In The News

It’s not just the win, but the landslide scale of the win that has shocked Germany – and sent ripples throughout Europe.

The Alternative for Germany (AfD) party has been growing in popularity but no one anticipated the election result in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt where the far-right party won 44 per cent of the vote on a record turnout of 76 per cent.

The party’s manifesto promises several anti-immigration measures including mass deportations and separate schools for refugees; its education plan emphasises a new curriculum based on traditional German values, while it proudly proclaims itself pro-Russian.

German chancellor Friedrich Merz took office a year ago promising to “halve” AfD support. Instead he has watched that fate befall his own party, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU). So how compromised is he by this result?

The AfD vote signals a clear direction of travel in German politics but as Irish Times Berlin correspondent Derek Scally reports, it is also a country that understands its history and the task of defeating extremism.

Presented by Bernice Harrison. Produced by Declan Conlon and Andrew McNair.
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Minister for Defence Helen McEntee said that a “significant security operation” has been been put in place for Ireland’s presidency of the Council of the European Union.

She didn’t elaborate on exaclty who would be providing that security but since long before the presidency began in July, military analsyts were able to easily predict security wouldn’t come soley from the State’s underfunded Defence Forces.

The Government would need help - but from where? The meetings last week in Druid’s Glen in Wicklow of all the EU’s defence ministers showed the extent of that help as Irish Times investigative journalist Conor Gallagher has been reporting.

Presented by Bernice Harrison. Produced by Declan Conlon
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As autumn arrives and the supersized El Niño develops, global temperatures will rise, rainfall patterns will radically change and the number of extreme weather events will increase.

But what does that mean for Ireland? After the hottest summer on record, predictions of an unusually mild and wet autumn might sound benign, but persistent rain prompts fears of a repeat of last winter’s flooding in the east and southeast.

Ireland wasn’t alone in feeling the heat from unusual summer heat patterns driven by climate change.

As an island that imports 80 per cent of its food, there are warnings of higher food prices.

And what did the UN’s warning last week about Earth surpassing 1.5 degrees mean?

Caroline O’Doherty The Irish Times, climate and science correspondent, explains.

Presented by Bernice Harrison. Produced by Andrew McNair.
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On Saturday, Katie Taylor will fight for the last time as a professional boxer.

If she wins against France’s Flora Pili, she will bow out as undisputed light-welterweight champion, a title to add to all the others she has accumulated during a stellar career that changed women’s boxing forever.

At a press conference this week she imagined what it will be like: “Walking down in front of 80,000 people, hearing the Olé, Olé, Olés one last time, seeing the Tricolours around the place.” It’s emotional stuff from a woman who is famously reserved, and who, says Irish Times sportswriter Malachy Clerkin, keeps her talking for the ring.

Now 40 she has been boxing for 30 years, as a child fighting to even join a club, as an amateur, an Olympian and for the past 10 years, a professional.

The 80,000-seater Croke Park match sold out in 30 minutes and as he details Taylor’s astonishing success, Clerkin explains why he first thought she’d struggle to sell tickets.

Presented by Bernice Harrison. Produced by John Casey.
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The long-predicted crack cocaine epidemic is here and has been compared to the heroin epidemic that ravaged communities and destroyed lives in Dublin in the 1980s.
It’s cheap at as little as €10 for a “rock”, though for users smoking that will last just minutes and they’ll spend the rest of their day focused on getting the drug, while eating and self-care become secondary concerns. It makes users agitated, paranoid and aggressive – with predictable results.

Unlike powder cocaine, Ireland’s crack cocaine problem is not distributed evenly across society. Why and how has the crisis developed? And why is crack addiction such a difficult drug to treat? And why are homeless women turning to crack cocaine in such numbers?

Eddie Mullins, who spent his career working in the prison service becoming the governor of Mountjoy jail, now heads up Merchants Quay Ireland, the Dublin-based charity offering services to homeless people and drug users. He describes the impact of the surging crack cocaine crisis on users and the wider community.

Presented by Bernice Harrison. Produced by Suzanne Brennan.
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