When Friedrich Merz came to office in May 2025, corporate boardrooms were abuzz with hope. As he ascended to the chancellorship, the leader of the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) promised nothing less than an "economic turning point."
Hollywood won't be making it to Cannes this year. The world's most important film festival kicks off on May 12 with a lineup of new movies from some of the most acclaimed filmmakers in global arthouse cinema — Pedro Almodovar, Asghar Farhadi, Pawel Pawlikowski, Cristian Mungiu — but not a single film from a US major studio.
Thailand's former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra was released from prison on parole on Monday. In September 2025, the Supreme Court had ordered the 76-year-old telecommunications billionaire to serve one year in prison for a past corruption conviction. Thaksin walked free from Klong Prem Central Prison in Bangkok around 7:40 a.m. local time (00:40 UCT).
Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi has been transferred to a hospital in Iran's capital Tehran for medical treatment, a foundation run by her family said Sunday. Mohammadi has been granted a temporary suspension of her sentence in exchange for the payment of a substantial bail, the foundation said in a statement.
As head of the center-left Social Democrats, Gerhard Schröder was chancellor of Germany between 1998 and 2005. Now Russian President Vladimir Putin says he would like Schröder as a possible European mediator in peace talks to end the Ukraine war.
A trial has begun against five activists accused of attacking a German branch of Israeli arms maker Elbit Systems in September 2025.
Dietzenbach is a small German town with a population of around 35,000. Locally, it is best known for its open-air forest swimming pool and an architecturally unusual observation tower from which, on a clear day, you can see Frankfurt, some 12 kilometers (7 miles) away.
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