In his hacking lawsuit being heard in a British court, Prince Harry aims to land another blow against a tabloid industry that has long been accused of widespread privacy abuses but that has been forced in recent years to rein in its excesses. So even if Harry, the younger son of King Charles III, wins his […]
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For most of Pakistan’s eight-decade history, its courts were largely aligned with the country’s powerful military. They gave three coups a legal stamp of approval, disqualified dozens of politicians who had fallen out of favor with the generals, and turned a blind eye to the disappearances of political dissidents. But with Pakistan in the grip […]
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When Pita Limjaroenrat was a student at Harvard in 2008, he shadowed his American classmates who were campaigning at the time for former President Barack Obama. The experience gave him a window into electoral politics, from phone banks and polling data to knocking on doors and putting campaign flags on front lawns. Fifteen years later, Mr. […]
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President Guillermo Lasso of Ecuador disbanded the country’s opposition-led National Assembly on Wednesday, a drastic move as the right-leaning leader faced impeachment proceedings over accusations of embezzlement. The constitutional measure, never before used, allows the president to rule by decree until new elections can be held, marking a moment of extraordinary political turbulence for a […]
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Turkey’s nail-biter election on Sunday made clear that the people’s faith in the country’s electoral system remains strong and that the incumbent, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, is still a formidable political force, despite his failure to secure a first-round victory. A runoff is likely to be held on May 28 after preliminary results showed Mr. […]
Read More Turkey’s nail-biter election on Sunday made clear that the people’s faith in the country’s electoral system remains strong and that the incumbent, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, is still a formidable political force, despite his failure to secure a first-round victory. A runoff is likely to be held on May 28 after preliminary results showed Mr. […]
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The weather was wet, the eyes dry and the hats knew no peer in the modern world. In the end, the coronation of King Charles III was about as British an occasion as anything has ever Britished. By now, every aspect of the ceremony, clothes, attendees, and personal dramas has been dissected and analyzed in […]
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But there is a bigger scandal with the House of Lords, one that has been overlooked and which will persist even if Mr. Johnson’s appointments all turn out to be ethically aboveboard. The current appointments process, even when it’s not being abused, produces a homogeneous and unrepresentative House of Lords. For more than a century, […]
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In a scene in the 1975 movie “Monty Python and the Holy Grail,” King Arthur roams around the English countryside attempting to gather knights for the Round Table. When he declares, “I am your king!” to a deeply unimpressed peasant, her response is both absurd and blindingly obvious. “Well, I didn’t vote for you,” she says. Quite. As […]
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BERLIN — Every day as he settles into his desk, Erhard Grundl, a German lawmaker, looks outside his office window into the embassy he knows may be spying on him. “I come into the office, and on a windy day, I see the Russian flag waving. It feels a bit like Psalm 23: ‘You prepare […]
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ISTANBUL — The main opposition candidate aiming to unseat President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in elections next month has pledged to undo the legacy of the longtime Turkish leader and focus on strengthening democracy, easing a cost-of-living crisis and battling corruption. The candidate, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, is aiming to attract voters who may have tired of the […]
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LONDON — The leader of Britain’s opposition, Keir Starmer, can often seem more like the technocratic human rights lawyer he once was than the no-holds-barred politician now reshaping the Labour Party with an eye toward making it more electable. But as his former allies on the left wing of his party have discovered, appearances can […]
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As Israel’s protest movement raged from January deep into March, sending tens of thousands of furious citizens to the streets against a plan to overhaul the courts, it seemed clear that something would have to give. But for much of that time, it didn’t seem like that something would be Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The […]
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Israel is in the throes of a grave political crisis that ballooned in recent days to envelop crucial components of society — the military, universities and trade unions — and has caused strains with Israel’s foreign allies, chief among them the United States. For weeks, protesters have taken to the streets to oppose the government’s […]
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In proposing his judicial overhaul, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has said he was restoring the balance of power between elected lawmakers and unelected judges. “It is not the end of democracy, it is the strengthening of democracy,” Mr. Netanyahu said last week, before a huge wave of protest and civil unrest forced him […]
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Little more than a year ago, it seemed that the political career of Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving leader, was all but over. Out of power, he was struggling to maintain relevance. State prosecutors had offered his lawyers a plea deal that would have let him avoid jail in his ongoing corruption trial, in exchange for […]
