BULKING UP THE BUNDESWEHR

The number of German soldiers is declining  (https://www.economist.com/europe/2024/06/06/germany-is-thinking-about-bringing-back-conscription)

Germany is considering the return of conscription.   The chancellor is reluctant. 

“Kriegstuchtig” does not trip easily off the English tongue.  Nor does it fall easily on German ears.  Translated roughly as “war-ready,” it is a word deployed by Boris Pistorios, the defence minister, to describe his favored destination for the long under-resourced Bundeswehr or armed forces.  Money is now pouring in, and Mr. Pistorios is overhauling the Bundeswehr’s Structures.  But like many of its NATO allies, Germany is struggling to find enough willing recruits.  The minister is among many who want Germany to consider restoring conscription, suspended since 2011, to get the numbers up. 

“Under plans drawn up in 2018 Germany aims to boost the Bundeswehr to 203,000 troops by 2031, up from around 181,000 today.   This is a fraction of the size or the men under arms during the cold war.  But the army is ageing and shrinking; given attrition, it needs to recruit 25,000 soldiers a year just to stand still.”  (The Economist, 8^th June, 2424)

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UKRAINE AND MELONI TAKE CENTER STAGE – Leaders from the G7 countries met Thursday in Italy’s Puglia region, where the future of Ukraine aid was high on the agenda

Who’s there? The meetings are hosted by Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who is at the height of her political power after European Parliamentary elections last weekend. She stands in contrast to other G7 leaders from Canada, the US, the UK, Japan, and Germany, all of whom are on shakier ground domestically.

Meloni also invited an A-list of non-Western leaders like President Volodymyr Zelensky, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

The highlights:  President Joe Biden and Zelensky affirmed their partnership at a bilateral press conference. The group agreed to loan Ukraine $50 billion to rebuild its devastated infrastructure with the understanding it would be paid back by interest earned on the frozen Russian assets. They also passed a new round of sanctions aimed at countering China’s effort to remake Russia’s defense industrial base.

Looming over the group’s progress on Ukraine was the possibility that Donald Trump, who has spoken openly of pulling out of NATO and against further Ukraine aid, could be back in power by the time the group next meets in 2025. Several present — including Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and President Emmanuel Macron — are facing elections that could redefine Europe.  (Gzero Signal, 6/14/2024)

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LEFT IN THE DUST:  EUROPEAN VOTERS SWING RIGHT

Europe took a hard right turn in European Parliament elections this weekend, dealing a substantial blow to key EU leaders German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and French President Emmanuel Macron, prompting the latter to call early elections.

In France, Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally party surged to 31.4% support – more than twice as much as Macron’s Renaissance coalition, with 14.6%. Close behind are the Socialists and their lead candidate Raphaël Glucksmann with 13.8%.

A sober-looking Macron took to French television to dissolve parliament and called for elections on June 30, with a second round on July 7. The outcome of the EU elections, he said, was “not a good result for parties who defend Europe.” This is a gamble for Macron: A similar far-right wave in the French parliamentary election could see his party lose its majority.

In Germany, projections show the far-right Alternative for Germany set to secure second place with 15% of the vote, a record high. Support for Scholz’s Social Democratic Party and coalition partner Free Democratic Party declined, securing 14% and 5% of the vote, respectively. And Germany’s Greens took the biggest hit, dropping a whopping 8.5 percentage points to 12%, as cash-strapped voters spurned costly environmental policies.

Coalition time:  Post-election, European political parties realign in blocs in the EU Parliament. The largest, the center-right European People’s Party, has  recently shifted right on issues of security, climate, and migration, and could swing further to the right if joined by Giorgia Meloni’s far-right Brothers of Italy. Another scenario would see Meloni’s group and other far-right parties such as Viktor Orban’s Fidesz party stay with the more hard-line European Conservatives and Reformists group, or become part of a new hard-right group that could form the wake of the elections. We’ll be watching the horse trading as coalitions take shape.  (Gzero Signal, 6/10/2024)

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WESTERN WOMEN IGNORE ATROCITIES COMMITTED BY PALESTINIANS

• Today, June 19, the United Nations will observe the annual International Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict. Yet, it took the UN five months to document and condemn Hamas’ sexual crimes on October 7.

