Elections

The Catholic Church has a new leader. Robert Prevost was not discussed by the media before being announced as the new Pope on Friday. He will follow the Church’s mantra, that has served it well over two thousand years, to be as flexible as necessary and as rigid as possible Europe has fresh energy in the person of the new German chancellor, Friedrich Merz. Despite the wobbly start in the German Parliament, Merz in the four days after his swearing-in met key European leaders, and laid the basis for his Chancellorship. Meanwhile, Donald Trump statements continue to hanker for the past. His call for the re-opening of the prison on Alcatraz is a case in point. Trump marks the end of the “American era”. The US will remain a rich and powerful country, but its global role will be much diminished.

Irakli Kobakhidze has once again become the chairman of Georgian Dream, the party founded by oligarch Bidzina Ivanishvili in 2012 which has since been in power in Georgia. Ivanishvili is the party’s honorary chairman and is widely seen as the country’s shadow ruler. Kobakhidze is also the current prime minister of Georgia and had previously served as party chairman until February 2024. At that time, a political reshuffle took place with then Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili becoming party chairman, while Kobakhidze was nominated for the prime minister’s post.