Friedrich Merz, the winner of Germany’s election, vowed to give Europe “real independence” from America as he prepared to cobble together a coalition. His centre-right Christian Democratic alliance won 29% of the vote. The hard-right Alternative for Germany received 21% of the vote, its best-ever result. Mr Merz has ruled out governing with the AfD.
Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s president, offered to “leave my post” in exchange for the country’s admission to NATO. Speaking at a press conference the day before the third anniversary of Russia’s invasion, Mr Zelensky also dismissed the insults of Donald Trump, America’s president, who called him “a dictator without elections”. Earlier Russia launched a “record” 267 drones at Ukraine, according to Ukraine’s air force.
Elon Musk gave all federal employees just over 48 hours to explain what they had worked on in the past week or face dismissal, hours after Mr Trump pushed the DOGE boss to “get more aggressive”. In his effort to make deep cuts in government spending, Mr Musk has already offered federal employees the chance to resign if they do not want to return to the office full-time.
The Vatican said that Pope Francis had spent a “tranquil” night in hospital and “rested” after suffering a long asthmatic respiratory crisis on Saturday. The 88-year-old pontiff is also receiving oxygen via the nose, according to the Vatican. Francis was admitted to hospital on February 14th. He has pneumonia in both lungs, one of which was partly removed by surgeons when he was young.
Police from Cambodia and Thailand freed 215 foreign nationals from a scam centre in north-western Cambodia. Thailand’s government said that the foreigners, who had been forced to work at the centre, would be returned to their home countries. Thailand has been cracking down on scams after its citizens lost some 60bn baht ($1.8bn) to the schemes over the past two years.
Hundreds of thousands of mourners gathered in Beirut, Lebanon’s capital, for the funeral ceremony of Hassan Nasrallah. Nasrallah, who led Hizbullah from 1992, was killed by an Israeli air strike in Beirut in September. Israeli jets flew across Lebanon’s capital during the proceedings. Hizbullah began firing rockets at Israel in 2023, one day after the October 7th attack by Hamas.
Piers Litherland, a British archaeologist who announced on February 22nd that he had discovered the first rock-cut pharaoh’s tomb since Tutankhamun’s was identified in 1922, told the Observer that he had found a second tomb. Mr Litherland suggested that it probably contains the remains of Thutmose II, a young pharaoh who died in 1479BC and who also owned the tomb discovered earlier this month.
Figure of the day: 37%, the share of young Africans polled by the Africa Youth Survey who want to move to America. Read the full story.
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