Germany’s election is a battle to be number three
Third is the most coveted spot in Germany’s forthcoming election. Angela Merkel stands firm on the first spot with a lead of 15 percentage points, and the Social Democrats, under Martin Schulz, will follow. The battle for the third place is where all the action is. A bunch of parties, including the far-left Die Linke, the liberal Free Democrats (FDP), the Greens and the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), are jostling for the position.
And the position could indeed significantly determine Germany’s future. “First and foremost, (third place) carries symbolic value…The party can always point out that it’s the strongest opposition force if it comes to a grand coalition,” explains a political scientist. While Merkel and Schulz are broadly on the same page on most issues, the other four are polls apart from each other. For instance, while the Die Linke is espousing communist-era prescriptions in its election campaign, the FDP is promising limited restrictions on capital.
Egypt’s spike in extrajudicial killings has a Trump factor
Donald Trump had made it amply clear to the Arab leaders that human rights would not be much of a factor in his administration’s dealing with the regional allies when he visited the Middle East in May. It seems Egypt has taken his advice too literally. Ever since Trump’s visit, there has been a spike in extrajudicial killings in the country, dozens of opposition party members have been arrested, and more than 100 websites critical of the government blocked.
“They killed him because he opposed the government…Anyone in the opposition is at risk of having this happen to him these days,” says the daughter of a rank-and-file member of the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood movement, who she believes died in the custody of Egypt’s notorious state security forces. Sara Sabry’s father’s not the only one. In July alone, there were 61 reported extrajudicial killings, according to the Egyptian Commission for Rights and Freedom.
Fox News packs its bags from the UK
Fox News just got pulled from British airwaves. Reason: Hardly anybody would watch it. “Fox News is focused on the U.S. market and designed for a U.S. audience and, accordingly, it averages only a few thousand viewers across the day in the U.K.,” 21st Century Fox said in a statement to CNN.
But that’s not the only reason the controversial channel has had to shut shop in the U.K. Fox News has repeatedly come under the scanner for breaching the country’s television code. Birmingham is a “totally Muslim” city, “where non-Muslims just simply don’t go in,” one of the channel’s purported terrorism experts – who then-prime minister David Cameron described as “clearly an idiot” – said in 2015. Last year, the network aired pro-Brexit views on the day of the Referendum, quite like it failed to offer impartial coverage on Donald Trump.
The Cameroonian way of stemming protests
Miles away in Cameroon, another television channel has had to shut shop. But this “opposition” English language channel has been banned by the government. If the cable TV providers do not stop broadcasting Southern Cameroons Broadcasting Corporation, they will be sanctioned.
Cameroon’s Anglophone population has been protesting against the Francophone majority’s allegedly discriminatory practices for a while now. And SCBC is known to air programmes on the history and culture of the Anglophone population. But the government sees it as propaganda. In fact, the country’s communications minister accused the channel of “broadcasting seditious and hateful programmes”. While the channel’s content can still be viewed online, if someone watches the channel, they could, in theory, be arrested. The government has already detained some people who had videos and text messages relating to the Anglophone protests on their phones.
Pakistan’s deadliest bomb
Pakistan has a disaster in the making, and it’s neither terrorism, nor Donald Trump. Pakistan’s population time bomb is beginning to explode, and by 2030, it may well become the world’s fourth most populous nation, surpassing Indonesia. But the political leadership in Islamabad which is absorbed in a fierce power struggle, has given little attention to this population explosion.
While many parts of the world, including Muslim countries like Bangladesh and Iran, are witnessing a decline in fertility rates and population growth, the growth rate in Pakistan has only increased – making it the country with the highest fertility rate in the region. The deadly mix of rampant poverty, 60 percent of the country’s population being under the age of 30 and limited job opportunities, make for a truly alarming situation, and it’s time the political class took note.
Compiled by Sanya Dhingra.