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Luka Svetina wrote that the turnaround in the referendum on the parliamentary inquiry indicates that the propaganda on March 8 about the alleged "political police" scared the oldest voters, aged 65 and older, which polls seem to suggest. He assessed that the opponent does not choose means, so the coalition should prepare for a similar campaign regarding the intervention law. According to him, they would communicate to voters that retirees would be left without pensions, salaries in the public sector would be reduced, while Blaž Brodnjak would have more money. He wished the coalition good luck. #referendum #politika #upokojenci (translated)

Ida Gabrielsson wrote that the Left Party, unlike most other parties on the red-green side, had not campaigned primarily with the message of saying no to the Sweden Democrats (SD). According to her, the party had not repeatedly talked about an SD government, presented proposals for twelve SD ministers whom she described as more or less uncouth, or warned that Jimmie Åkesson could become prime minister. She wrote that the Left Party also believed that SD was wrong, but that voters needed to know what policies they were voting for. Gabrielsson thought that the negative campaigns and the political representatives' approach to each other had made it confusing to distinguish between SD and the other Tidö parties. She emphasized that the rhetoric had come from, among others, Ebba Busch, Simona Mohamsson, and moderate ministers, and that the politics had been presented jointly. According to Gabrielsson, the Left Party had therefore primarily focused on the policies it wanted to change. A campaign solely against SD risked, she wrote, appearing to target a group of people and giving someone the opportunity to adopt a victim role. She also believed it was contradictory to claim to be able to collaborate with everyone except SD, or preferably with the Tidö parties without SD, while campaigning on a different policy. Gabrielsson wrote that the Left Party had campaigned on its own policies and with Magdalena Andersson as a candidate for prime minister, well anchored in the red-green side. Therefore, according to her, the Left Party should not have to settle for having achieved a no to SD. #politik #Val2024 #rödgröna (translated)

Furkan Yildirim wrote that the US Treasury could auction fewer long-term government bonds as early as November and possibly discontinue the 20-year term altogether. According to Yildirim, Citigroup expects Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent to announce a $3 billion reduction in auctions for 20- and 30-year bonds each on November 4. The financing gap is to be closed with government securities maturing within a year at the latest. The department may also ask large banks next week whether pension funds now prefer bonds from Amazon, Meta, and Alphabet to those of the state. The 20-year bond was reintroduced in 2020 after a 34-year hiatus and now offers nearly 5.7 percent interest, more than any other US maturity. At the end of 2020, its yield was just under 1.5 percent. At the same time, Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, Microsoft, Oracle, and SpaceX had already issued dollar bonds amounting to more than $180 billion in 2026; according to Yildirim, Amazon's bonds extend to 2076. According to asset manager TwentyFour, which Yildirim cited, Japanese investors are now receiving enough interest at home to invest their money there. Citi strategist Jason Williams wrote that pension funds may currently be more inclined than usual to invest in long-term corporate bonds of good quality. However, BNP Paribas strategists doubted that smaller auctions would reduce the government's financing costs. Yildirim also pointed out that the yield on 10-year US bonds serves as a basis for mortgages and many other loans, and Bessent had referred to it as an important measure of his success. With an annual deficit of nearly $2 trillion, the debt burden continues to grow as competition for long-term buyers increases. #Finanzen #Anleihen #Wirtschaft (translated)

The Frankfurt Book Fair 2026 celebrated the Iranian-born author Shida Bazyar and her novel "The Gaps," which was awarded the German Book Prize, while the event reflected on topics such as social exclusion and current political developments. #DeutscherBuchpreis #FrankfurterBuchmesse #ShidaBazyar (translated)

Ansgar Schledde explained that in the local elections in the Hannover region, more than 3,000 outer ballot envelopes were opened prematurely in 14 out of 20 surrounding municipalities. He regarded this as a systematic violation of §59 of the Lower Saxony Municipal Election Code. The envelopes should have remained unopened and sealed; instead, ballots with the names and addresses of the voters became visible and were repackaged. The votes were then counted without verification, Schledde wrote. The procedure was ordered by the regional election office via email and was only stopped by the state election director four days before the election. Interior Minister Daniela Behrens (SPD) commented cautiously on the incident; supposedly, no impact on the election result was to be expected, criticized Schledde. He supported the objection of Bundestag member Dirk Brandes and announced a complete clarification as well as a legal examination. For the state elections in 2027, postal voting documents must be designed to prevent manipulation, and the rules must be adhered to. Those who violate the election regulations must face consequences, Schledde wrote. https://t.co/uzZye3DAPi #Wahlen #Demokratie #Niedersachsen (translated)

