In The News

It’s a story that could have come straight out a John le Carré thriller. The retired German spy chief accused of selling classified information amounting to thousands of secret documents; an alleged act of treason that continued for years and was only uncovered during a kidnapping investigation involving a steakhouse heiress and ex-Israeli spies.

August Hanning, head of the BND foreign intelligence agency for seven years until 2005, faces charges of treasonous espionage after the 80-year-old was arrested during a dawn raid on his home on Tuesday.

The focus now for investigators is his post-retirement consultancy, which he set up in 2010 – the same year he is accused of buying and using classified information.
It is Germany’s greatest-ever espionage scandal as Irish Times Berlin correspondent Derek Scally reports.

Presented by Bernice Harrison. Produced by John Casey.
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Jack Horgan-Jones has the latest on a row that has blown up in the aftermath of Tuesday's Budget, reopening RTÉ's rolling funding crisis and leaving questions unanswered about why Minister for Media Patrick O'Donovan "reneged" on a funding commitment to the broadcaster. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Over the past two weeks, tens of thousands of people have taken to the streets of Spain to protest the country’s worsening housing crisis. The demonstrations were triggered by the eviction of an 87-year-old woman, Maria del Carmen Abascal, from her home in Madrid.

Known in Spain simply as Maricarmen, she had lived in the same apartment for more than seven decades and was evicted after it was sold to a private investment company. She died in a hospital in Madrid two weeks later.

In response to the public outcry following her eviction, Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez put forward several emergency housing measures. However, when the proposals were rejected by Parliament, he called a snap general election for November 29th.

But will the Prime Minister’s gamble pay off? Is it likely his party will lead the next government and could this surprise election pave the way for parties on the right to seize power?

Irish Times contributor Guy Hedgecoe speaks to Bernice Harrison from Madrid.
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Christa Pike spent 30 years in jail in Tennessee on death row, waiting for the day the state would kill her. When that day finally came, last week, she was first given a lethal injection, then a second one when the first dose failed. She survived that too and the 50-year-old convicted murderer was taken to hospital where she was placed on life support.

So who was Colleen Slemmer, her teenage victim? What evidence convicted Pike and will this botched execution change attitudes to the death penalty in the US.

Keith Duggan, Washington correspondent has been following the case.

Presented by Bernice Harrison. Produced by Suzanne Brennan.
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Ministers Simon Harris and Jack Chambers have been explaining how the Government will tax and spend in the year ahead. They have promised to deliver changes we will feel in our daily lives. But will you really feel a difference in your daily life? Consumer affairs correspondent Conor Pope has been listening. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.