ROME Italy’s three biggest parties are pushing for a national election this year, nine months ahead of schedule, but simulations published on Friday show no clear winner would emerge if the current voting system is used. On Wednesday the Constitutional Court scrapped part of the lower house election law and left in its place a proportional system similar to the one that gave Italy 50 governments in […]
Standalone alternative story forms (ASF) do just what their name implies: They stand alone as independent stories, with no traditional story to accompany them. Like a standalone photo or graphic, the standalone ASF needs to be a complete story. It might be all the reader will see about the topic, particularly in print media. Some opportunities are more ripe for a standalone ASF than others. One editor […]
Manuel Valls sought to make up lost ground in the race for France’s Socialist presidential nomination by attacking frontrunner Benoît Hamon’s “illusory” economic proposals and “ambiguous” stance towards radical Islam. In a primetime television debate four days before the party’s primary run-off, the former French prime minister challenged his rival’s claim that automation would destroy jobs, leaving individuals with fewer work opportunities. Mr Valls criticised Mr Hamon’s […]
PARIS Hardline French Socialist Benoit Hamon was seen as more convincing in a television debate on Wednesday with ex-Prime Minister Manuel Valls ahead of a runoff vote at the weekend to pick the party’s presidential candidate, an Elabe poll showed. The survey, conducted for BFM TV shortly after the debate was over, found 60 percent of those polled found Hamon more convincing compared with 37 percent for […]
All but one of the students were enrolled in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, also known as DACA. Created in 2012 by an Obama-administration executive action, DACA allowed teenagers and young adults who came to the United States illegally as children with their parents to register with the government and in turn receive a two-year renewable protection against deportation, along with work permits and Social […]
French presidential frontrunner François Fillon has come under pressure to justify why he employed his Welsh wife as a parliamentary aide and specify what work she did for him. Mr Fillon, who won the centre-right presidential nomination in November on a vow to restore high moral standards in French politics, is facing claims from a weekly French satirical newspaper that his wife Penelope Fillon earned a total […]
ROME Virginia Raggi, the anti-establishment mayor of Rome elected by a landslide last year after pledging to crack down on rampant corruption, has been put under investigation for abuse of office and false testimony. Raggi herself announced the investigation in a Facebook post on Tuesday. She will be questioned by prosecutors on Jan. 30, a judicial source said. “Today I’ve received a subpoena from the Rome court,” […]
It has been an ‘evolutionary’ year for billionaire Mark Cuban as his perspective has shifted from Trump-is-smart, “I’d be his VP” to Trump terror, “no doubt the market tanks,” to acceptance to reality… 2/16/2016 – I think Trump is smart. I’d be Donald Trump’s VP as long as he said he’s listen to me in everything I said we’d be okay. 9/6/2016 – In the event that […]
BERLIN The right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) will discipline one of its state leaders over remarks he made criticising Berlin’s Holocaust Memorial, the party’s co-leader said on Monday. Bjoern Hoecke, AfD head in eastern Thuringia state, triggered anger across Germany with a comment about the memorial. He told party members in a speech in Dresden last week: “Germans are the only people in the world who plant […]
Good morning. Here’s our morning roundup of all the media news you need to know. Want to get this briefing in your inbox every morning? Subscribe here. The aura of numbers-crunching superstar Nate Silver was diminished by Donald Trump’s victory. He was seen as among the many missing the boat. Old media chortled at stumbling by a paragon of big data. Now comes Silver’s pre-inaugural revenge. He […]
Submitted by Robert Parry via The Strategic Culture Foundation, Whenever The New York Times or some other mainstream news outlet holds itself out as a paragon of professional journalism – by wagging a finger at some pro-Trump “fake news” or some Internet “conspiracy theory” – I cringe at the self-delusion and hypocrisy. No one hates fake news and fact-free conspiracy theories more than I do, but the […]
MEXICO CITY Mexican presidential hopeful Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador plans to tour major U.S. cities in February, just as the current government embarks on negotiations with President Donald Trump that could determine the country’s economic future. “Enough of being passive,” Lopez Obrador’s leftist Morena party said in a statement. “We should put a national emergency plan in place to face the damage and reverse the protectionist policies […]
