The Lure of St. Moritz - From Sleepy Mountain Village to Luxury Resort | DW Documentary

May 9, 2026 | St. Moritz is the birthplace of alpine winter tourism, as well of many winter sports. The village, with its magnificent location in the Swiss Engadin mountains, was already attracting celebrities in the last century.

St. Moritz is one of the most exclusive winter sports resorts in the world, with a burnished history. Located in the picturesque Swiss Engadin mountains, the village attracted many celebrities in the last century: including Charlie Chaplin, Audrey Hepburn, Brigitte Bardot, Gunter Sachs, Andy Warhol and Herbert von Karajan. Coco Chanel sought refuge here, during the war. Alfred Hitchcock was inspired to write his first classic in one of St. Moritz’s grand hotels, and returned many times over the decades. The Shah of Persia temporarily ruled his empire from a chalet on the Suvretta slope.

Just 150 years ago, St. Moritz was still a simple mountain village. Then, adventurous Englishmen arrived, invented new winter sports and laid the foundation for the town's fame.

Five-star hotels sprang up in the village of 5,000 inhabitants, which suddenly became a winter hotspot for the rich and famous.

Numerous winter sports originated here, some of which are unique to this location: in Cresta, participants race headfirst down into the valley on low sleds - on the longest natural ice track in the world. The Cresta Club, founded over 100 years ago by Englishmen, is still one of the most exclusive clubs in the world.

In skijoring, skiers are pulled across the frozen Lake St. Moritz by horses. Winter sports, tradition and sophisticated lifestyle, luxury and cosmopolitanism characterize the history of St. Moritz.

Mass Layoffs in Iran as Businesses Buckle Under Wartime Pressures

THE NEW YORK TIMES: Iran was already struggling economically before 2026 brought widespread instability. A government-imposed internet shutdown has crippled an entire sector.

In mid-March, Babak, a 49-year-old Iranian product designer at a tech company in Tehran, was called into his boss’s office and told that his position was being eliminated.

Iran’s government had shut down the internet two weeks earlier, at the outset of U.S.-Israeli war on the country, throwing the country’s tech industry into chaos and making Babak’s job impossible.

“Throughout my career, I have worked hard, continuously learned, and tried to grow,” said Babak, who sent voice messages to The New York Times, and asked to be identified only by his first name to avoid government reprisal. “Yet at this stage of my life, I find myself in an uncertain and ambiguous position,” he said.

Babak’s experience has become increasingly common throughout Iran as companies have instituted round after round of layoffs in recent weeks, according to interviews with businesses and employees and Iranian news reports.

For the Trump administration, Iran’s severe economic struggles are part of a strategy to pressure the country into submission. “I hope it fails,” President Trump told reporters this month, of Iran’s economy. “You know why? Because I want to win.” Iranian officials insist that pressure will not work and that the country will not surrender. » | Leily Nikounazar. Photographs by Arash Khamooshi | Sunday, May 10, 2026

There is one quick, sure-fire solution to this tragedy: Remove the worst, cruellest, most egocentric president ever from office, and imprison him! That will stop all this suffering. — © Mark Alexander

Saudi Arabia Is Lifting the Alcohol Ban for Wealthy Foreigners

BBC: Saudi Arabia has quietly started to allow wealthy foreign residents to buy alcohol, a huge change after a 73-year ban. Commentators expect that the relaxation will eventually be extended to tourists, as Sameer Hashmi reports from Riyadh.

For decades, Riyadh's Diplomatic Quarter has stood apart from the rest of the capital city – an affluent enclave of embassies and upscale residences, with shaded walkways, greenery and a café culture that draws young Saudis and expatriates alike.

Now, tucked inside a discreet, unmarked beige complex within the exclusive neighbourhood, a small store has become a discrete testing ground for one of Saudi Arabia's most sensitive policy shifts – the controlled sale of alcohol to wealthy non-Muslim foreigners.

Saudi Arabia, home to Islam's two holiest sites, banned the sale of alcohol in 1952. But as part of a broader effort to reshape its image, the kingdom has rolled out sweeping social and economic reforms in recent years, presenting itself as a more moderate and investment-friendly society.