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The pro-independence Scottish National Party on Monday elected Humza Yousaf, the country’s health secretary, as its top official, putting the 37-year-old minister on track to become the first Muslim to lead a democratic western European nation. Mr. Yousaf emerged with a narrow victory in a bruising leadership race that followed the surprise resignation last month […]
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Israel is in the throes of a grave political crisis that has ballooned in recent days to envelop crucial components of society: the military, universities and trade unions. For weeks, protesters have taken to the streets to oppose the government’s plan to overhaul judicial rules. The discontent intensified on Sunday after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu […]
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NEW DELHI — Rahul Gandhi, one of the last national figures standing in political opposition to Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India, was disqualified as a member of parliament on Friday, sending shock waves across the country’s political scene and devastating the once-powerful Indian National Congress party Mr. Gandhi leads. Mr. Gandhi was expelled from […]
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FOS-SUR-MER, France — “This government just does not listen to us,” said Renald, a 50-year-old electrical mechanic at the Port of Marseille, as his co-workers assembled a barricade this week on the route leading to a fuel depot. “There’s a deep anger here.” That anger is unlikely to have been assuaged by President Emmanuel Macron’s […]
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Israel’s Parliament passed legislation early Thursday that would make it more difficult to declare prime ministers incapacitated and remove them from office, a move that critics said was aimed at protecting the country’s leader, Benjamin Netanyahu, who is on trial for corruption. Under the legislation, the latest in a series of divisive bills pursued by […]
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During the French Revolution, the Place de la Concorde, the sprawling cobblestone square across the Seine from the National Assembly, was known as Revolutionary Square — the place where the newfound power of the street paraded on full display, in all its glory and horror. It was there that both King Louis XVI and Queen […]
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LONDON — British lawmakers on Wednesday voted overwhelmingly in favor of a key component of a long-awaited deal on Northern Ireland trade rules, an emphatic victory for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak as he tries to resolve one of the most vexing legacies of Britain’s exit from the European Union. Despite the strong backing of the […]
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PARIS — President Emmanuel Macron, addressing the French people for the first time since the tumultuous passing of a law that raises the retirement age to 64 from 62, denounced violent protests and said he would not tolerate their threat to the republic. Speaking in a televised interview with two journalists, Mr. Macron said he […]
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The “partygate” scandal that rocked Boris Johnson’s term as prime minister did not end when he left 10 Downing Street last summer. On Wednesday, fellow lawmakers opened a hearing that could see Mr. Johnson suspended — or even ejected — from Parliament as they investigate whether he lied to them about the lockdown-busting parties his […]
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PARIS — President Emmanuel Macron’s re-election program last year was short on detail. His mind seemed elsewhere, chiefly on the war in Ukraine. But on one thing he was clear: He would raise the retirement age in France to 65 from 62. “You will have to work progressively more,” he said during a debate in […]
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A day before he was to face a potentially make-or-break hearing, Boris Johnson conceded that he had misled the British Parliament about lockdown-breaking parties at 10 Downing Street while he was prime minister. But he insisted that he “did not intentionally or recklessly mislead” the House of Commons. Mr. Johnson will testify on Wednesday before […]
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PARIS — The French National Assembly rejected a no-confidence motion against the government of President Emmanuel Macron on Monday, ensuring that a fiercely contested bill raising the retirement age to 64 from 62 becomes the law of the land. The first of two motions received 278 votes, nine short of the 287 needed to pass. […]
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Israel’s government announced on Monday that it would attempt to enact by early April the most contentious part of its effort to overhaul the country’s judiciary — a change to the way that judges are appointed — while postponing the implementation of other parts of the plan by at least a month. The planned change […]
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Protesters in France blocked roads on Friday and labor unions vowed more strikes after President Emmanuel Macron’s decision to push a widely unpopular pension bill through Parliament without a vote, sending opposition parties rushing to file no-confidence motions against his cabinet. Mr. Macron’s decision, announced by his prime minister on Thursday during a raucous session […]
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PARIS — Lawmakers filled the grand chamber of the National Assembly, climbing into the red felt seats that curl in a semicircle around a room that has been the crucible of democratic debate in France since the French Revolution. The tension was palpable. A bill that would extend the legal age of retirement to 64 […]
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