became acquainted with the PMOI as a university student and participated in demonstrations against the Shah’s dictatorship. She joined the organization following the 1979 revolution and went on to assume a succession of senior responsibilities: she became a member of the Executive Committee in 1989, the Leadership Council in 1993, the Central Council in 2014, and co-Secretary-General in 2021. Her personal history also reflects the heavy price paid by many PMOI families under the clerical regime. Her mother, Akhtar Mowlavi, a teacher, was killed by the Revolutionary Guards in 1988.
One of her brothers, Massoud, was executed in Evin Prison at the age of 19 after months of imprisonment and torture. Another brother, Mahmoud, an architecture student, was executed during the 1988 massacre of political prisoners. The significance of the election, however, goes well beyond a change of office-holder. Mahnaz Maimanat is the tenth woman to serve as Secretary-General of the PMOI. Maryam Rajavi became the first woman to hold the organisation’s top leadership position in 1989, and for more than three decades every PMOI Secretary-General has been a woman.
Eight women succeeded Mrs Rajavi before Maimanat. This is particularly significant in the Iranian context. Within the PMOI, women’s leadership is not simply a matter of ceremonial representation or political imagery. Its female Secretaries-General have exercised real executive and organisational authority, often during extraordinarily difficult periods involving clandestine activity inside Iran, severe repression, imprisonment and executions, attacks on PMOI members, displacement from Iraq and the subsequent rebuilding of the organisation.
After assuming responsibility for leading the National Council of Resistance of Iran in 1993, Maryam Rajavi ceased to hold a formal organisational position within the PMOI. Nevertheless, she remains the most prominent political figure of the Iranian Resistance and, for many Iranians, particularly women, has become a symbol of resistance to religious fundamentalism and a pioneer of women’s equality and political leadership. This model of female leadership has also had important consequences inside Iran. Women have increasingly assumed leading responsibilities within the PMOI’s underground Resistance Units, which the movement says have played an active role in successive uprisings against the regime, including the nationwide protests of January 2026.
For young Iranian women confronting compulsory veiling, institutional discrimination and a political system that treats women as second-class citizens, the sight of women exercising genuine authority within an organised opposition movement carries considerable political and cultural significance. It also helps explain the intensity of the attacks directed against the PMOI’s leadership by the Iranian regime and, increasingly, by hardline monarchist circles. Both have devoted considerable efforts to portraying the PMOI, and particularly its female leadership, as illegitimate.
Yet the central issue is that the PMOI remains a highly organised democratic opposition movement with an extensive network inside Iran and therefore represents a serious challenge to the survival of the ruling theocracy. The election of its tenth female Secretary-General should therefore be viewed in a broader perspective. It represents more than three decades of continuous female leadership and constitutes a profound ideological and cultural challenge to Islamic fundamentalism: not simply women demanding equality, but women assuming responsibility, exercising authority and leading an organised struggle against a system built upon their discrimination and subordination.
Jake Edmiston, a business reporter for the Toronto Star, thinks highly of his mustard chicken recipe. So when one batch goes over like a lead balloon, he checks his namesake ingredients and finds that his usual glass pot of Maille Dijon Originale is extraordinarily spicy—a fact he confirms, good reporter that he is, by conducting a blind test with a professional taster. In no time, Edmiston is on the floor of one of Canada’s largest mustard mills, trying to stay dry and avoid mustard dust burns(!), and peppering Unilever, Maille’s owner, with questions. This isn’t exactly a case for Benoit Blanc, but Edmiston’s investigation takes a few surprising turns and drops some serious knowledge on glucosinolates on the way. Every ingredient is in harmony here.
“Do a little dollop,” she said, then turned her back so I could do my work in secret.
I spooned the mustard from my jar onto a plate, and some from another jar of Maille I found in the grocery store that morning. She tried the sample from my jar first and sputtered a little.
“It’s quite spicy,” she said.
I asked her how much spicier it was than the control jar.
“Like, 10 times,” she said.
New figures from member states show that businesses are increasingly using the simplified VAT rules for cross-border e-commerce.
