PARIS (AP) — Members of France’s main conservative party are picking their presidential candidate Saturday, a decision that could significantly shape April’s election. The head the Paris region, Valérie Pécresse, and a hardline lawmaker from Nice, Eric Ciotti, are competing in the final round of The Republicans’ primary.

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France's conservative party to choose presidential candidate

Outgoing Chancellor Angela Merkel urged Germans on Saturday to get vaccinated against COVID-19 to help turn the tide on a fourth wave of cases that she said had become "dramatic" in parts of the country. "We are in a very serious situation. In some parts of the country you can only describe it as dramatic: overfilled intensive care units, severely ill people who have to be

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Merkel makes final appeal to Germans to get vaccinated

By John Irish DOHA - Several European countries are working on opening up a joint diplomatic mission in Afghanistan that would enable their ambassadors to return to the country, French President Emmanuel Macron said on Saturday. Western countries have been grappling with how to engage with the Taliban after they took over Afghanistan in a lightning advance in August as U.S.-led forces

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France, Europeans working to open joint mission in Afghanistan

Europe’s far-right leaders keep flirting, but are still wary to tie the knot. In Warsaw on Friday and Saturday, a collection of the continent’s biggest nationalist, anti-immigrant and Euroskeptic politicians gathered for their latest attempt to unite in some sort of grand coalition.

Politico Europe

Far-right leaders fail to tie the knot

Iratxe García Pérez, head of the center-left Socialists & Democrats group in the European Parliament, said Saturday she’d tested positive for COVID-19.“I will stay isolated at home the next days to recover,” the Spanish MEP wrote on Twitter, adding she was grateful to the public health system.“No one is safe until everyone is. Vaccines save lifes!” she continued, encouraging people to get their jab.

S&D group leader Iratxe García Pérez tests positive for COVID-19

Top United States officials say they are worried Russia is aiming to heat things up in Ukraine, with troops positioned along the border for a potentially imminent invasion. However, Russian President Vladimir Putin may have precisely the opposite in mind: deepening the freeze of the conflict in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region as his best, and perhaps only, guarantee that Ukraine won’t join NATO.

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Putin’s choice: Hot war or a deeply frozen conflict

Germany’s center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) voted overwhelmingly Saturday to sign off on the coalition agreement to form a new government with the Greens and the liberal Free Democrats (FDP).An SPD party conference approved the deal with 98.8 percent in favor, keeping party leader Olaf Scholz on track to take over from Angela Merkel as chancellor.“Let’s go to work now,” Scholz said.

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Germany’s SPD approves government coalition deal

Nathalie Tocci is a Pierre Keller visiting professor at the Harvard Kennedy School, director of the Istituto Affari Internazionali, a board member of ENI and the author of POLITICO‘s World View column.In an age of great power rivalry, the protection and promotion of democratic values are increasingly becoming two sides of the same coin.

The global fight for democracy begins at home

The European Commission on Tuesday retracted internal communication guidelines that had proposed substituting the “Christmas period” with “holiday period” after an outcry by conservatives and the Vatican, which termed the document an attempt to “cancel” Europe’s Christian roots.

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