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PMQs scorecard: Rwanda and reshuffle rows on a tough day for Rishi Sunak

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:48:59 GMT

Prime minister’s questions: a shouty, jeery, very occasionally useful advert for British politics. Here’s what you need to know from the latest session in POLITICO’s weekly run-through.What’s going on? It’s been a blockbuster week in Westminster … and it’s only Wednesday. The most recent OMG moment came on Wednesday morning with the Supreme Court ruling that the government’s much-hyped plan to send refugees to Rwanda is unlawful. And even if it feels like it was weeks ago, on Monday, the prime minister sacked his troublesome Home Secretary Suella Braverman and reshuffled his Cabinet to include former top dog David Cameron as his new foreign secretary. Now, onto the drama…What they sparred about: At first, David Cameron. “The prime minister obviously thinks so little of his own MPs that he has had to peel David Cameron away from his seven-year exile in a shepherd’s hut and make him foreign secretary,” quipped Labour Leader Keir Starmer. Sunak described his new forei...

Top court blows €60B hole in Germany’s climate financing plans

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:48:59 GMT

The German government’s decision to fund its green transition by reallocating €60 billion in unused debt unlocked during the COVID-19 pandemic is unconstitutional, Germany’s top court ruled Wednesday.The judgment deals a major blow to Germany’s coalition government at a time of tense budget negotiations.The reallocation violated the so-called debt brake, a constitutional provision that caps government borrowing except during emergencies and recessions, the Federal Constitutional Court said in a press release.In February 2022, the federal government shifted €60 billion in emergency loans, which were originally intended to help cope with the COVID-19 pandemic, to a climate fund meant to help finance the country’s green transition.The government’s decision was subsequently challenged in court by lawmakers from the center-right opposition.“The Court’s decision means that the volume of the Climate and Transformation Fund is reduced by EUR 60 billion,&#...

High interest rates have hit growth more than expected, EU says

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:48:59 GMT

Europe’s economy will grow less than forecast after a rapid round of interest rate hikes “took a heavier toll than previously expected,” the European Commission said Wednesday, as it warned an escalation of the conflict in Gaza could trigger further deterioration. Only two months after its last set of predictions, the EU’s executive arm downgraded its growth forecast for 2023 to 0.6 percent in both the EU and the eurozone. That’s 0.2 percentage points lower than it said it expected in September.These forecasts come just over a year after inflation in the eurozone soared to a peak of 10.7 percent. While that’s slowed since, the European Central Bank has continued its battle against rising prices, and in September increased interest rates to a record 4 percent — by far the most aggressive tightening of monetary policy in its 25-year existence.Wednesday’s outlook signals that these rising rates have gnawed away at the European economy, while uncertainties stemm...

FlyDubai resumes flights to Afghanistan after halting them 2 years ago as Taliban captured Kabul

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:48:59 GMT

ISLAMABAD (AP) — Officials from Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban on Wednesday welcomed the resumption of FlyDubai flights to Kabul’s international airport two years after stopping service following the collapse of the Western-backed government.All international airlines halted flights to Afghanistan after the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan in mid-August 2021 as U.S. and NATO forces departed after two decades of war.A United Arab Emirates-based FlyDubai flight landed in Kabul on Wednesday. FlyDubai, the sister carrier of long-haul airline Emirates, now will make two flights a day to Kabul. The office of the Taliban’s deputy prime minister, Abdul Ghani Baradar, in a statement Wednesday described the flight resumption as “indicative of the restoration of Afghanistan’s airspace to a secure and conventional state, accommodating various types of flights.” However, nearly all Western carriers are avoiding flying in Afghan airspace.“It shows that all airports in Afg...

Retail sales slip in October as consumers pull back after summer splurges

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:48:59 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — Americans cut back on retail spending in October, ending six straight months of gains, though the decline was partly driven by falling prices for both gasoline and cars. Retail sales declined 0.1% last month after jumping a strong 0.9% in September, according to a report released Wednesday by the Commerce Department. September’s figure was revised higher from an initial report of a 0.7% gain. Excluding sales of gas and autos, retail sales ticked up 0.1%. The figures reflect a slowdown in consumers’ willingness to spend after a blowout summer. Consumer spending jumped in the July-September quarter, but economists forecast it will slow in the final three months of the year, as credit card debt — and delinquencies — rise and average savings are falling. Online spending rose 0.2% last month, according to the report. Sales at general merchandise stores fell 0.2% and sales at home furnishings and furniture stores plunged 2%. Recent U.S. data has revealed that a...

