88 m. ago Andrej Babiš to hold talks with other Czech parties on forming government

Billionaire faces tricky task trying to secure enough support to become PM after ANO wins elections without majorityAndrej Babiš has met the Czech president, Petr Pavel, and is to hold talks with other party leaders as the billionaire populist begins the tricky job of trying to form a stable government after his ANO (Yes) party won parliamentary elections, but failed to secure a majority.Final results showed ANO won 34.5% of the vote, held on Friday and Saturday, translating to a provisional 80 seats in the 200-member parliament. The centre-right Spolu coalition of the outgoing prime minister, Petr Fiala, came second on 23.4%. Continue reading...

Politics

3 h. ago Can Czech populist Andrej Babiš form stable government after election win?

Billionaire begins talks with other party leaders after ANO party triumphs in elections but fails to secure majorityAndrej Babiš has met the Czech president, Petr Pavel, and is to hold talks with other party leaders as the billionaire populist begins the tricky job of trying to form a stable government after his ANO (Yes) party won parliamentary elections, but failed to secure a majority.Final results showed ANO won 34.5% of the vote, held on Friday and Saturday, translating to a provisional 80 seats in the 200-member parliament. The centre-right Spolu coalition of the outgoing prime minister, Petr Fiala, came second on 23.4%. Continue reading...

Politics

22 h. ago Billionaire populist Andrej Babis' party wins Czech general election

With the votes from almost all of the polling stations counted, Andrej Babis' ANO movement captured 35 per cent of the vote, campaigning on pledges of halting military aid of Ukraine.

Politics

34 h. ago Japan poised to get first female PM after Sanae Takaichi wins ruling party leadership

Margaret Thatcher admirer beat her more moderate rival to become leader of Liberal Democratic partyJapan is poised to get its first female prime minister after Sanae Takaichi was elected as leader of the governing Liberal Democratic party (LDP) – a victory that should lead to her being installed as the country’s new leader in the middle of the month.Takaichi, a rightwing politician who has voiced admiration for Margaret Thatcher in her quest to build a “strong and prosperous” Japan on the international stage, beat her moderate rival, Shinjiro Koizumi, in a runoff election at the LDP headquarters in Tokyo on Saturday. Continue reading...

Politics

53 h. ago Czechs begin voting in election that could return populist to power

Billionaire Andrej Babiš hands out doughnuts on first day of voting as polls predict his ANO party will winCzechs have begun voting in an election likely to oust their centre-right government, with polls favouring the populist billionaire Andrej Babiš to return to power on pledges to raise wages and improve growth while reducing aid for Ukraine.The change would boost Europe’s populist anti-immigration camp and could complicate consensus on climate policies in a country where no sitting government has won a second term since 1996. Continue reading...

Politics

7 d. ago Housing secretary says work will start on three new towns before election

Steve Reed hails predecessor Angela Rayner as ‘true working-class hero’ and accuses Tories of blocking new homesSteve Reed, the new housing secretary, has said he is “appalled” at the slow pace of housebuilding as he used his conference speech to pledge that work would start on three new towns before the next election.The government wants to build at least 12 new towns and has identified three of the most promising locations at Tempsford, a village in Bedfordshire, Crews Hill on the outskirts of north London, and South Bank in a suburb of Leeds. Continue reading...

Politics

1 week ago I was elected mayor of Istanbul, but I write this from jail: Turkish democracy is under grave threat | Ekrem Imamoğlu

If our nation slides deeper into autocracy, the consequences will reverberate far beyond Turkey’s bordersLast year, I was reelected mayor of Istanbul with 51% of the vote. It was the second time I had defeated the government-backed candidate. The first was in 2019 when the mayoral elections were annulled on flimsy pretexts; voters returned to the polls and handed us a victory by an even larger margin.But this year, democracy in Turkey has entered its most perilous phase. The process started in March on the eve of my nomination as the presidential candidate of the CHP, the century-old Republican People’s party. This was when my university degree was abruptly annulled. Why is this relevant? Because, under the Turkish constitution, one must have a university degree to be able to run for president. Soon after, I was accused of corruption and “aiding a terrorist organisation”. For six months, I have been behind bars, arrested on politically motivated corruption charges based on “anonymou...