Elina Mpounia wrote shortly after the rescue of a kitten from Liosion that two young people, Nikos and Marina, asked for directions to save it instead of asking her to take the animal. She mentioned that they succeeded and that the kitten was named Lucky. She also said that she focused on its gaze and described Nikos and Marina as wonderful. https://t.co/PnoJVcSGbC #διάσωση #γατάκι #κατοικίδια (translated)

"Just the suspicion that a former BND chief sold secrets is damaging to trust in our security authorities." The allegations must be clarified without gaps, said Union parliamentary deputy Günter Krings (CDU) to the Rheinische Post. #Geheimdienst #Sicherheitspolitik #Spionage (translated)

The Art of Uncertainty: How to Navigate Chance, Ignorance, Risk and Luck by David Spiegelhalter From the UK’s ‘statistical national treasure’, a clever and data-driven guide to how we can live with risk and uncertainty Life is uncertain. We are all the result of an unforeseen and unforeseeable sequence of small occurrences. But what underlies this fragile chain of events? Is it random or just complex? And what role does luck play in our lives? David Spiegelhalter has spent his career crunching data in order to help understand uncertainty and assess the chances of what might happen. In The Art of Uncertainty, he gives readers a window onto how we can all do this better. Uncertainty, he argues, is a relationship between the observer and an object in the outside world. He shows us how we can express it numerically, and then update our beliefs about the future in the face of constantly changing experience. In crystal-clear prose, he takes us through the principles of probability, a field that informs everything from annuities to pandemics and climate change, while also examining the limitations of statistical modelling and arguing we need to have the humility to admit our ignorance. Drawing on a wide range of real-world examples, this is an essential guide to navigating uncertainty in a world that makes it inevitable.

"God, luck, and Viktor Orbán certainly played a role in getting me to where I am today, but I never privatized anything, I never stole anything—I earned everything through my work and my wits," In a 2014 interview, Lőrinc Mészáros spoke about how his longtime friendship with Viktor Orbán played a role in him becoming wealthy. #Mészáros #Fidesz #ViktorOrbán (translated)

Shida Bazyar receives the German Book Prize 2026 for her novel "The Gaps," in which she addresses the Nazi history of her birthplace in the Hunsrück and thereby tackles current societal issues such as antisemitism and racism. #DeutscherBuchpreis #ShidaBazyar #DieLücken (translated)

Tobias Ulbrich wrote on October 5, 2026, that the Cologne Higher Regional Court announced in three appeal proceedings against Moderna that it would overturn the first-instance judgments of the Cologne and Bonn District Courts due to serious procedural errors and remit the cases. This marked the first time that proceedings against Moderna were held in North Rhine-Westphalia; previously, there had been proceedings against AstraZeneca or BioNTech there. According to Ulbrich, the procedural errors mainly concerned the assessment of a negative benefit-risk ratio. He stated that the courts should not have used an evaluation by the CHMP based on data from the defendant as an expert opinion; this was to be criticized according to the case law of the Federal Court of Justice. The lawsuits had been sufficiently coherently presented. For a claim for information, it was not necessary to submit all findings and patient records without gaps; it was sufficient to provide facts from which the significance of the evidence could be derived. Also regarding the claim for information, the plaintiffs reportedly made sufficiently plausible statements, according to Ulbrich. The opposing party was given until October 26, 2026, to explain why the Senate should not annul and remit the case itself but rather decide on the claim for information. The announcement of the decisions was scheduled for November 16, 2026. The case numbers were 5 U 75/25, 5 U 62/25, and 5 U 67/25. Ulbrich included a report on one of the three preliminary proceedings before the Bonn District Court. https://t.co/H1KXCDNJBf #Impfgeschädigte #Rechtsprechung #Moderna (translated)

The author asked whether joint debts would be incurred for this purpose, whether the funding gap would be covered by the EU budget or directly by the EU member states, or whether other funders like the UK and Canada would be involved. #EUSchulden #EUHaushalt #Finanzierung #UK #CA (translated)