Politicians

Last week, Germany sent an advance team of 20 soldiers to Lithuania, laying the groundwork for the recently discussed establishment of a permanent brigade in the country. The brigade will support the already existing so-called NATO Enhanced Forward Presence in Lithuania, which rotates its personnel regularly and was made up of soldiers from Germany, Belgium, Czechia, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway ...

In power for around a quarter of a century – spanning four presidential terms and two terms as prime minister between 1999 and 2000 and between 2008 and 2012 – Putin has spent almost 9,000 days as boss of Russia. By the end of his new six-year term of approximately 2,190 days he will be Russia’s longest serving leader since ...

On Thursday morning, EU leaders came together in Brussels to discuss a new €50-billion aid package for Ukraine, which had previously been vetoed by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. Just an hour into the special European Council meeting, the council’s president Charles Michel announced: “We have a deal. All 27 leaders agreed on an additional €50-billion support package for Ukraine ...

21 months after the Fed embarked on the most aggressive monetary tightening cycle in decades, it looks increasingly likely that the optimal outcome under the circumstances – bringing down inflation without inducing a recession and causing a significant increase in unemployment – can be achieved. With CPI inflation down to 3.1% in November, the unemployment rate still hovering below 4% ...

Earlier this week China began hosting its third Belt and Road Initiative Forum. The policy has now been active for ten years and has led to China engaging in $1.01 trillion worth of investment and construction in 148 countries around the world. In a report published this month by Boston University however, “accentuated debt distress” can be evidenced in many ...

Rishi’s move to put back the cut-off date for selling ICE vehicles to 2035 puts us into line with the Continentals. Now, one wonders, will he go further in lining us up with the EU by allowing the continued sale of ICE cars after 2035 so long as they use e-fuels? The provision allowing the sale of ICE cars so ...

Released today the latest figures from SIPRI (Stockholm International Peace Research Institute) reveal an annual increase in the global number of stockpiled nuclear warheads. As the infographic below shows, China is at the forefront of this upwards tick, adding an estimated 60 weapons to its collection of deployed or stored nukes between January 2022 and January 2023. As detailed by ...

According to SkyNews analysis, medical staff are now earning less than in 2010, with nurses and health visitors receiving 10.2% less, while doctors in training are earning 14.5% less. Nurses in Luxembourg had the highest average salary in 2020 of the OECD countries, at $103,963 per year. This is roughly double that of nurses in the UK who earned an ...

A  survey conducted at the end of last week shows, the share of British adults thinking Rishi would do a good or a bad job as PM was quite evenly split: 43% good, 40% bad. This unconvincing result looks far more positive when compared to the two that briefly emerged as his main rivals over the weekend, however. 34% of ...

Even with the one week transition period, Liz is the shortest-serving post-war prime minister, going down as one of, if not the least successful and popular leaders of the country. Even extending the ranking to cover all PMs, Truss would still be at the top by a considerable margin. Before Liz’s departure , Boris had also joined the top end ...