• These crimes are reminiscent of the crimes ISIS (Islamic State) committed against Christians and Yazidis during and after their violent takeover of large parts of Iraq and Syria in 2014.

• Sexual assault as a military tactic has commonly been used by Islamic terrorists since the seventh century, worldwide.

• More than 2,600 abducted Yazidi women and children are to this day still waiting to be rescued from the hands of ISIS terrorists.

• Teenage girls abducted by Islamic State terrorists in Iraq and Syria were sold in slave markets “for as little as a pack of cigarettes,” the UN envoy on sexual violence, Zainab Bangura, said.

• “Since October 7th, the media has suppressed your [Israelis’] story, even going so far as to claim it never happened while others justified it as warranted resistance to Israeli oppression. Someone please tell me where children bound and shot to death with their guts cut out constitutes a warranted resistance…  We live in a time where intelligent people are being silenced so that stupid people are not offended…. The media is actively suppressing the events of October 7th to rewrite history according to their chosen narrative….  It all boils down to likes, views, and revenue for them.” — Steve Maman, founder of The Liberation of Christian and Yazidi Children of Iraq.

• “[On October 7], humiliation, mutilation and murder took place during those rapes. Woman raped in front of their loved ones and then shot. Knives inserted into their private parts. Scalped heads. Nails inserted into woman’s private areas. Indescribable pain must have taken place before death….  Attacking innocent people and subjecting hostages to torture is not an act of freedom fighting…. The global response to victims of radical Islam has consistently been one of silence, allowing such atrocities to continue unchecked, perpetuating a cycle of violence.” — Steve Maman.  (Uzay Bulut, Gatestone, 6/19/2024)

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EUROPE’S EXTREME RIGHT MEETS

An international conference in Hungary is promoting cooperation between conservative and extreme right-wing parties in the European Union. CPAC Hungary was opened on Wednesday 25 April in Budapest by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and will end on Friday. The event brings together politicians from parties organised in the conservative European People’s Party (EPP), which includes Germany’s CDU and CSU, and parties such as the Belgian Vlaams Belang or the French Rassemblement National, which are classified as extreme right-wing. The event has been organised against a background of efforts in the European Parliament to tear down the longstanding cordon sanitaire between the EPP and the far right. The anti-fascist firewall has in any case been crumbling for a long time in the EU. We see here another initiative to forge a broad right-wing bloc. On Wednesday, the EPP together with the two far-right groups, ECR and ID, combined to jointly reject a motion in the European Parliament. Some observers see this as a test run for further collaborations. CPAC Hungary is an offshoot of the Trump-affiliated CPAC in the United States. Its members include US Republicans as well as far-right figures from Latin America and Israel.  (German Foreign Policy 6/13/2024)

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BRIEFLY

• Children In West Bank Celebrate Eid Al-Adha By Brandishing Weapons, Wearing Hamas And Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) Headbands; Preschoolers In NJ Islamic School Learn To Slaughter Toy Sheep As Part Of ‘Mock Hajj’. (MEMRI. 6/17/2024)

• Hamas Official Baraka: North Korea Is Part Of Our Alliance; Hamas Official Basem Naim’s Message To Samidoun ‘Resistance Festival’ In Belgium: I Salute Each And Every One Of You; We Will Celebrate The Victory Of Our People, From The River To The Sea. (MEMRI, 6/19/2024)

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BIBLICAL SOLUTIONS

Constantly, we hear of somebody who is missing.    A couple of weeks ago, a well-known TV personality had gone off for an afternoon walk on a very hot afternoon on a Greek island.  He then disappeared.   When he was found, he was dead.  