Events

1 week ago ‘The results were questionable’: Kari Lake struggles to admit she lost Senate and governor elections in deposition for VOA lawsuit

Lake spent years challenging her 2022 loss in Arizona gubernatorial race

Politics

2 w. ago Look to Myanmar for a vision of a world where authoritarians have unfettered power | Simon Tisdall

The brutality and repression there highlight the failings of a dysfunctional world order. Unless we do better, this is the futureThe children were sleeping when death came from the air. A military warplane dropped two 500lb (230kg) bombs on their boarding school, witnesses said. Imagine, if you can, the carnage and the horror. At least 18 died. Others suffered life-changing injuries. The ruling regime claims to be fighting terrorists. Yet more often than not, it is defenceless, blameless civilians who are killed, maimed and displaced. No, this isn’t Gaza. It isn’t Ukraine. It’s Myanmar, where appalling atrocities, including crimes against humanity, often go unreported and unpunished. That doesn’t render them any less heinous or less deserving of universal condemnation.Myanmar, formerly British-run colonial Burma, where civil war has raged since an army coup overthrew the elected government in 2021, is a microcosm of today’s fractured world. National leaders gathering at the UN gener...

Culture

2 w. ago Is the government’s EV grant working? A third of UK drivers say yes

35 per cent of Brits and 54 per cent of Londoners say the discount makes them more likely to go electric

Politics

2 w. ago What to know about Malawi's elections as an economic crisis grips the country

Malawi is holding elections to choose a president, lawmakers, and local government councillors

Politics

3 w. ago Macron has defied the will of the people. He leaves the French public no choice but to Block Everything | Rokhaya Diallo

The president they call Jupiter has repeatedly shown utter disregard for the public voice at the ballot box. No wonder we are taking to the streetsThe protests that rocked France this week did not come out of the blue. For more than a year now, our country has been in a state of unprecedented political turmoil. You can date this crisis to June 2024, when Emmanuel Macron unexpectedly called a snap election that produced gridlock in the national assembly, rendering all subsequent governments unable to govern. This week’s events have added another historic chapter to the tumult.For the first time in the history of the Fifth Republic, a government collapsed after a vote of confidence initiated by a prime minister. François Bayrou, in office for just nine months, chose to place his ministerial fate in the hands of an openly hostile hung parliament. The outcome was a foregone conclusion: even the right, though partly represented within his government, broke ranks – a third of the conserva...

Politics

3 w. ago Readers Letters: Another day, another disaster for Labour as Mandelson sacked

UK needs another election to get us a new government, says reader

Events

3 w. ago How sustainable are EVs and why is the Government only offering grants to 'truly green' electric cars?

Labour's Electric Car Grant will only be awarded to sustainable EVs. But what does this mean? How green are EVs really?

Politics

3 w. ago Man sentenced to 7 years of hard labor for criticizing Myanmar's election plan

Myanmar state-run media say a man has been sentenced to seven years of hard labor for criticizing the military government’s plans to hold elections in December

Politics

3 w. ago US ‘terminates agreements with Europe’ to help fight disinformation from hostile states

The Trump administration has dismantled a number of agencies in government which sought to protect US elections

Politics

3 w. ago Ed Miliband accused of subsidising ‘wasteful and dangerous’ electric SUVs

MPs criticise ‘inconsistent’ climate policy that includes grants of up to £3,750 for ‘supersized status symbols’ Ed Miliband has been accused by MPs of subsidising dangerous and polluting “supersized status symbols” as his department hands grants to people who buy electric SUVs.The Labour government is giving discounts of up to £3,750 on new electric cars, but Guardian analysis reveals 12 of the 37 eligible models are SUVs. Continue reading...

Politics

3 w. ago Samoa's first woman leader is ousted in an election following the collapse of her government

Samoa’s incumbent ruling party will return to power with a new leader at the helm after the country’s first woman prime minister was toppled in elections that followed months of political turmoil

Politics

3 w. ago Dumfries and Galloway to receive share of £6.3 million to boost electrical vehicle charging points

Eight council areas will share the cash from the Scottish Government’s Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Fund.

Economics

4 w. ago France’s political crisis reveals deep rift between the people and their politicians

The likely fall of prime minister François Bayrou exposes a political malaise that is likely to sour French politics well beyond the 2027 presidential election as the far right exploits the momentAs the French government faces likely collapse in a confidence vote on Monday, plunging the eurozone’s second biggest economy and key diplomatic power into a domestic political crisis, Jonathan Denis, a 42-year-old a bank manager and health rights campaigner, was concerned about the terrible impact it will have on France’s dying and terminally ill.The centrist president Emmanuel Macron had promised assisted dying and improved palliative care would be the biggest social reform of his second term but the bill, which had been scheduled to go before the senate next month, now risks being delayed once more by the unpredictable revolving door of four prime ministers in just over three years. Continue reading...

Politics