Author: staff
Billboards and election posters featuring election campaign ads for various parties are pictured in Magdeburg. | Ronny Hartmann/AFP via Getty Images But the chancellor comes into the election in Saxony-Anhalt — and two more elections on Sept. 20 — in a precarious position. Already the least popular chancellor on record after 16 months in office, Merz’s fellow conservatives have been quietly debating what would be a remarkable scenario by German standards: replacing the chancellor — a so-called Kanzlertausch, or chancellor swap. “Given the dissatisfaction, the poll numbers and the fact that there are additional elections coming up next year … the…
Giorgia Meloni’s hard-right government will become the longest-lasting in Italy’s postwar history on Friday, a notable record that belies considerable challenges ahead of elections next year. In a country once a byword for political instability, Italy’s first woman leader will have been in charge of the same administration for 1,413 days, one more than the late Silvio Berlusconi managed during one of his four stints in office. “It is certainly a point of pride,” Marco Osnato, a prominent lawmaker with Meloni’s far-right Brothers of Italy (FdI) party, told the AFP news agency of the milestone. The record is likely to…
Rescuers in Nepal pulled two workers alive from a hydropower tunnel on Friday as emergency teams continued an operation to reach others believed to be trapped inside, officials said. The two men were rescued from the Trishuli 3A tunnel nine days after floods, caused by a glacier collapse, devastated towns and swept away villages in Nepal on 26 August. Nepalese lawmaker Shri Ram Neupane posted about the second rescue on his Facebook page shortly after army spokesperson Brigadier General Raja Ram Basnet confirmed the first trapped worker’s rescue. The men were named as Sanjay Shah, 30, a mechanical foreman, and…
Office workers have a quiet new advantage and their bosses cannot always see it. Research published on Tuesday by Use.AI, a platform that bundles several large language models into a single subscription, surveyed 9,684 working adults in the US, UK, Canada, the EU and Latin America. The study found that 52% said AI had made them appear more experienced than they actually are, painting a picture of delivered results running ahead of underlying skill. Some 64% said they had used AI to complete work they would otherwise have been unable to do independently, while 43% said it had helped them…
There is something both disconcerting and fascinating about the road trip to Budva in the height of summer. On one side lies the Adriatic, surprisingly calm, blue and bright. On the other, almost clinging to the shoreline, rise Montenegro’s mountains. Between them runs a road that in July and August seems unable to cope with the sheer number of cars, buses and tourists heading to one of the destinations that is most rapidly gaining prominence in this part of Europe. Budva is one of the clearest examples of that transformation. The city combines a walled medieval old town with beaches,…
What do Spain’s migrant crisis and Germany’s knife-edge election mean for Europe? – POLITICO Skip to main content
Panic in Moncloa: There is a sense of growing chaos at the heart of the government in Madrid this morning after a leaked police report suggested the Ceuta border crisis, which saw over 80,000 migrants cross into the Spanish enclave, was planned and steered by Moroccan authorities and designed to violate the Spanish border under the guise of a migratory wave. Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has repeatedly exonerated Morocco of responsibility and placed the blame on smuggler networks, alleging also that Russia and Israel have been spreading disinformation about the incident. Conflicting narratives: The Director-General of the Spanish National Police…
The Trump administration is proposing a new rule that would strip private schools and colleges of their tax-exempt status if they provide targeted help to students based on their race, a significant escalation in the White House’s campaign to eradicate diversity programs directed at Black, Hispanic and other minority students. The US Treasury Department proposed the change on Thursday in a new regulation that, if made final, would kick in after May 2027 with the conclusion of the academic year. The rule is broadly aimed at ending any policies or programmes that help students because of their race, and it…
Vor der Landtagswahl in Sachsen-Anhalt steht ein historisches Szenario im Raum: Bekommt Deutschland seinen ersten AfD-Ministerpräsidenten? Spitzenkandidat Ulrich Siegmund plant für den Fall einer absoluten Mehrheit einen politischen Umbau des Landes. Die Folge analysiert, welche Versprechen er sofort umsetzen könnte und wo die Pläne an der Verfassung scheitern. Wie realistisch dieses Szenario wirklich ist, ordnet Pauline von Pezold ein. Sie berichtet, wie es am Sonntag auf jeden Prozentpunkt ankommt und weshalb die AfD ohne absolute Mehrheit trotz eines Wahlsiegs definitiv in der Opposition landen wird. Im 200-Sekunden-Interview bezieht Sepp Müller, Unionsfraktionsvize und Landesgruppenchef der CDU, klar Stellung. Er schließt eine…
Russia will shutter German cultural centres across the country, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Thursday after Berlin blamed Moscow for an attempted attack at Leipzig/Halle Airport and announced the closure of both the Russian Consulate in Bonn and the Russian House cultural centre in the German capital. Lavrov said that cultural centres belonging to Germany’s Goethe-Institut would be closed in Moscow, St. Petersburg and Yekaterinburg, adding that any other response would show a lack of “self-respect” on Russia’s part. Speaking at the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, Lavrov said that Germany “could not have failed to understand” that the…