today it's about Italy's post-fascist Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, the Turkish opposition, which is taking its time in searching for candidates, and the question of whether there can be protection against attacks like the one in Brokstedt.
More of a pragmatist than a post-fascist?
Today Italy's new Prime Minister
Giorgia Meloni has been in office for 100 days
.
Her Fratelli d'Italia party is described as post-fascist, so fears were high in Europe ahead of Italy's last election.
What would it mean if a party with roots in fascism were now in charge of the third largest EU country?
Many wondered what would happen to Italy, to Europe in times of war, if a woman is in charge, from whom a sentence like "I have an easy relationship with fascism" has been handed down.
And now?
Domestically, her government is pursuing a partially arch-conservative course, albeit rather verbally so far
.
Apparently, speaking hostile to the LGBT “lobby” is not sanctioned.
The family concept is praised by mother, father and many children under the blessing of the Catholic Church.
Patchwork is obviously seen as a concept of liberal, woker elites.
Illegal rave parties are fought with publicity like serious crime.
At the same time, there has been no tightening of the abortion law so far - it should be one of the first government projects.
There must have been something more pressing.
In European and foreign policy, however, Prime Minister Meloni is following in the footsteps of super-European Mario Draghi, her predecessor.
"It's funny," says our Italy correspondent Frank Hornig.
»During the election campaign, Meloni shouted to her voters with a view of Brussels ›The fun is over now!‹ and then, freshly in office, was the first to travel there and present her winning smile to EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.«
So far, Italy under Meloni has not seriously opposed itself on the European stage, has not made "Italy first".
A dispute with neighboring France about where a ship carrying refugees could land was finally settled.
And whether the prime minister will always stand firmly by the side of her personal and political friend Victor Orbán, who is constantly threatening to transform Hungary into an authoritarian state, and against the rest of the EU, does not seem to be a foregone conclusion either.
»One can classify Meloni's politics as xenophobic and intolerant;
but at the moment, not even their left-wing opponents would claim that it poses a threat to parliamentary democracy,” my Brussels colleague Michael Sauga recently analyzed.
Nevertheless, it is understandable that the first 100 days do not calm everyone who is concerned.
But maybe it is actually the case that Europe even has a disciplining effect on a government led by post-fascists - Italy is one of the biggest beneficiaries of the Corona reconstruction program.
Italy's favorite Meloni: Mussolini's heiress
Who wants to take on Erdoğan?
The opposition doesn't know
Perhaps the Turkish opposition's chances of beating the all-powerful and omnipresent President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in the coming elections have never been better.
It looks like Turkey will elect a new president and parliament on May 14th.
The opposition is in a "favourable" position: inflation is galloping faster than elsewhere, the government is currently unable to get it under control, the economy is in a bad state, and so is the image, but that's nothing new.
Many people's morale is tarnished when they look in their wallets and go to supermarket after supermarket just to save a few liras.
Now the alliance of the leaders of the opposition parties, who have come together to form a "six-member table," wants to present their joint election program today.
Put simply, their goal is to ensure that the voters vote Erdoğan out of office, blow up a 'wind of change' and somehow find their way back onto the path of democracy and the rule of law.
The alliance has been working meticulously over the past few months on a proposal for a constitutional reform that it intends to fill with life after an election victory.
Alone: With whom the six-table wants to do all this - with which candidate or with which candidate - he has not revealed that so far.
And many in the country don't understand that.
It should be sometime in February.
The head of the »Republican People's Party« CHP, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, is under discussion
.
However, he has never won a decisive election himself.
This seems to have caught the eye of allies from the six-table, which may be one reason he hasn't named his candidate yet.
When I asked the head of the nationalist IYI party, Meral Akşener, about the personnel in a recent interview, she said the interesting sentence: »But it has to be someone who can also win.«
After all, he's the only one who has made himself available - if the table of six wants him, he's ready.
In addition, the mayors of the two most important cities in Turkey are in focus:
Mansur Yavaş (Ankara) and Ekrem Imamoğlu (Istanbul).
Both could be strong candidates.
But it looks like one doesn't want to - and the other is threatened with an absurd verdict: Imamoğlu could lose his office and be banned from politics.
Erdoğan meanwhile makes fun of it.
Over the weekend he said snidely that the opposition couldn't even find anyone who "can take on us".
The »great master«, who thrives when he can position himself against internal and external political opponents, seems to have been in the mood for an election for a long time.
Right-wing extremist action in Sweden: a Koran burns, Erdoğan rumbles, and NATO fears
You can find news and background information on the war in Ukraine here:
The most recent developments:
"Boris, I don't want to hurt you, but...": The former British prime minister reports on a telephone call with the Kremlin chief shortly before the start of the war.