New figures from member states show that businesses continue to make increasing use of the simplified VAT rules for online sales. Five years after the EU’s VAT e-commerce rules entered into force, the latest figures also show continued growth in VAT declared through the One Stop Shop (OSS) and Import One Stop Shop (IOSS) schemes.
The VAT e-commerce package, which entered into force on 1 July 2021, marked a major step in modernising the EU VAT framework. Since then, member states have collected more than €125 billion in VAT revenue through the EU’s VAT e-commerce schemes.
In 2025 alone, more than €38 billion in VAT revenue was collected, an increase of 17% compared with the previous year. The number of businesses using the EU’s simplified VAT schemes has also continued to grow. By the end of 2025, more than 193,000 businesses have registered to account for VAT on online sales through the schemes, reflecting the continued uptake of the EU’s VAT reforms, which help simplify VAT compliance, reduce red tape, and ensure VAT collection.
With the continued rapid growth in e-commerce activity and an increasingly digital global marketplace, the EU’s VAT rules for online transactions have continued to evolve to meet the needs of cross-border trade.
As we move into the next phase of reforms under the VAT in the Digital Age (ViDA) package, the EU is on track towards a fairer and more efficient VAT framework.
Following the adoption of the VAT in the Digital Age (ViDA) package in 2025, its phased implementation over the coming years is expected to build further on the success of the e-commerce VAT reforms. By expanding the scope of the OSS to cover more business-to-consumer transactions and introducing a new special scheme for the transfers of own goods, the ViDA package is likely to lead to even greater uptake of the OSS schemes, moving towards a single VAT registration in the EU.
Through a single registration in one member state, the One Stop Shop (OSS) and Import One Stop Shop (IOSS) schemes allow businesses to declare and remit VAT for cross-border sales of goods and services within the EU, as well as for imports of low-value goods.
This report is the latest in a series of annual reports on the application of the e-commerce package and is based on 2025 statistics from member states. It sets out details of the total number of registrations in all three One-Stop Shop (OSS) schemes, namely, the Union OSS, the non-Union OSS and the Import OSS, as of 31 December 2025. It also provides details on the total amount of VAT declared in each of these schemes in 2025. In addition, it describes how these registrations and declaration figures have evolved since the introduction of the VAT e-commerce rules in July 2021.
On parle rarement de la Guinée-Bissau. Ce petit pays d'Afrique de l'Ouest, coincé entre le Sénégal et la Guinée, vient pourtant de vivre un moment politique assez saisissant. Le 26 novembre 2025, trois jours après l'élection présidentielle et juste avant l'annonce des résultats, l'armée interrompt le processus électoral et porte le général Horta N'Tam au pouvoir. Neuf mois plus tard, le 30 août, elle soumet aux électeurs une nouvelle Constitution. Adoptée par 70 % des votants, celle-ci renforce considérablement les pouvoirs du président et réduit de plus d'un tiers le nombre de parlementaires. Le Parti africain pour l'indépendance de la Guinée et du Cap-Vert (PAIGC), acteur historique de l'indépendance, avait appelé au boycott.
Le maître mot de cette réforme est la « stabilité ». Il faut dire que l'armée bissau-guinéenne entretient avec le pouvoir civil une relation pour le moins intense : coups d'État, tentatives de putsch et mutineries jalonnent la vie politique depuis les années 1980. Mais, à force de décrire un pays « instable », le constat finit par valoir explication.
Si la Guinée-Bissau est née d'un projet politique ambitieux, révolutionnaire et anticolonial porté par Amílcar Cabral, cet enchaînement de crises raconte plutôt l'affaiblissement de l'État sous l'effet des programmes d'ajustement structurel du Fonds monétaire international (FMI), et de la Banque mondiale, les luttes pour le contrôle de ses ressources et, depuis les années 2000, l'essor spectaculaire du trafic de cocaïne entre l'Amérique latine et l'Europe. Un État pauvre peut ainsi devenir le siège de pouvoirs très lucratifs.
La nouvelle Constitution entend mettre fin à cette séquence chaotique en renforçant l'exécutif à son sommet. Reste à savoir ce que pourra apporter une telle concentration du pouvoir présidentiel quand c'est l'institution État dans son ensemble qui a été progressivement fragilisée.