Today, a UK teenager is missing on Tenerife.   After a party, others had found their way home; this one got lost.  He’s now been missing for over 60 hours.   He has no water with him despite the intense heat.   The search continues. 

Both of these people, and countless others, would have experienced different outcomes if they had taken somebody along with them when they set off on the journey.

In the Biblical book of Ecclesiastes, the author observes that: 

   Two are better than one,
    because they have a good return for their labor:
   If either of them falls down,
    one can help the other up.
   But pity anyone who falls
    and has no one to help them up.  (Eccl 4:9-10)

It seems so obvious. 

Women are especially at risk when they go off alone, and not just from the natural environment.

The last point made is that if you fall and have no one to help you up, the outcome can be disastrous.   That is what happened with the first man mentioned.

People should never be over-confident.   They should always realize the risks.  Walking with somebody else minimizes the risk.  Always. 

POLAND’S HOLOCAUST DENIAL

Bible prophecy is focused on the Middle East and Europe.   There’s a lot happening in the latter right now, as the following news items show.   Poland’s holocaust denial is likely to be followed by other European countries given time, as a new generation takes over and does not want to be blamed for the sins of their fathers.  

“Watch therefore and pray always.” (Luke 21:36)

 

A few years ago, I visited Auschwitz and Krakow in Poland.   I remember asking the tour guide about Polish involvement in the Holocaust.  He admitted that many Poles had aided the Nazis in rounding up the Jews and worked in the camps, helping the Nazis in killing Jews.

The upper house of the Polish parliament has now made it illegal to say such things.  Revisionist history now says that Poles played no role in the Holocaust.  Note the following from the Wall Street Journal:

“Poland’s parliament passed a libel bill imposing jail sentences for accusing the Polish population for collaborating in the Holocaust or other war crimes, sparking concerns from Israel and the United States that a close ally was limiting free expression and flirting with anti-Semitism.

“American and Israeli diplomats condemned the legislation, passed by the upper house of the country’s legislature on Thursday which would set up to three year’s imprisonment for blaming the wartime murder of roughly six million Jews on the Polish state or people.”   (“Poland pushes controversial libel law,” Wall St Journal, 2/2/18)

Under the new legislation, it will become illegal to write or talk about ‘Polish death camps.’

In Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal, Alan M. Dershowitz of Harvard University, wrote the article:   “Poland seeks to censor history.”   Here’s a paragraph from the article:

“True, the Germans built Auschwitz and other death camps on Polish soil.   But the Germans could not have murdered the Polish Jews, and millions of other Europeans imported to death camps in Poland, without the active assistance of many Poles in identifying and rounding up victims.   This complicity was incited by generations of anti-Semitic church sermons.   Poles also murdered Jews during and after the German occupation – including in the Jedwabne pogrom in July 1941 and in Kielce in July 1946.”

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Merkel warns of rising anti-Semitism on Holocaust remembrance day  (AFP / 27 January 2018)

German Chancellor Angela Merkel warned of rising anti-Semitism in her country on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, calling the need to protect Jewish buildings “shameful.”   “It is inconceivable and shameful that no Jewish institution can exist without police protection, whether it is a school, a kindergarten or a synagogue,” she said.    The chancellor also reaffirmed her support of creating the position of anti-Semitism commissioner in the next German government, if her party can finalize tortuous negotiations to forge a coalition.  The commissioner would be appointed to counter growing hate speech against Jews and Israel in German from both its home-grown far-right and some recent migrants in the Muslim community.

https://www.thelocal.de/20180127/merkel-warns-of-rising-anti-semitism-on-holocaust-day

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‘Verbal attacks have become part of everyday Jewish life in Germany’

The head of the Central Council of Jews in Germany argued in an interview that much more educational work needs to be done in schools to combat anti-Semitism.  (25 January 2018 / The Local Germany)

