On the morning after the night before, all of Germany’s overseas ambassadors were in Berlin to talk about their country’s place in the world. The annual gathering could not have come at a more portentous time.
The Germany I have known for the past 40 years is at its greatest moment of crisis.
Everything it represents is being challenged by many of its own citizens, aided and abetted by malign foreign forces.
What happened?
In an interview with , Moshiri said she has been diagnosed with an incurable type of blood cancer.
What is polycythaemia vera (PV)
PV thickens the blood by causing bone marrow to continuously produce red blood cells.
What are the risks?
This increases the risk of blood clots, which can cause stroke, heart attack or deep vein thrombosis.
The symptoms
Symptoms can include headaches, confusion, dizziness and blurred vision.
What treatment did she receive?
Her treatment involved a procedure called a , where almost a pint of blood is removed through a vein about twice a month to reduce the red blood cell concentration.
Immunotherapy treatment reduced the frequency of Moshiri’s venesections but initially came with “horrendous” side effects including insomnia, headaches and itching.
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Working through treatment
I was working 14-hour days, constantly on air, constantly having to think on my feet
Moshiri worked throughout her treatment, including leading the BBC’s coverage of the death of Pope Francis from Rome.
She said that although “adjusting to a different life” is challenging, a future “punctuated by hospital appointments and loads of medication” to deal with the disease is better than the alternative.
How UK’s first ‘super-university’ can tackle Neets crisis
The head of the UK’s first “super-university” has said that merging two universities can help reduce the number of people not in employment, education or training (Neet).
A new ‘super-university’
What is it?
The newly formed London and South East University Group (Lase) is now the third largest university in the UK.
How big is it?
It contains over 50,000 students across four campuses in London, Medway and Kent.
Which universities merged?
The universities of Kent and Greenwich legally merged to form Lase last month.
What is the Neets crisis?
- 1In April to June, an estimated 981,000 people aged 16-24 in the UK were classed as Neets.
- 2This represented a fall of 30,000 compared with the first quarter of the year.
- 3However, the figure is still 30,000 higher than a year ago, according to the Office for National Statistics.
The role of ‘super-unis’
It’s a real opportunity for us address the very people that the Government’s worried about
Lase chief executive Professor Jane Harrington said the merger will help the universities deal with growing operational costs and provide more accessible learning pathways to better address the needs of the regions in a way they could not on their own.
How will Lase work?
- Kent and Greenwich universities will still operate as distinct academic entities within the group.
- They retain their current names and students still apply to and graduate from the institution they choose.
- The group will now be able to offer subjects that they could not before when they were separate entities.
- Students will also be able to use libraries and access wellbeing services across campuses.
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What strain are universities facing?
Higher education providers in the UK have been facing increasing financial pressures, with MPs on the Education Committee warning earlier this year that there is a “real risk” a university in England could close due to insolvency for the first time.
The Office for Students told the committee it feared 24 providers were at risk of becoming insolvent and closing in the 12 months from November last year.
More ‘super-universities’ to come?
Lase is writing up a “blueprint” for the Department for Education to work as a “model” for a group structure which other universities would be able to use.
In May, King’s College London and Bedford-based Cranfield University announced plans to merge in August 2027.
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EES checks resume – three ways to avoid border delays
A loophole allowing countries to pause the EU’s new border checks has ended, sparking concern that the travel chaos reported earlier in the summer may return.
EES border checks set to resume
EU border checks are set to start again in full force from Monday, 7 September, as member states’ rights to waive Entry/Exit System (EES) checks during times of maximum stress comes to an end.
While EES is unavoidable, and there is no way to skip the queue entirely, there are some ways to alleviate the stress of border check delays.
What is the EES?
- EES requires British passport holders and other third-country nationals to register biometric data when entering or exiting the Schengen area.
- Applying to 29 countries across Europe, excluding Ireland and Cyprus, the system caused has widespread delays since its introduction in April.
- Until now, the registration could be temporarily suspended by border officials when queues were too long to manage.
- But despite objections from some member states, this loophole has now expired, leaving holidaymakers facing the possibility of more significant delays.
How can you avoid delays
- 1Travel outside peak times – even the busiest airports, like Palma and Lisbon, were quieter later in the summer.
- 2Skip duty free – going straight to the border control desk will allow you to see how busy it is.
