DAILY NEWS IN ENGLISH
How right-wing nationalism fuels climate denial Martin Hultman: Until the mid-1980s, there was a really strong consensus between politicians and scientists that climate change is really acute and that we have to do something about it. So at that point, politicians with various political ideologies, from Ronald Reagan to Margaret Thatcher and Mikhail Gorbachev, actually got together and thought of this as a global threat to humanity. They agreed that we have to set up bodies of interdisciplinary research and policies and to tackle this threat together. Around the same time, the extractive industries — the oil and coal industries — started to fund climate change denial research to promote their own interests. They set up various think tanks, like the US-based Heartland Institute, and started opposing climate change research.
Islamist threat lingers in Philippines despite Marawi victory Abdul, his young face hidden by a headscarf, stares into the camera as he contemplates his shattered dream. He has lost dozens of friends. His family has been displaced. "Our original plan was limited to attacking the military camp in Marawi and expelling the soldiers from the city," he tells DW. The homegrown jihadi leaderswho laid siege to Marawiunder the banner of the "Islamic State" (IS) had convinced Abdul and his fellow fighters that the Philippine government would then withdraw. "They told us we would get what we had always wanted: an Islamic state here in Marawi." More than a year after theheaviest urban fightingin the Philippines since World War II, the historic center of Marawi, the countryʼs largest Muslim city on the southern island of Mindanao, remains sealed off.
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European Commission accepts Italyʼs revised budget proposal Italy has promised to reduce its deficit targets for the next three years
Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said the long awaited agreement allowed his government to honor its main commitments and boost the economy. The European Commission hasreached an agreement with Italyon its budget plans, after months of Brussels resisting Romeʼs intentions to exceed EU rules on government borrowing. Italy agreed, as part of the compromise, to lower its deficit target for 2019 from 2.4 to 2.04 percent of gross domestic product (GDP). The governmentʼs projections now operate on the basis of economic growth predictions that the EU considers more realistic. European Commission Vice President Valdis Dombrovskis said the plan, though "not ideal," allows the commission to avoid legal action against Italy "provided that the measures are fully implemented." The commission said it had been reassured by new fiscal measures provided by Italyʼs populist government and decided to accept their budget offer rather than recommend launching legal action called "excessive deficit procedures." Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte hailed the agreement when addressing Italian parliament on Wednesday, saying he had resisted calls for
even greater cuts and had protected key measures in the budget. "At the end of tough negotiations, conducted with tenacity, we have reached a point of sustainable equilibrium,sticking to a higher (deficit) figurethan that deemed appropriate by Europe," Conte told Italyʼs upper house. As a share of national economic output,Italyʼs debt levelis thesecond highest in Europe, after Greece, at over 130 percent of GDP. The commission can implement sanctions when countries breach, or are at risk of breaching, the deficit threshold of 3 percent of GDP or have a government debt level above 60 percent of GDP. That said, the majority ofEU members, including Germany, exceed the 60 percent target for total national debt.The countryʼs new government — comprised of a coalition between the far-right, euroskeptic Lega party and the leftleaning, anti-establishment Five Star Movement — initially sought sweeping budget measures including tax cuts, early retirement measures and the establishment of a universal basic income.
German cabinet approves skilled labor draft law Angela Merkelʼs Cabinet has approveda new immigration law that German businesses have been crying out for, and which has been the subject of political debate in the country for 30 years. Three ministers appeared before the press on Wednesday to present the fruit of their tortuous inter-departmental negotiations: a law aimed at attracting skilled foreign labor that is due to come into force in 2020, but could still struggle to get past the conservative wing of Merkelʼs Christian Democratic Union (CDU) in parliament. "This is a good day for modern Germany," Labor Minister Hubertus Heil told the assembled reporters, while Economy Minister Peter Altmaier hailed a "historic day" that proved the effectiveness of the much-abused grand coalition between the CDU and the Social Democratic Party (SPD).
EU reaches agreement on single-use plastic ban A plan to ban single-use plastic products such as disposable plates and straws has been agreed. EU member states and the EU parliament still have to give the provisional agreement the go-ahead. European lawmakers have reached an agreement on a ban of single-use plastic products, the Austrian presidency said in Brussels on Wednesday. The move is aimed at making the EU a world leader in using sustainable alternatives that avoid marine pollution.
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