Dr. Josef Schuster, head of the Central Council of Jews, spoke with the founder of the initiative Faces of Democracy, Sven Lilienström, about the importance of German democracy,   Donald Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and modern anti-Semitism in Germany.   Surveys have shown for decades that about 20 to 25 percent of the population have anti-Jewish resentment.   However, these attitudes have been articulated more openly for some time now.   The internet plays a major role here.   In the social networks we find a verbal lack of inhibition which is dangerous, especially on the far-right of the political spectrum. Therefore, it is good that the Network Enforcement Act now provides an instrument to better prevent “hate speech.”

Unfortunately, however, an anti-Israeli attitude is also spreading in society.   It is then no longer a matter of factual criticism of Israel, but Israel’s right to exist is called into question, or Jews in general are held liable for the policies of the Israeli government.   That’s anti-Semitism.

https://www.thelocal.de/20180125/verbal-attacks-have-become-part-of-everyday-jewish-life-in-germany

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Germany’s AfD is ‘destructive power,’ Jewish leader warns

The ex-president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Charlotte Knobloch, says the party Alternative for Germany endangers democracy.

 It could soon become the biggest opposition party in the German parliament.

 

©27 Jan 2018 Deutsche Welle

 

The former president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Charlotte Knobloch, has expressed her concern at the fact that the right-wing populist party Alternative for Germany (AfD) has entered the German Bundestag. “It pains me that a party that tolerates not just historical misrepresentation and anti-Semitism but also racism, far-right extremism and populist nationalism in its ranks was able to become the third-strongest in Germany,” Knobloch told the Passauer Neue Presse in an interview published on Saturday for International Holocaust Remembrance Day. “Here, an anti-modern, anti-democratic and anti-liberal destructive power is at work that challenges the prevailing collective consensus” formed on the basis of the lessons of history, Knobloch said. Knobloch also warned of what she described as a “very strong and very aggressive” form of anti-Semitism present among Muslims living in Germany and called on Muslim associations and institutions to combat radical elements in their own communities. (http://www.dw.com/) 

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Son of Nazi leader’s warning about Germany — HARDtalk interviews Niklas Frank, son of Hans Frank, brutal Nazi Governor of Poland executed for war crimes 

Germany could return to authoritarianism if the economic conditions were to seriously worsen in the country, the son of Hans Frank the governor general of Nazi occupied Poland during World War Two, has told BBC Hardtalk.   “As long as our economy is great, and as long as we make money everything is very democratic,” said Niklas Frank, but “if we have five to 10 years heavy economic problems the swamp is a lake, and is a sea and will swallow again, everything,” he added.

Niklas Frank said he “despises” his father for the crimes he committed while he was governor-general of Poland from 1939 to 1945, and tours Germany giving speeches about his father and the legacy of the Nazi era.  Hans Frank was convicted of war crimes and crimes against humanity at the Nuremberg trials and executed in 1946.  (Released:  25 April 2017)

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Germany’s push for EU army:   Merkel developing networks with EU members for military union

Germany has been pushing for greater military co-operation amongst European Union member states, setting up a network between the Bundeswehr and other Brussels partners.  (29 Dec 2017 * Express UK)

German Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen has been working on establishing the groundwork for an European Union army, in particular developing a network of co-operation between troops from Germany and others from countries that are part of Pesco – Permanent Structured Co-operation.  The bloc comprises 25 EU countries with only Denmark, Malta and the UK remaining outside. The move largely comprises of co-operation in training the troops, with the Bundeswehr training a number of soldiers from various EU countries and similarly,   German troops visit their counterparts.  But the plan does not just comprise the army but also the navy and air force.   The aim is deeper European integration in defence, which could already be realised ahead of the aims of Pesco.   The German Ministry of Defence has said it is open to the creation of a single EU academy for its military elite but there has been no firm commitment to such a project due to concerns that Germany could end up paying the bulk of the cost to train soldiers from around the bloc. . . .   The move by Ms. von der Leyen comes after Brussels announced EU military cooperation is a now a “tangible reality” after signing off a huge new project . . .   The European Defence Fund has received its first grant from the bloc for a €1million research programme called Pythia.   Named after the Priestess of Ancient Delphi, Pythia will see countries including France and Italy join forces to research cutting-edge military technology.   The UK also forms part of the programme, despite leaving the bloc in 2019, alongside Bulgaria, Poland and Romania.   A further €90million will be dished out from the EU budget in the next two years as Brussels chiefs look to strengthen military ties across the bloc.

https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/897773/EU-army-Germany-Bundeswehr-military-co-operation-training-Merkel-Macron

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Austrian right-wing Chancellor Sebastian Kurz welcomes Hungary’s Orban, says tensions have grown in the EU since the migrant crisis.  (AFP•January 30, 2018)

Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz said Tuesday that he aimed to ease east-west tensions within the European Union, as his new right-wing government welcomed Hungary’s incendiary Prime Minister Viktor Orban in Vienna.   “In particular since the start of the migrant crisis (in 2015) tensions have grown in the European Union,” Kurz told a joint news conference with Orban in the Austrian capital. “Our great aim in Austria is to be a bridge-builder in this respect between the Visegrad states and the countries in western Europe,” the 31-year-old conservative said.

. . .  A rift has emerged in recent years between Brussels and the Visegrad group of Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia — and in particular with Warsaw and Budapest.   A sweeping revamp of state institutions by the nationalist governments in both countries have raised worries about the rule of law, judicial independence and media freedom.   Both have been the subject of legal action by the European Commission and they have refused to take part in a scheme to share out migrants around the 28-nation bloc.

. . .  Orban has called immigration the “Trojan Horse of terrorism” and earlier this month called migrants “Muslim invaders” of a Christian Europe.   “The biggest danger today to the hopeful future of central Europe is migration of peoples,” Orban told the news conference with Kurz on Tuesday.   “When I say that the future needs to be protected I mean that we have a culture, a Christian culture . . .   We have a way of life, and we want to protect this way of life,” Orban said.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/austrian-wing-govt-welcomes-hungarys-orban-162849205.html

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MIDEAST

“215 million Christians experience high levels of persecution” around the world, according to Open Doors, a human rights organization.   On its recently released World Watch List 2018, which ranks the world’s 50 worst nations wherein to be Christian, 3,066 Christians were killed, 1,252 abducted, and 1,020 raped or sexually harassed on account of their faith; and 793 churches were attacked or destroyed.

The Islamic world had the lion’s share of this persecution; 38 of the 50 worst nations are Muslim-majority.   The report further cites “Islamic oppression” behind the “extreme persecution” that prevails in eight of the 10 worst nations.   In short, the overwhelming majority of persecution that these 215 million Christians experience around the world — especially the worst forms, such as rape and murder — occurs at the hands of Muslims.”  (215 million Christians persecuted – mostly by Muslims,” Raymond Ibrahim, MEF, 1/21)

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REAL PROBLEM WITH MIDEAST PEACE TALKS

The root cause of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict has not been an Israeli refusal to concede, or an American unwillingness to bend: it has been the ongoing Palestinian rejection of Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people.   (E.J. Kimball, The Daily Caller, Middle East Forum, 2/2)

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SYRIA

“Idlib province is home to a wide range of groups opposed to President Bashar al-Assad.   His efforts to crush rebels there come after the government successfully reasserted control over large parts of the country, thanks to firepower from the regime’s Russian and Iranian allies.   But the offensive on Idlib is moving into risky territory, with foreign powers maneuvering in proximity to each other as alliances that used to fight Islamic State fray.”   (“Syrian Offensive strains foreign powers”, WSJ, 2/5/18).

