A turbulent Friday across Europe as the BBC faces a formal rebuke from Ofcom over a “misleading” Gaza documentary, Spanish police reopen the Mango founder’s death as a homicide case, UK bank stocks plunge amid US financial jitters, and Ferrari reins in UK sales following the end of Britain’s non-dom tax regime.
Here’s a glance at major developments in the region on Friday.
BBC reprimanded over Gaza film
The UK media watchdog Ofcom has ruled that the BBC broke broadcasting rules with its documentary “Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone,” calling it “materially misleading.”
The issue? The film featured narration by a 13-year-old boy, but the BBC didn’t mention that he was actually the son of a Hamas deputy minister of agriculture.
Since Hamas is designated a terrorist organization by the UK and several other countries, Ofcom said that leaving out such a key detail denied viewers important context about who was speaking and how that might shape the story being told.
Ofcom called the breach serious, saying it could undermine the public’s trust in the BBC’s factual reporting, especially on such a sensitive topic as the Israel-Gaza conflict.
The BBC has since accepted the ruling, apologized, and said it will broadcast Ofcom’s findings during prime-time TV.
The documentary itself was pulled from the BBC’s platform earlier this year after the controversy over the boy’s undisclosed family ties first surfaced.
Police reopen Mango founder’s death
Spanish police are now treating the death of Mango founder Isak Andic as a possible homicide, and his son, Jonathan Andic, has become a suspect in the case.
Isak Andic, who started the global fashion brand Mango back in 1984, died last December after falling more than 300 feet off a cliff near Barcelona during a hike.
At first, investigators believed it was a tragic accident, but in March 2025, they reopened the case after finding inconsistencies in Jonathan’s statements.
According to reports, there were contradictions between Jonathan’s account of what happened and forensic evidence from the scene.
Things got even murkier when Isak’s partner told authorities that father and son had a strained relationship, adding fuel to the suspicions.
By late September, a judge had officially changed Jonathan’s status from witness to suspect, which allowed police to search his phone for more clues.
The Andic family insists Jonathan is innocent and says they’re fully cooperating with investigators, hoping the case is resolved quickly.
UK lenders slump amid US jitters
Almost £11 billion was wiped off the value of UK banks this week as fresh worries about US regional lenders sparked a global sell-off in financial stocks.
The FTSE 100 dropped about 1.5%, with major players like Barclays and Standard Chartered seeing their shares tumble more than 5%.
The panic started across the Atlantic after two US regional banks, Western Alliance Bank and Zions Bank, reported big losses and potential loan fraud issues.
Zions revealed a $50 million hit from two bad loans, while Western Alliance said it was suing a borrower over alleged fraud.
Those headlines immediately brought back memories of the 2023 US regional banking crisis, which rattled markets worldwide.
Even though UK banks aren’t showing any direct signs of trouble, the news set off a wave of investor nerves, leading to heavy selling across banking stocks in Europe and Asia.
Ferrari limits UK car deliveries
Ferrari has quietly scaled back car sales in the UK after the government scrapped the non-domiciled (“non-dom”) tax status earlier this year, a move that’s shaken up the country’s luxury market.
The tax change, introduced in April 2025, ended a long-standing rule that let wealthy UK residents with foreign ties avoid paying UK taxes on overseas income.
Since then, reports suggest some of the ultra-rich have packed up and left, taking their supercar shopping habits with them.
Ferrari’s CEO, Benedetto Vigna, said the company started limiting UK deliveries about six months ago to protect the resale value of its cars.
Right-hand drive models, he noted, are harder to sell outside the UK, so flooding the market could have hurt Ferrari’s brand value.
According to Vigna, sales have now stabilized, but the fallout from the tax change is still being felt across the luxury sector, from supercars to high-end property.
Some posh property prices have dipped, though Chancellor Rachel Reeves has dismissed talk of a “wealthy exodus” as “scaremongering.”
It’s a clear sign of how policy changes can ripple through the luxury economy, even affecting brands as exclusive as Ferrari.
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