Under the leadership of crown prince Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Arabia's de facto ruler, the kingdom has reopened cinemas, hosted major music festivals, lifted the ban on women driving, and curtailed the powers of the once-feared religious police.

But the quiet expansion of legal alcohol sales is arguably the boldest experiment yet.

The liquor shop first opened in Riyadh in January 2024, but entry was initially restricted to non-Muslim diplomats. Under new rules introduced without announcement at the end of 2025, wealthy, non-Muslim foreign residents can now also go there to purchase beer, wine and spirits.

To be eligible, an expat must either hold a Premium Residency permit, which costs 100,000 Saudi riyals ($27,000; £19,300) a year; or show that he or she earns at least 50,000 riyals per month.

The Premium Residency scheme has varying eligibility criteria, and is typically open to senior foreign executives, investors, and professionals with specialised skills.

In both the case of permit holders and those without, they will have to show their residence ID card to security guards at the door. This details their religion and residency status. » | Sameer Hashmi | Thursday, February 5, 2026

Iran-Krieg leert weltweite Ölreserven in Rekordtempo

BERLINER ZEITUNG: Wie lange reichen die Vorräte noch, bevor an den Zapfsäulen und Flughäfen das Öl knapp wird? US-Analysten nennen konkrete Termine.

Der Iran-Krieg lässt die globalen Ölvorräte nach einem Bericht des Finanzdienstes Bloomberg so schnell schrumpfen wie nie zuvor. Die weltweiten Ölbestände seien zwischen dem 1. März und dem 25. April um rund 4,8 Millionen Barrel pro Tag gesunken, berichtete Bloomberg unter Berufung auf Schätzungen der US-Bank Morgan Stanley.

Das sei der stärkste Quartalsrückgang in den Daten der Internationalen Energieagentur (IEA). Rohöl mache knapp 60 Prozent des Rückgangs aus, raffinierte Kraftstoffe den Rest. Hintergrund ist die seit zwei Monaten weitgehend blockierte Straße von Hormus, durch die ein Großteil der Lieferungen aus dem Persischen Golf fließt. In mehreren asiatischen Staaten könnten demnach bereits in wenigen Wochen kritische Versorgungsengpässe auftreten. » | Sophie Barkey | Sonntag, 10. Mai 2026

Rob Groves: Reform UK, Bringing the USA’s Project 2025 to Britain

May 9, 2026 | Nigel Farage's Reform UK had a big night at the local elections this week. But before anyone hands them the keys to Westminster, here's what a year of Reform UK in power actually looks like. Broken promises on council tax. Rising pothole complaints. Care home closures. Racist and homophobic candidates slipping through their supposedly world-class vetting process. Untraceable crypto donations. And deep, documented ties to Trump's Project 2025, Viktor Orbán's Hungary, and the American far right's CPAC network. Reform UK is a franchise operation, and the head office is in Washington DC.

Excellent synopsis. Reform UK is a motley bunch of frauds. It is to be hoped that they never get anywhere near the actual levers of power. — © Mark Alexander

Michael Lambert: Why Reform UK Won't Take Power Despite Farage's Rise

May 9, 2026 | As expected, Reform UK under Nigel Farage has triumphed in this week's local elections, but it will not win a general election, and Farage will never become Prime Minister.

In this video, I explain why. Many of the votes cast for Reform UK were protest votes from disaffected Labour and Conservative voters. Many are likely to vote differently in a general election.

In this video, I highlight some of the content of the party’s manifesto, or 'Contract with the People', much of which is clearly unachievable as confirmed by the Institute of Fiscal Studies.

Policies include massive tax reductions and reducing the NHS waiting list from 7.25 million to zero in two years.

I also quote details of some of the many Reform UK councillors who have appeared in the press for various offences such as racism and hate speech.

