Politico: In the line of fire: Poland’s digital ambitions

Even as Warsaw’s top brass has largely alienated the highest ranks of the European Commission, Council and Parliament, Poland’s digital policymakers have worked as part of a group of about a dozen “like-minded” liberal countries — including Sweden, Denmark, the U.K. and Estonia — leading the charge on digital issues.

With Britain preoccupied with its imminent departure from the bloc, Poland — known for its army of highly skilled coders and technical experts — has emerged as the group’s largest member country and a potential leader on major digital issues. [...]

Despite recent strides, Poland still has a long way to go before becoming a European leader on tech. The country ranks 23 out of 28 on the EU’s digital economy and society index, lagging significantly on everything from the use of social media by enterprises (only 9 percent) to subscriptions to fast broadband across the country.

Streżyńska’s lack of partisanship — she refused to join a political group or align herself with Jarosław Kaczyński’s ruling Law and Justice party — was a welcome signal to consumers, stakeholders and policymakers in Brussels, but increasingly put her at odds with her bosses. [...]

Replacing Streżyńska would also be a blow because it would likely also mean getting rid of the digital ministry’s secretary of state Krzysztof Szubert, who deals closely with EU affairs and whom many in Brussels see as a positive influence on the bloc’s digital agenda. He is credited in the EU capital with leading important lobbying efforts — including putting digital policy on the agenda at European Council summits this year, and pressuring the Commission to relax rules on the free movement of data across EU borders. [...]

It’s true that the upper echelons of the Polish government, including Prime Minister Beata Szydło, seem to have bought into Poland’s digital sales pitch. Szydło signed a letter including 17 EU heads of state asking to make digital a priority on the political level. She also claimed responsibility for helping to bring about this year’s Digital Summit in Tallinn, one of the first meetings where EU heads of state dedicated their time to discussing digital.

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Al Jazeera: Honduras election: Women's rights put on the agenda

Fed up with seeing their concerns sidelined, PoletikaH and more than 70 women's organisations came together to launch on September 12 a feminist political agenda to serve as a measuring stick to scrutinise the presidential candidates' focus on the problems women face ahead of the November 26 election. [...]

One woman is murdered every 14 hours in a femicide crisis that has reached epidemic levels in the wake of the 2009 US-backed military coup, which briefly put Roberto Micheletti in power as president before Porfirio Lobo Sosa of the conservative National Party won national elections later that year.

Under strict rules outlawing abortion, women can face up to six years behind bars for seeking to end a pregnancy.

In the most unequal country in Latin America, according to World Bank data, women also disproportionately suffer the brunt of poverty, a global trend recognised by UN Women, the agency that deals with gender equality and women's empowerment worldwide. [...]

The agenda details policy demands related to seven issues: violence and femicide, feminisation of poverty, institutionality and budgets, non-sexist education, reproductive health, political participation, and indigenous rights.

Among other proposals, it calls for introducing comprehensive laws on gender violence, sexual education, and agrarian reform with gender equity. It also advocates repealing laws that limit women's access to common goods, such as the controversial Mining Law and Seeds Law. [...]

President Hernandez is the first sitting or former president to seek a second term in office after a contentious 2015 Supreme Court ruling changed the constitution to allow re-election. Critics say only the Honduran people have the power to modify the constitution, rendering Hernandez' candidacy illegitimate.

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Politico: France’s conservative ‘bad boy’ ready to take on Macron

He points to his own record in Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, a region he’s run as a sort of mini-state refusing subsidies for jobseekers and slashing operating costs by 5 percent, as the antithesis of Macron-ism. The president, he argues, is making adjustments around the edges and refusing to take on the elephant in the room: public spending that accounts for 55 percent of the country’s GDP. [...]

Where Macron is moderate on public spending, Wauquiez stakes out a position to the right of Margaret Thatcher. Where Macron preaches eurozone integration, Wauquiez wants a “union of nations.” And where Macron is liberal on social issues, Wauquiez is ultra-conservative. [...]

It’s easy to see why that might be so. In 2005, Wauquiez voted in favor of the treaty that would have established an EU constitution, but he has since positioned himself as a Euroskeptic-lite, and sometimes not so lite. After Britain’s vote to leave the EU, he proposed to abolish the European Commission — a position from which he’s since distanced himself. [...]

The National Front party has long seen Wauquiez as a potential ally, someone who could bring the far right out of its isolation. But Wauquiez rebuffed Le Pen’s proposal to join forces this week, stating he would never enter an alliance with the far right.

Instead, he aims to steal Le Pen voters by echoing her tough talk on immigration, Islam and terrorism — he’s called for throwing all people suspected of being linked to terrorists into jail — with the added appeal that unlike her, he could one day end up in power.

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Quartz: As Robert Mugabe finds a new home, here’s where other African dictators went to retire

In Saudi Arabia, Amin received a monthly stipend and the respect of still being called “Mr President.” Until his death in 2003, Amin was often spotted wandering through grocery stores, going to the health club, and praying at his local mosque. It was a life far removed from one the world’s most brutal dictatorships, during which about 300,000 were killed under Amin’s regime.

Saudi Arabia continues to offer a comfortable retirement to Africa’s strongmen. Ousted Tunisian leader Zine El Abidine Ben Ali fled to Jeddah after the 2011 revolution that ended his 23-year rule. Ben Ali’s retirement has not been as tranquil as he may have imagined, with Tunisia’s new government continuously calling for his extradition.

Until now, Mugabe himself has provided a safe haven for fallen autocrats. In 1991, Ethiopia’s Mengistu Haile Mariam fled the capital Addis Ababa and into safety in Zimbabwe. His departure brought an end to his Marxist-leaning government, which for 14 years was bedeviled by war, famine, failed economic policies, and a mass crackdown on enemies known as the Red Terror. [...]

Until now, Mugabe himself has provided a safe haven for fallen autocrats. In 1991, Ethiopia’s Mengistu Haile Mariam fled the capital Addis Ababa and into safety in Zimbabwe. His departure brought an end to his Marxist-leaning government, which for 14 years was bedeviled by war, famine, failed economic policies, and a mass crackdown on enemies known as the Red Terror.

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Politico: Cross-party support grows for Merkel minority government

From the ranks of the SPD, which would provide external support for the conservative chancellor without re-joining her government as the junior coalition partner, one party official described such an arrangement as “far from ideal, but the lesser evil.” A minority government would avoid a snap election and also avoid angering grassroots SPD supporters who deeply dislike the idea of another grand coalition, the official said. [...]

However, SPD chief Martin Schulz was quick to announce Monday that the party would not reprise its role of the past four years and would instead not “shy away” from another general election.

That triggered a major backlash inside his own party, where a growing number of lawmakers are worried that a snap election — and the spectacle of Germany’s two biggest parties in disarray — would risk an even more disastrous result for the SPD and further strengthen the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD). [...]

At the same time, however, CDU officials in the Bundestag point out privately that a minority government would allow the longtime chancellor to fill all available cabinet posts with people from conservatives ranks, which could help her to silence a growing chorus of critical voices from inside her bloc.

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