Kyiv reports dead and injured in Kharkiv and Cherson.
The overview.
Esken dodges question about possible fighter jet delivery:
fighter jets for Ukraine?
Chancellor Scholz categorically rejects this type of help.
For SPD leader Saskia Esken, the case is probably not that clear.
Head of the Munich Security Conference for delivery of fighter jets:
Christoph Heusgen proposes delivering fighter jets from old GDR stocks to defend against Russia.
General Pavel takes over:
The Czech Republic has elected a former NATO general as president.
This has consequences – for Ukraine and the European Union.
Who is the man who always positions himself clearly against Putin?
Plastic tarps instead of classrooms:
three fifth-graders huddled together in a tent they built themselves on a windy hill: Because they don't have a signal in their town in north-eastern Ukraine, the children are learning via distance learning.
As good as possible.
The video.
Brokstedt's nightmare
It is the sheer horror that the occupants of the regional train had to go through last Wednesday on the way from Kiel to Hamburg.
Ibrahim A. apparently pulled a knife just before the Brokstedt stop, injured five people and killed two, just 17 and 19 years old.
One can only wish their parents, families, loved ones and friends strength and patience.
And for us as a society, clarification as quickly as possible – if possible without toxic debate.
As my colleagues write, Ibrahim A., who comes from the Gaza Strip, obtained protection status in Germany in 2016 and became a criminal.
So criminal that the competent Federal Office for Migration and Refugees wanted to revoke his protection status.
The procedure worked.
A. was still in custody six days before the crime, and an expert report apparently did not confirm that he was "endangering others or himself".
What is impressive is that Ibrahim A. was stopped by other travelers
, as my colleagues write.
You may have saved lives by doing so.
Protecting oneself against an attacker with a weapon, even defending oneself, especially in a closed and moving space like a train, is not exactly an easy task.
That it is not impossible, however, can be read in the exciting interview between our colleague Hilmar Schmundt and the training educator Swen Körner - it is about de-escalation strategies in violent conflicts, but also about the hammer fist.
Deadly deed in regional train: The bloody trail of Ibrahim A.
Here is the current quiz of the day
The starting question today: Who is the President of FC Bayern Munich?
Winner of the day...
... for me is
the journalist Franca Lehfeldt
, namely for enduring sexist crap and not freaking out.
Lehfeldt had said on Holocaust Remembrance Day in her moderation at "Welt": "78 years ago today, the Red Army Faction liberated the survivors of the German concentration and extermination camp in Auschwitz." Instead of Red Army, she said Red Army Faction.
A mistake.
Bad, especially that day.
Shouldn't happen.
But since then the woman, who is obviously just "the wife of" for many, has had to endure a lot.
Why this excess?
From my point of view, it's quite simple: because of her partner, her youth, her looks.
And because she posts embarrassing self-referential nonsense on Instagram.
Of course, no one else in the republic does that.
In the end it's that simple.
You don't have to be a fan of Franca Lehfeldt, her journalistic work, political views or Axel Springer, her employer, to find this repulsive.
Sad that misogyny seems to be acceptable in certain women.
The latest news from the night
USA does not rule out military strikes against Iran:
"All options" are conceivable for US Secretary of State Blinken to ensure that Iran does not acquire nuclear weapons.
When asked, he made it clear that this could also include military action.
Search for radioactive mini-capsule in Western Australia - Mining giant Rio Tinto apologizes:
The radioactive capsule is smaller than a 10 cent coin - and it was lost somewhere along a 1400-kilometer route.
The authorities are feverishly looking for her.
And now announced new details.
Annie Wersching is dead:
The actress has appeared in dozens of TV series, most famously for her role as FBI agent Renee Walker in »24«.
Now Wersching has died at the age of 45.
The SPIEGEL + recommendations for today
How Europe's bureaucrats are gambling away the lead in hydrogen
plants: Europe is the world leader in the business with central plants for the hydrogen economy, but now China wants to roll up the growth market.
What is the EU doing?
How the slogan "Third Reich" made a name for itself:
On January 30, 1933, Hitler came to power.
The Nazi dictatorship is also widely known as »The Third Reich«.
The popular formula goes back to the Weimar Republic - and is based on a series of errors.
This is how ChatGPT can be held responsible:
The chatbot is considered a milestone in artificial intelligence.
But it also enables deception and abuse and raises new ethical questions.
A suggestion from Peter Dabrock.
The Prince principle:
Against male-dominated power structures in the music business: Raye has already written for Beyoncé and John Legend, on her own record she now defies the rules of the industry - with sad songs that you can dance to.
I wish you a good start into the day.
Yours sincerely, Özlem Topçu, Deputy Head of Department Abroad
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