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HOLOCAUST DENIAL — 2

In a TV interview, Egyptian historian and Egyptologist Bassam El Shammaa downplayed the Holocaust, saying that the figure of six million Jews killed was “disputed among historians” and that “at the time, there weren’t six million Jews in the world.”   “How come nobody talks about the ‘counter Holocaust’? he asked, claiming that after Hitler’s defeat, “the Jews in Europe captured the Germans, put them in camps, and started to kill them.”   The interview aired on the Egyptian Mehwar TV channel on December 17, 2017.   (MEMRI)

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DEMOGRAPHICS

All that matters is immigration…

Republicans who treat immigration as a backburner issue should be required to run on the issues they consider more important — in California.   See how your arguments fare in a state that’s already been transformed by immigration.   That’s your new country.  (Steynonline)

How stupid do you have to be to carry on about taxes, defense spending, ISIS, abortion or the Ten Commandments while intentionally losing on the one issue that will determine the outcome of all these other issues?   Too stupid to be of any real help.   (Ann Coulter, January 2018)

• In Germany, 47% of Muslims believe Sharia is more important than German law.   In Sweden, 52% of Muslims believe that Sharia is more important than Swedish law.
• The studies are supported by European intelligence reports. In Germany, intelligence agencies warned in the early fall of 2015 that, “We are importing Islamic extremism, Arab anti-Semitism, national and ethnic conflicts of other peoples, as well as a different understanding of society and law.”
• A recent Belgian study, in which 4,734 Belgians were polled, showed that two-thirds of Belgians feel that their nation is being “increasingly invaded.”

(Europe: Making Islam Great Again. Gatestone 2/3)

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Special Dispatch No. 7305

Former Basij Commander Gen. Mohammad Reza Naqdi:  ‘The European Continent Is Gradually Giving Way To The Asiatic And African Genes; In The Next Century, They’ll Have To Look For The European Gene In Museums’

THE COST OF ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION                                                          By Ruthie Blum, Gatestone 2/5/18

• “At the federal, state, and local levels, taxpayers shell out approximately $134.9 billion to cover the costs incurred by the presence of more than 12.5 million illegal aliens, and about 4.2 million citizen children of illegal aliens.” — Matt O’Brien and Spencer Raley
• It is also rather more than the single payment of $25 billion that it will cost to build a wall — five and a half times more, and every year.
• “Undocumented immigrants are at least 142% more likely to be convicted of a crime than other Arizonans.   They also tend to commit more serious crimes. . . . ” — John R. Lott.
• In 2015, included in the DEA’s drug-threat assessment was the fact that drug overdoses killed more people in the United States than car accidents or guns. Many of these drugs [were] smuggled in large volumes by drug cartels.”

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An Italian man went on a shooting spree in the central town of Macerata, wounding six African immigrants before getting out of his car and doing the fascist salute, police said.

“The 28-year-old suspect drove through Macerata on Saturday, shooting in an area where police had arrested a Nigerian man suspected of killing an 18-year-old Italian woman, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry said.” (WSJ, 3/5)

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BERLUSCONI WANTS TO DEPORT 600,000 IMMIGRANTS

Silvio Berlusconi has pledged to deport 600,000 illegal immigrants from Italy should his centre-right coalition enter government after elections on 4 March, as tensions simmer over the shooting of six Africans by a far-right extremist on Saturday.

The 81-year-old rightwing former prime minister said in a TV interview that immigration was a “social bomb ready to explode in Italy” and that the shooting in Macerata posed a security problem.

“Immigration has become an urgent question, because after years with a leftwing government, there are 600,000 migrants who don’t have the right to stay,” said Berlusconi.   “We consider it to be an absolute priority to regain control over the situation.”

Berlusconi’s Forza Italia has forged an alliance with two far-right parties, the Northern League and the smaller Brothers of Italy, for the elections.   (The Guardian, 2/5)