Test captain Babar Azam fell five places to 15th in the Test batting rankings.
The post Pakistan’s Test ranking woes continue after Lord’s defeat appeared first on BOL News.
Annual inflation in the eurozone is expected to rise to 3.3% in August 2026, from 2.9% in July, according to a preliminary estimate released on Tuesday, September 1, by the European statistical agency, Eurostat. Looking at the main components of eurozone inflation, energy prices are expected to record the highest annual increase in August (14.3%, […]
The post Inflation in Greece climbs to 3.7% in August appeared first on Keep Talking Greece.
Ginger, turmeric and cumin have been associated with possible benefits for metabolism and weight management.
The post Simple diet and exercise tips to tackle belly fat appeared first on BOL News.
When Sabrina Imbler’s cat, Melon, becomes seriously ill with what is later confirmed as feline infectious peritonitis (FIP), Imbler feels she doesn’t have time to wait for a formal diagnosis and turns to a Facebook group that connects desperate cat owners with a black‑market treatment: GS‑441524. Injecting Melon twice a day at home, they enter a frantic stretch in which the acidic drug causes a wound to open on Melon’s back, and she is sentenced to weeks in a hated recovery suit called a Suitical: “Melon was so upset that she lay on her side like a tipped cow for hours, her chin glumly fixed to the carpet.” With Melon finally fully recovered, Imbler has the space to look back on the desperate measures it took to save her.
The FIP Warriors contact met me in the lobby of their building, wearing a knit cap with cat ears. They proceeded to demonstrate how to deliver the medicine on their stuffed cat, Edward. I watched as they manipulated the stuffed toy, lifting up pockets in Edward’s “skin” into which I was to drive a 22-gauge needle at an angle into subcutaneous tissue. I paid $50 for two vials of injectable GS-441524, which was acidic to keep it shelf-stable. This acidity, the contact warned me, meant the injections burned. “It’s really best if you have help,” they told me. “Will you have help?” No, I told them. My ex was out of town and it was just me and Melon. “Well, you’ll figure something out,” they said. I would have to.
Europe is warming more than twice as fast as the global average—a terrifying statistic made all too apparent this summer as heat wave followed heat wave. European cities were never designed for these temperatures, and public health, infrastructure, and tourism are all under strain. Eric Klinenberg arrives in Milan just as “Europe’s third heat wave of the summer entered its fiercest stretch” and sweats his way across the continent to see how trees, shade, water, and other measures are being deployed to adapt urban centers. But with this crisis set to deepen can these experiments really keep pace?
Of all the problems that heat poses for Barcelona, losing some of the hundred and sixty thousand tourists who typically visit each day ranks low on the priority lists of most officials and residents. Some locals have staged protests, chanting “Tourists go home” while targeting visitors with water guns. But tourism employs more than a hundred and sixty thousand people in Barcelona and accounts for around thirteen per cent of its economic output, which explains why, despite concerns that the city gets too many visitors, more than seventy per cent of residents consider tourism beneficial. At midday, when I arrived on La Rambla, the city’s most heavily visited and photographed corridor, the street had little shade and surprisingly few people. At La Boqueria market, normally jam-packed at lunchtime, I found my way to a famously busy bar counter and took one of several open seats.
The EU economy’s seasonally adjusted greenhouse gas emissions in the first quarter of 2026 were estimated at 837 million tonnes of CO2-equivalents (CO2-eq), a 0.3% increase compared with the fourth quarter of 2025 (835 million tonnes of CO2-eq). At the same time, there was no change to the EU’s gross domestic product (GDP) in the first quarter of 2026, compared with the last quarter of 2025.
The economic sector with the largest increase in greenhouse gas emissions was electricity, gas, steam and air conditioning supply (+4.8%), while households (-1.3%), manufacturing and transportation and storage (both -0.6%) recorded the biggest decreases.
Source datasets: env_ac_aigg_q and namq_10_gdp
Compared with the first quarter of 2025, emissions went down by 1.2%, while the EU’s GDP increased by 0.8%.
