Author: staff

Reflecting a Europe-wide trend, the share of one-person households is rising. More seniors are being pushed to stay at home for as long as possible due to the cost of residential care, keeping high-quality houses occupied for longer. Finally, lax rules that allow investors to speculate on real estate add to the problem. Because the issues are so tangled up, easy solutions won’t cut it. However, “No single party is genuinely considered as owning the issue” of housing, said Asher van der Schelde, senior researcher at polling company Ipsos I&O. That’s not for lack of trying. “They all make roughly…

Hundreds of thousands of Hungarians filled the streets of Budapest on Thursday in competing demonstrations, as supporters of the country’s two main political movements staged mutual shows of strength before next spring’s national election. With elections due in April, the rival rallies were a standoff between nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and his main political challenger, Péter Magyar, who looks set to present the long-serving Hungarian leader with the most competitive ballot in his 15 years in power. Orbán’s supporters gathered on a bridge spanning the Danube River on Thursday morning and began marching toward Hungary’s towering neo-Gothic parliament. Dubbed…

China’s leaders have vowed to reduce its reliance on foreign advanced technology and spur stronger domestic demand as it weathers “high winds” amid elevated trade tensions with the US. An outline of the ruling Communist Party’s blueprint for the next five years was laid out in a 5,000-word communique released on Thursday after a four-day top level meeting in Beijing, just days ahead of planned talks between Chinese leader Xi Jinping and US President Donald Trump. Five-year plans are a throwback to the days of Soviet-style central planning. China still relies heavily on them to map out policy priorities and…

She stressed that the goal must be “to overcome blockades” and make the organization more efficient — such as by merging agencies, increasing local staffing and using AI. “There is such financial pressure on this organization that it’s become clear we must ask more urgently what the U.N.’s core areas really are,” Baerbock added. As for who will succeed Secretary-General António Guterres, Baerbock proposed that a woman lead the U.N. An organization committed to women’s and human rights “has not managed to have a woman at its helm in 80 years,” she noted, which is “no longer appropriate.” On the…

Published on 24/10/2025 – 7:00 GMT+2 Germany’s much-loved silver collector coins are facing a bit of an existential crisis. The Bundesbank confirmed that two upcoming issues — a €25 and a €20 coin — have been postponed by the Federal Ministry of Finance due to the soaring cost of silver. The first, originally set for a November release, depicts the “Heilige Drei Könige” or Holy Three Kings. The second, formerly slated for a January release, is titled “125 Jahre Wuppertaler Schwebebahn” or “125 Years of the Wuppertal Suspension Railway”, commemorating an icon of German engineering. Although experiencing a more muted…

Zu diesem 80. Jahrestag der Gründung der Vereinten Nationen hört ihr einen Spaziergang durch die UN  und durch das politische Leben von Annalena Baerbock.In ihrer neuen Rolle als Präsidentin der UN-Generalversammlung spricht die frühere grüne Außenministerin über Macht, Reformen und die Frage, warum die Weltorganisation gerade jetzt gebraucht wird.  Baerbock erzählt, wie sie in New York direkt in die High-Level-Week geworfen wurde, was sie an Boutros Boutros-Ghali erinnert und warum sie Diplomatie als tägliche Arbeit gegen die Hölle versteht.Im Gespräch mit Gordon Repinski geht es um Kriege, Krisen und Kommunikation: Baerbock erklärt, warum Social Media für sie politische Aufklärung ist,…

Liz Truss is never far from the shores of the United States, hobnobbing with the folk seeking to “Make America Great Again.” What does she think Britain can learn from the second Trump era? Anne McElvoy travels to Washington to talk to the former Conservative Prime Minister Liz Truss, who’s on a self-proclaimed “mission” to remake the U.K. in the image of MAGA-land. It’s exactly three years since she left Downing Street after just 49 days in office following a mini-budget that sent the markets into freefall — and has haunted  her party ever since. In a wide-ranging interview, Truss…

France has been in the throes of heightened political instability for the last two years, cycling through no fewer than five prime ministers. Lecornu’s predecessor, François Bayrou, was toppled in September over his plans to squeeze the 2026 budget by €43.8 billion, and Lecornu himself was forced to resign earlier this month just 14 hours after naming his government. President Emmanuel Macron reappointed him to the job days later.   Lecornu has put forward a budget for next year that includes €30 billion worth of savings and could narrow the deficit to 4.7 percent of GDP. But getting it approved will…

A Connolly victory shouldn’t be a surprise, given how Ireland’s presidency has evolved in the public mind since civil rights lawyer Mary Robinson’s trailblazing win in 1990. Once a sinecure for senior statesmen backed by the dominant Fianna Fáil party, Robinson’s breakthrough augured in a new era of presidents coming from the opposition benches or outside political ranks. That reflects many voters’ apparent preference today for a presidency — a largely ceremonial post with no role in day-to-day government — that can challenge the establishment and, more specifically, the current Fianna Fáil-led coalition. Should she win, Connolly will succeed another…

“It’s a bit sour for me that we are finger-pointed, now, as the unwilling country,” De Wever told reporters. He described the idea of Belgian taxpayers ending up on the hook as “completely insane.” Donald Trump’s ambiguous attitude to how to deal with Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, despite this week sanctioning Russia’s two biggest oil companies, has put the onus on Europe to bolster its support. While Europe’s governments and the European Central Bank long considered unthinkable using Russian assets to arm and rebuild Ukraine over fears it would break international law, it emerged as a real prospect in the…