US producer prices slide 0.5% in October, biggest drop since 2020.

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:48:59 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. wholesale prices fell sharply last month as inflationary pressure continued to ease in the face of a year and a half of higher interest rates.The Labor Department reported Wednesday that its producer price index — which measures inflation before it hits consumers — dropped 0.5% in October from September, biggest drop since April 2020. On a year-over-year basis, producer prices were up 1.3% from October 2022, smallest gain since July. Excluding volatile food and energy costs, so-called core consumer prices were unchanged from September to October and rose 2.4% from a year earlier.The wholesale price of goods fell 1.4% from September to October, pulled down by a 15.3% drop in the price of gasoline. Services prices were unchanged. Inflation last year reached heights not seen in four decades, prompting the Fed to raise its benchmark 11 times since March 2022. In the face of higher borrowing costs, inflation has decelerated sharply. On Tuesday, the Labor Department...

Japanese actor-director Kitano says his new film explores homosexual relations in the samurai world

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:48:59 GMT

TOKYO (AP) — Japanese actor-director Takeshi Kitano says he wanted his new film “Kubi” to show the world of samurai in ways that mainstream movies have rarely done before, by portraying the homosexual, love-hate relationship of warlords in one of Japan’s best known historical episodes.“What is never shown is relationships between men at that time, including their homosexual relationships,” Kitano told a news conference at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan on Wednesday ahead of the Nov. 23 opening of his film in Japan.The story of “Kubi,” or “neck,” shows the 1582 ambush of Oda Nobunaga, one of Japan’s best-known warlords, at the Honnoji temple in Kyoto by an aide, Akechi Mitsuhide.Past dramas from that period have only shown “very cool actors and pretty aspects,” Kitano said.“This is a period when especially men were keeping up with their lives for other men within these relationships, including sexual relationships,” he said. ”So I wanted to delve in...

Ex-Philippine President Duterte summoned by prosecutor for allegedly threatening a lawmaker

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:48:59 GMT

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — Former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, known for his crackdown on illegal drugs that left thousands of suspects dead, has been summoned by a prosecutor to answer a separate allegation that he recently threatened a female lawmaker with death, the complainant said Wednesday.It was the first known subpoena for a criminal complaint issued to Duterte since his stormy six-year presidential term ended in June last year.Rep. France Castro, who filed the criminal complaint against the former president, said in a statement that she and Duterte were jointly ordered to appear before a government prosecutor in suburban Quezon city in the capital region on Dec. 4 and 11 to submit their statements at the start of an investigation into her complaint.There was no immediate comment from Duterte, 78, who has retired from politics and now lives mostly in his hometown, Davao city.Castro said the former president spoke in a TV show from Davao last month about a request by...

Prosecutors say a fatal roller coaster accident in Sweden was caused by a support arm breaking

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:48:59 GMT

STOCKHOLM (AP) — A fatal roller coaster accident in Stockholm where some passengers plunged to the ground in June was caused by a newly installed “support arm breaking off so that the wheels on the cart fell off,” prosecutors said Wednesday.A car on the Jetline roller coaster derailed at the Gröna Lund, Sweden’s oldest amusement park. Three people fell out and a woman died. Nine others were injured.“We know what happened but still don’t know why it could happen. I am waiting for results from technical investigations that are not yet complete,” Christer B. Jarlås, the prosecutor in charge of the case, said in a statement.He said the crime classification in the case is “grossly causing the death of another, grossly causing bodily harm and causing danger to another.”The accident was caused by the front support arm of the train’s first carriage breaking, first on one side and then the other, causing the wagon wheels to fall off, Jarlås said.He declined to give further detail...

Man United CEO Richard Arnold steps down as club seeks new investment

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 20:48:59 GMT

MANCHESTER, England (AP) — Richard Arnold has stepped down from his role as chief executive of Manchester United, the club said Wednesday. Arnold’s departure comes at a time when American owners the Glazers are seeking new investment and British billionaire Jim Ratcliffe is attempting to buy a 25% stake in the 20-time league champions. “I would like to thank Richard for his outstanding service to Manchester United over the past 16 years, and wish him all the best for his future endeavors,” said the club’s co-owner and executive co-chairman Joel Glazer. Patrick Stewart was named as interim CEO, in addition to his existing role as General Counsel. Arnold, who became CEO in Feb. 2022, will offer “transitional support” until the end of December, United said. The club added that it will search for a new permanent CEO.“Together with my leadership team colleagues, my job will be to ensure that the club’s foundations remain stable while we embrace changes that can make us ...