Euobserver.com

At the UN general assembly, Iran's president Hassan Rouhani said "a single blunder" in the region could "fuel a big fire", adding that the Gulf region is "on the verge of collapse". He accused the US of "merciless economic terrorism", confirming he would not sit down with president Donald Trump until sanctions were lifted. He repeated his commitment to the nuclear deal, adding "Iran's patience has a limit".

Estonian police have found Aivar Rehe, former head of Danske Bank in the country dead in his garden, after two days of searching, Deutsche Welle reported. Danske Bank in Estonia was involved in a large scandal of Russian money laundering between 2007 and 2015. Ten employees of the bank were accused of money laundering, but Rehe was not one of them. Estonian media said his death was probably suicide.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has appointed former EU commissioner and former deputy of the fund Kristalina Georgieva as its new chief. She is the first head to come from an emerging economy. "It is a huge responsibility to be at the helm of the IMF at a time when global economic growth continues to disappoint, trade tensions persist, and debt is at historically-high levels," Georgieva said.

A three-point plan for the new EU Commission, from the European People's Party official think tank, the Wilfried Martens Centre for European Studies.

Brexit Party MEPs lead the European Parliament pack in terms of earnings from side jobs, collected on top of their monthly EU salaries. Transparency International, which uncovered the findings, says an ethics body is needed to prevent conflicts of interest.

Two EU commission candidates, Romania's Rovana Plumb and Hungary's Laszlo Trocsanyi, have been called in by the European Parliament's legal affairs committee to answer extra questions Thursday on their financial declarations, AFP reported. Poland's Janusz Wojciechowski was asked for extra information via letter, and Austria's Johannes Hahn is to sell shares to avoid conflicts of interest. The committee gave 22 other nominees the all-clear to start public hearings next week.

Italian authorities closed roads and evacuated houses on Wednesday after experts warned that a portion of the Mont Blanc glacier could collapse. "This phenomenon once again testifies that the mountain is in a phase of strong change due to climatic factors, therefore it is particularly vulnerable," the mayor of nearby Courmayeur, Stefano Miserocchi, said. The rise in temperatures is the main explanation for the event.

British prime minister Boris Johnson flew back to London on Wednesday as the parliament reconvened. The government plans an early election, while MPs are still keen to avoid a no-deal Brexit.

New technologies, such as artificial intelligence and robotics, have the potential "to displace some workers from their tasks, even causing some jobs to disappear entirely", affecting the work nature of millions of jobs in Europe, according to a new report.

Google has said it will refuse to pay for licences for French news articles when the EU's copyright directive goes into effect in France, as the first EU country, next month. Google added it will not accept paying for search results. Instead, Google would show only headlines and snippets in news results, in line with the new copyright law, unless publications give additional permission.

Thomas Cook's CEO, Peter Frankhauser, has declared in a witness statement to the High Court in the UK that the travel company had a blackhole of €3.5bn (£3.1bn) in its balance sheet before it collapsed on Monday, the Guardian reported. He also said the company received seven offers for parts of Thomas Cook, such as the airline operations - all of which were rejected by the board.

Boris Johnson was Wednesday flying back unexpectedly early from the United Nations general assembly in New York. He has to face angry MPs in the House of Commons, following the Supreme Court verdict that his suspension of parliament for five weeks ahead of Brexit had been "unlawful." Johnson is expected to have to explain if he mislead the Queen in his reasons for calling for the prorogation.

Irish taoiseach Leo Varadkar warned British prime minister Boris Johnson on Wednesday he had until the end of next week to come up with a concrete plan on alterations to the Irish backstop question, in order for any ideas to be discussed at the EU summit starting 17 October. Vardadkar, speaking in New York, said the EU needed "proposals in writing really in the first week of October."

The EU's 60,000 or so staff are less happy and new recruits are harder to attract after a €4.2bn cost-cutting plan, the bloc's auditor has said.

Questions about family wealth and EU values continue to hang over Croatia's European Commission nominee, Dubravka Suica, ahead of next week's parliamentary hearings.

The Dutch government might lose its majority in the House of Representatives after the ruling liberal party (VVD) kicked out one of its MPs. Wybren van Haga is accused of a conflict of interest between his political work and his business. The government has a slim majority of 76 of 150 seats. If he doesn't resign as an MP, Rutte must look for support from the opposition.

Amnesty International in a report out Wednesday says the European Union is falling short on its commitments to protect and support human rights defenders. "Our research shows serious inconsistencies when it comes to the application of EU policies to protect human rights defenders," said Eve Geddie, director of the Amnesty International European institutions office, in a statement.

In his speech to the UN general assembly, Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan called for a safe zone in Syria. In his proposal the safe zone could reach as far as Raqqa. "If this safe zone can be declared, we can resettle confidently somewhere between one to two million refugees," he said. The idea is not new but controversial as this area is now Syrian Kurdish territory.

French president Emmanuel Macron has spoken out against a lawsuit filed by Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg. Thunberg, along with other children, had filed a complaint against Argentina, Brazil, France, Germany, and Turkey for violating the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child when it comes to global warming. During a Europe 1 interview, Macron described the lawsuit as a "very radical stance" and which would "likely antagonise societies".

French president Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday at the United Nations in New York demanded fresh multilateral talks with Iran to sort outstanding issues on an unraveling nuclear deal. He is also pressing to end the US-led sanctions against Iran. The comments follow a recent attack against key Saudi oil infrastructure, reportedly carried out by Tehran. "I am not naive at all and I don't believe in miracles," he said.