Europe’s most prominent rightwing politicians came together in a rare show of unity in the German city of Koblenz, predicting that the same forces unleashed by US President Donald Trump would sweep them to power throughout western Europe in an insurrectionary “patriotic spring”. Speaking just hours after Mr Trump was inaugurated in Washington, party leaders said Europe was about to experience the same kind of political earthquake […]
By Nate Raymond and Ju-min Park | NEW YORK/SEOUL NEW YORK/SEOUL The U.S. government has asked South Korea to arrest a brother of former U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on charges that he engaged in a bribery scheme to carry out the sale of a Vietnamese building complex, a U.S. prosecutor said on Friday. During a court hearing in federal court in Manhattan, Assistant U.S. Attorney Daniel Noble […]
In strange and confusing times, with disenchantment at successive governments aggravated by feelings of insecurity after terrorist attacks, looming elections threaten to produce a socially-divisive outcome France may come to regret. One essential question faces French voters: should they embrace the extraordinary political turmoil that has swept the West and elect Marine Le Pen, leader of the anti-immigration Front National, a party many see as racist, as […]
When it comes to bare-knuckle political lobbying, 12-year-old Claudia Conway is a chip off the old block. Today her mother, Kellyanne Conway, the Republican pollster credited with turning round Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, will be celebrating her 50th birthday at the inauguration of the 45th President of the United States. As his special counsellor, Conway is looking forward to life as the most powerful woman in the […]
By Elisabeth O’Leary | NORTH BERWICK/KIRKINTILLOCH, Scotland NORTH BERWICK/KIRKINTILLOCH, Scotland The Brexit vote has made a new referendum on Scottish independence more likely, says First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, but despite Scots’ misgivings about leaving the European Union there is no sign of increased enthusiasm for secession. Scotland rejected independence in 2014 by 55 to 45 percent, but circumstances have changed since then because Scots voted emphatically last […]
By Ingrid Melander | PARIS PARIS France’s ruling Socialist Party (PS) will stay in the running for the presidency no matter what despite poor opinion poll ratings, its top official said on Wednesday, while acknowledging a divided Left has little chance of winning. President Francois Hollande’s PS party and its allies are this month choosing their candidate for the presidential election, in primaries which secretary general Jean-Christophe […]
Jan 18, 2017 10:58 am IST A familiar Indian political saga played out in the country this month, as two factions of a party squabbled over what emblem to identify themselves with for upcoming state elections. In a democracy of over 1.2 billion people, many of whom are still illiterate and identify their choice on the ballot paper by the symbol adopted by the party, the answer […]
PARIS Former French prime minister Manuel Valls is seen losing the second round of the upcoming Socialist presidential primaries to either of his two top challengers although he will narrowly lead the first round, a BVA Salesforce poll showed on Wednesday. Valls, who is on the right wing of his party, is seen losing to either Arnaud Montebourg, his main leftist challenger, or to Benoit Hamon, both […]
PARIS In May last year, then French Economy Minister Emmanuel Macron sat down with Socialist lawmaker Christophe Sirugue in the steel town of Le Creusot and asked him to join his new political movement. He said No. Eight months on, others are saying Yes. A political outsider who has never run for office and hopes to transcend the classic Left-Right divide, Macron suddenly seems to have a […]
Submitted by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk.com, Conventional wisdom suggests National Front candidate Marine le Pen will make it to the second round in French elections, then lose in a landslide to whoever her opponent happens to be. I believe le Pen’s odds of winning it outright are far better than most think. Current Polls Chart from Wikipedia, with image clips added. Top Five candidates Marine le Pen: […]
By Richard Balmforth | PARIS PARIS Former Prime Minister Manuel Valls, long tipped to win the left-wing ticket for France’s presidential election this spring, trailed his rivals after a debate on Sunday where his immigration policies came under fire. In the televised debate, Valls faced six other contenders ahead of a Socialist primary starting on Jan. 22 to pick a candidate who can keep next May’s presidential […]
I remember an epiphany of sorts I had one morning in Miami in 1991. I was in town as the national college football writer for the Chicago Tribune. A few years earlier, I was asked to participate in the Associated Press’ college football poll. Back then, there wasn’t a committee selecting four teams for a playoff. The national champion was determined by the AP media poll and […]