In the first quarter of 2026, seasonally adjusted greenhouse gas emissions increased in 20 EU countries and decreased in 7 countries, compared with the fourth quarter of 2025.
The largest reductions in greenhouse gases were estimated for Slovenia (-5.0%), Luxembourg (-3.8%) and Romania (-2.7%).
The largest increases in greenhouse gas emissions were estimated for Estonia (+9.7%), Finland (+6.4%) and Bulgaria (+4.6%). The increases in these countries are largely due to growing emissions by economic producers in construction and electricity, gas, steam and air conditioning supply.
In the first quarter of 2026, 20 EU countries recorded increases in greenhouse gas emissions, out of which 18 also increased their GDP. 7 countries reduced their greenhouse gas emissions. Out of these, 4 countries recorded a higher or stable GDP.
Source datasets: env_ac_aigg_q and namq_10_gdp
This information comes from data on seasonally adjusted quarterly estimates of greenhouse gas emissions by economic activity, published by Eurostat. Quarterly estimates of greenhouse gas emissions complement quarterly socio-economic data, such as GDP or employment.
Do you remember the media frenzy over lab-grown meat? Why, several years later, has it not become a supermarket staple? Erin Somers investigates with wry humor as she throws herself, and her taste buds, into exploring why cultivated meat has yet to take over the world. You’ll devour this piece.
The two of them ate with forks and knives, passing the plate, sawing off thoughtful bites. Chewing slowly. Afterward they rendered their verdicts. “I would say it is somewhere on the spectrum between a Boca Burger and McDonald’s,” Schonwald told a reporter from NBC. “The absence of fat makes a big difference. It has the texture, which I was not expecting. It was like an animal-protein cake.” Rützler noted the burger’s blandness to a reporter from Science. “There is room for improvement here,” she said. At the end of the event, roughly $150,000 worth of burger remained uneaten. But none of this stopped Post from predicting that meat cultivated in a lab would become a consumer product within the decade.
No próximo dia 10 de agosto, segunda-feira, a partir das 20h00, o icónico Convento do Espírito Santo, em Loulé, transforma-se numa sala de cinema ao ar livre para acolher a sessão de estreia do Tribeca Open Air, powered by Toyota.
Loulé e Sintra são as duas localidades por onde irá passar a estreia desta iniciativa do Tribeca Festival Lisboa, que irá transformar espaços emblemáticos em pontos de encontro para celebrar o cinema, a cultura e a partilha de histórias.
Nesta espécie de warm-up para o Festival, que este ano acontece em dezembro, a exibição de um filme é antecedida por uma conversa ao vivo com personalidades do jornalismo, das artes e da criação, seguida de momentos musicais assegurados pela RFM.
A primeira sessão, em Loulé, terá como tema “Como se conta uma história? Do jornalismo à ficção” e será moderada por Rúben Tiago Pereira, jornalista do Expresso, contando com a participação do também jornalista (SIC) André Pacheco, e das atrizes Isabela Valadeiro, Sónia Balacó e Margarida Vila-Nova.
O ponto alto da noite acontece às 22h00 com a projeção em ecrã gigante do filme “Eleanor the Great”, que marca a estreia de Scarlett Johansson na realização cinematográfica. Esta comédia dramática, apresentada em exclusivo na edição de 2025 do Tribeca Festival Lisboa, acompanha a jornada de superação e recomeço de Eleanor Morgenstein, uma carismática mulher de 94 anos que decide mudar-se para Nova Iorque após a perda da sua melhor amiga.
O evento, que cruza a sétima arte com conversas inspiradoras e momentos musicais, tem entrada gratuita mediante levantamento de bilhetes em tribecalisboa.pt.
Esta iniciativa resulta de uma parceria entre o Tribeca Festival Lisboa, a Toyota Portugal e o Município de Loulé.
Programa
10 de agosto | Convento do Espírito Santo, Loulé
20h00: Abertura de portas, food & drinks e DJ Set by RFM
21h00: Como se conta uma história? Do jornalismo à ficção, com moderação de Rúben Tiago Pereira (Expresso) e participação de André Pacheco (SIC), Isabela Valadeiro e Sónia Balacó
22h00: Projeção do filme Eleanor the Great
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