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A member of the Carabinieri gestures towards migrants outside the hotspot, on the Sicilian island of Lampedusa, Italy, September 16, 2023.

REUTERS/Yara Nardi

Migration makes strange bedfellows of Germany and Italy

Just a week after a row between Italy and Germany over immigration policy, the two states now seem to be backing each other on the need to curb migration flows.
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Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.

REUTERS/Yara Nardi

Meloni to visit the White House

An invitation to the White House is no small feat, and the latest world leader to get one from President Joe Biden is indeed an interesting one: Italian PM Giorgia Meloni.

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Boris Johnson remains a dangerous force in UK politics
Boris Johnson remains a dangerous force in UK politics | Europe In :60 | GZERO Media

Boris Johnson remains a dangerous force in UK politics

Carl Bildt, co-chair of the European Council on Foreign Relations and former prime minister of Sweden, shares his perspective on European politics, this week from the Oslo airport.

Is the political career of Boris Johnson over?

Seems to be the case but you can never be entirely certain, in his particular case. I think he has the ambition to come back. And clearly, he's going to remain a dangerous, in my opinion, a very disruptive force inside the Conservative Party. If they lose the election next year, which is not unlikely, mildly speaking, there might be a civil war and Boris Johnson might be one of the leaders of that particular civil war inside the Conservative Party. But remains to be seen.

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Japanese chef Mitsuo Ise prepares a "Germany" version of okonomiyaki ahead of the G-7 summit in Hiroshima.

REUTERS

Hard Numbers: Hiroshima’s delicacies, Italy’s first world problems, Durham's report, Russia’s military spending, Rudy's alleged pardons grift

800: Ahead of the G-7 summit later this week in Hiroshima, Japan, some 800 restaurants specializing in a local comfort food known as okonomiyaki are hoping to make a global splash. Okonomiyaki, which means “cooked as you like it,” is a savory pancake-shaped delicacy usually made with cabbage, noodles, batter, and meat. But locals are cooking up special editions for foreign dignitaries, including a sauerkraut one for the Germans, a carbonara one for the Italians, and a burger stuffed one for the Americans. Not all locals approve.

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Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan greets the crowd before a meeting of his ruling AK Party to announce the party's election manifesto ahead of the May 14 elections, in Ankara, Turkey April 11, 2023.

Murat Cetinmuhurdar/Presidential Press Office/Handout via REUTERS

Hard Numbers: Erdogan’s opposition, Myanmar military’s deadly air raids, Italian coastguard’s rescue mission, Bonnie without Clyde

6: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan kicked off his reelection campaign Tuesday in a bid to defeat six opposition parties that have joined forces ahead of the May 14 poll. Erdogan, who has been in power for two decades, vowed to cut inflation – now at 50%, thought analysts say it's higher – to single digits, though his aggressive slashing of interest rates continues to baffle economists.

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Medieval Italy, the Peruzzis & the world's first bank run
The world's first bank run: the Peruzzis of medieval Italy | GZERO World

Medieval Italy, the Peruzzis & the world's first bank run

Bank runs. Market volatility. Panic in the streets. When I say we’ve been here before, I don’t just mean 2008 or 1929. One of the earliest recorded bank runs dates back to the 14th century. Italian city-states like Florence and Venice sat at the crossroads of trade routes between Asia and Europe and were financial hubs. In the early 1300s, the “Peruzzi” family quickly became one of the most powerful and wealthy in Florence, through a highly profitable textile trade that focused on imported English wool.

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Thousands gathered at the Place de la Concorde to denounce the government’s use of a constitutional loophole to pass the pension reform, raising the retirement age without a vote in the National Assembly.

Marie Magnin/Hans Lucas via Reuters Connect

What We’re Watching: France’s fiery response, Poland’s first big step, Israeli president’s “civil war” warning

Macron bypasses the legislature on pension reform

French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday made the risky call to bypass the National Assembly, France’s powerful lower house, and push through a very unpopular pension reform scheme.

As expected, protesters responded with anger. More than 300 people were arrested overnight, and on Friday morning demonstrators halted production at a fuel refinery and briefly blocked traffic on a highway outside Paris.

(A brief recap on the proposal that’s sent France into a tailspin: Macron’s government wants to incrementally raise the national retirement age by two years to 64 by 2030. Starting from 2027, workers will need to have worked for 43 years, up from 41, to access a full pension.)

Why’s he doing this? Macron has long said that France's public spending, 14% of which goes toward its pension scheme – the highest of any OECD country after Greece and Italy – is crucial to addressing its growing debt-to-GDP ratio. But this approach is very unpopular in France, where retirement is sacred and government interference is abhorred.

Fearing he wouldn’t have the votes in the lower chamber, Macron triggered a constitutional loophole to get the bill through (it had already passed in the upper chamber). But by taking this route – which his political opponents say renders the bill illegitimate, though it is legal – Macron now opens himself up to serious political blowback.

On Friday, a group of opposition centrist lawmakers — backed by the far-left NUPES coalition — filed a no-confidence vote against the government, while far-right leader Marine Le Pen announced she'll table her own. But any vote would need to pass by an absolute majority to topple the government – meaning PM Élisabeth Borne and the cabinet, not the president. Still, that’s very unlikely to happen, analysts say.

But Macron, who cannot run again after 2027 due to term limits, is not out of the woods. Unions have vowed to make the government pay, and prolonged strikes are expected. Meanwhile, far-left and far-right factions say they’ll intensify efforts to topple the French government.

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Ari Winkleman

The Graphic Truth: How much it costs to supply Ukraine

As the war in Ukraine enters its second year, proponents of continued military aid to Kyiv say it’s a cut-rate investment for security while others wonder whether the cost is worth it. We look at how much the biggest suppliers spent on military aid to Ukraine as a percentage of their defense budgets last year.

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