How Sir Keir Starmer fumbled his first year in power
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Support is lowest in France, Spain and Poland, while 21% back authoritarian rule under certain circumstances
Only half of young people in France and Spain believe that democracy is the best form of government, with support even lower among their Polish counterparts, a study has found.
A majority from Europe’s generation Z – 57% – prefer democracy to any other form of government. Rates of support varied significantly, however, reaching just 48% in Poland and only about 51-52% in Spain and France, with Germany highest at 71%.
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© Photograph: PhotoAlto/Odilon Dimier/Getty Images
After US jury said it should pay oil pipeline firm $660m, Greenpeace is hoping to reclaim funds via EU anti-Slapp law
The outcome of a court case in the Netherlands could shape the right to protest around the globe for decades to come, campaigners have warned, as figures show a dramatic rise in legal action taken by fossil fuel companies against activists and journalists.
Greenpeace International is using a recently introduced EU directive to try to reclaim costs and damages it incurred when a US jury decided it should pay the oil pipeline corporation Energy Transfer more than $660m in damages earlier this year.
Continue reading...© Photograph: John L Mone/AP
© Photograph: John L Mone/AP
Sell-offs of public housing and the right’s promotion of home ownership has left too many unable to afford accommodation
Csaba Jelinek is an urban sociologist based in Budapest
When I left my family home to study at university in 2007 and moved to downtown Budapest, housing costs were hardly a topic of conversation among my friends. I rented rooms in centrally located flats for £80-£100 per month. Fast forward to 2025 and a similar room in a shared flat would set you back at least £200 – double the price of 15 years ago. Talk to anyone in their 20s in Budapest today, and the deepening housing crisis will inevitably come up as one of the defining struggles of their lives.
The statistics paint an equally grim picture. Between 2010 and 2024, Hungary saw the largest increase of the housing price index among EU member states. While the EU average rose by 55.4%, Hungary’s housing price index rocketed by 234%. Meanwhile, per capita net income only grew by 86% in the 2010s. Budapest, the capital, is the centre of this crisis. According to the Hungarian National Bank, residential property prices are overvalued by 5-19%. This is partly explained with the high proportion of investment-driven purchases: these accounted for 30-50% of all transactions in the last five years in Hungary. Unlike in many other EU capitals, property investors in Budapest are not primarily foreign nationals – who accounted for just 7.3% of transactions between 2016 and 2022 – nor are they institutional players. Instead, they are typically individual Hungarian citizens. As real estate has become an increasingly appealing investment for upper- and middle-class households amid growing economic uncertainty, the result has been a deepening polarisation within Hungarian society.
Csaba Jelinek is an urban sociologist based in Budapest, focusing on housing and urban development. He is co-founder of Periféria Policy and Research Center and board member of the Alliance for Collaborative Real Estate Development
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© Composite: Guardian Design/Getty Images/EPA/Alamy
Ward Sakeik, 22, who came to US aged eight, tells of ‘joy and a little shock’ after more than four months in detention
Ward Sakeik, a stateless Palestinian woman who was detained in February on the way back from her honeymoon, was released from immigration detention after more than four months of confinement.
“I was overfilled with joy and a little shock,” she said at a press conference on Thursday. “I mean, it was my first time seeing a tree in five months.”
Continue reading...© Photograph: Change.org
© Photograph: Change.org
Trump defends weapons halt and says US 'have to make sure that we have enough for ourselves'
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“We're gonna have a UFC fight on the grounds of the White House,” Trump said Thursday night in Iowa
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© Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved
The novelist and her husband were detained in 2022 and have since been under house arrest
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