- 3Pre-register for Sweden and Portugal – currently applying only to Sweden and Portugal, the Travel to Europe app allows users to pre-register, reducing the information needed at border control to just fingerprint scans.
Go to passport control ASAP
A spokesperson for Abta, a UK travel agent trade association, recommended passengers go to passport control as soon as possible after getting through security.
It follows reports earlier this summer of long delays and some flights setting off while several passengers were still in the long border control queues.
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Sunday’s elections in the state of Saxony-Anhalt have changed everything.
The idea that the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) could have won 44 per cent of the vote is alarming enough. The fact that it did so in a region where its politics have been declared extremist by the domestic intelligence service makes clear the extent of the threat to liberal democracy.
Alongside the AfD’s ascendancy is confirmation of the collapse of the mainstream. The Christian Democrats (CDU) of Chancellor Friedrich Merz saw their support fall to a derisory 17 per cent. The Social Democrats, who are in an unhappy coalition with the CDU nationally, ended up in single figures, as did the Greens.
Much of the AfD’s victory was down to the campaign fought by its lead candidate, and the likely next premier of Saxony-Anhalt, Ulrich Siegmund. The 35-year-old former perfume salesman with a now-famous quiff fought a nearly flawless campaign, mixing familiar messaging around migrants, “woke”, and economic injustice for the “left behinds”, while riding a motorbike that was popular in the former Soviet-occupied German Democratic Republic.
Each of his appearances was choregraphed for video on social media to his hundreds of thousands of followers. Traditional late 1920s values in a modern setting?
Despite its huge success, the AfD fell tantalisingly short of the support needed to form an outright majority, something that is almost never achieved under Germany’s proportional voting system, which is based around parties forming coalitions.
It might yet achieve its target, if politicians from the BSW, one of two radical-left parties that made into the state parliament, are enticed to join them, as will despondent CDU mavericks. If the AfD makes it over the line, what follows will come as no surprise. All the policies were proudly flagged in the AfD’s lengthy manifesto – a requirement that arts organisations promote “German” culture, and that schools emphasise “patriotic” history over Nazi history in schools.
Although it has no jurisdiction over refugee policy in the state, the AfD has promised remigration, even sending back some naturalised Germans. It has also vowed to ban the flying of the rainbow flag. It’s not without reason that many people with a migrant background and the queer community fear what’s coming next, the unleashing of dark forces on the streets.
Saxony-Anhalt might be a small state (population 2.2 million, of whom a record 76 per cent of voters turned out), it might be based in the former Communist east, with all that that entails. But that would be to miss the point. Whether or not the AfD ends up securing its first regional government, the result has changed national and international politics.
It seems almost impossible to conceive of Merz surviving the autumn; two more regional elections in a fortnight’s time are expected to see a further drubbing for the CDU. His personal ratings are at a historic low for a chancellor, and all eyes are on the next general election in 2029 – that’s if the coalition staggers on that long.
Merz’s much-vaunted “autumn of reforms” (that was supposed to be autumn 2025) of public services ended up a damp squib. But the one area where he deserves praise, where he has shown unwavering courage, is in overhauling military doctrine. The reluctant hegemon, as Germany used to be known, the paralysed pacifist, is now leading the way among the major European states in filling in the gap of the departing United States and in supporting Ukraine.
Germany is on track to hit the Nato target of 3.5 per cent of GDP in defence spending as early as 2029, far earlier than equivalent countries such as the UK.
He will now come under increasing pressure to abandon his hawkish approach.
Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump, who have been open in supporting so-called “patriotic parties” across Europe, will be delighted by the turn of events. The results will have exceeded their wildest dreams.
The AfD is openly pro-Kremlin and has called for an end to aid for Ukraine. The Russian presidential envoy Kirill Dmitriev praised a “historic win for the pragmatic AfD”.
The biggest target of all will be the presidential elections in France next April and May; a victory for Marine Le Pen is looking increasingly likely. Watch out for Poland, for Spain, for Sweden, and back to Germany again. The work has barely begun. The sirens are sounding not just in the chancellery in Berlin, but across Europe – and most of all in Kyiv.
John Kampfner’s latest book, Braver New World: The Countries Doing It Right in a World Gone Wrong, is published by Atlantic, at £12.99