Finally, I comment on the most prominent members of Reform UK, such as Lee Anderson, Suella Braverman, Zia Yusuf, Richard Tice, Robert Jenrick, Nadhim Zahawi and Nigel Farage who acccepted a gift of £5 million from a crypto currency millionaire living in Thailand, and how Farage now promotes crypto currency.


Excellent synopsis. I laughed more listening to this video by Michael Lambert than usual. It’s his droll humour that dies it! 😊 Reform UK are such a motley bunch anyway, yet they all have several things in common, namely dishonesty, racism, fantasy, a love of Trump, and a hatred of the European Union. (I’m sure there are other characteristics which haven’t immediately sprung to mind.)

I hope Michael is right about the Party never coming to power. It would be a disaster.

Bottom line: I understand people’s protest votes; but I do not understand how so many people could possibly vote for a man who is the ultimate source of all that ails the country and its economy. — © Mark Alexander

Au Royaume-Uni, Keir Starmer fragilisé après la cuisante défaite des travaillistes face au parti de Nigel Farage

LE FIGARO : Le premier ministre exclut de démissionner, même si le Labour a subi de lourds revers dans ces élections locales qui avaient valeur de test et confirment la fragmentation du paysage politique britannique.

Les pertes sont lourdes, très lourdes même, mais le premier ministre britannique entend rester au front. Keir Starmer a promis de poursuivre le combat, afin de tenir sa promesse d’apporter le « changement » en Grande-Bretagne, malgré les revers subis par son parti aux élections locales. Mais il apparaît de plus en plus fragilisé, alors que le grand vainqueur du scrutin, le parti Reform UK de Nigel Farage, a souvent laminé les travaillistes dans leurs fiefs traditionnels.

Ces résultats du Labour pourraient être les pires jamais obtenus par un parti aux élections locales depuis le début du siècle. Le parti au pouvoir pourrait perdre quelque 1200 sièges en Angleterre, un résultat qui se rapproche des prévisions les plus pessimistes. En moyenne, le vote travailliste a chuté de 16 points par rapport à 2022, et même de 19 points par rapport à 2024. Cette baisse est particulièrement marquée dans les bastions du parti du centre et du nord de l’Angleterre ainsi que dans les quartiers à forte population musulmane. Plus de 5 000 sièges d’élus locaux étaient en jeu en Angleterre tandis que des scrutins renouvelaient les parlements gallois et écossais. La perte du contrôle du Pays de Galles pourrait être un revers historique. » | Par Arnaud De La Grange | vendredi 8 mai 2026

Réservé aux abonnés

Ces résultats ne devraient surprendre personne. C'était un désastre annoncé. Keir Starmer semble ignorer l'essence même de la mentalité britannique, du mode de vie britannique. De ce fait, sa politique autoritaire ne reflète pas les aspirations de l'électorat. Si Starmer veut redresser la barre, il doit abandonner sans délai toutes ses politiques absurdes et intrusives, et surtout, il doit relancer une économie atone. Et ce, de toute urgence ! — © Mark Alexander

Preisschock bei den MAGA Trumpisten: Warum US Energieunabhängigkeit ein Mythos ist

May 7, 2026

U.A.E. Expels Pakistani Workers, as Pakistan’s Peacemaking Creates a Rift

THE NEW YORK TIMES: As Pakistan mediates between the U.S. and Iran, its ties to the Emirates have deteriorated. Pakistani workers say they are now being sent home en masse.

Pakistan has been trying to help end the war in Iran, but that effort is now creating problems with one of its longtime partners, the United Arab Emirates.

The rich Persian Gulf country has started a large-scale expulsion of Pakistani workers, threatening to cut off a vital source of jobs for Pakistan.

The Emirates appears to be upset that Pakistan has not condemned Iranian strikes on the Emirates more forcefully while it is trying broker a peace deal between the United States and Iran. The Emirates has borne the brunt of those attacks and has been hit by thousands of Iranian missiles and drones strikes.

The New York Times interviewed more than 20 Pakistani Shiites who worked in the Emirates as employees of Emirati companies. All said they were suddenly arrested, detained and deported in the past month.

Eight people with businesses based in the Emirates said their Pakistani employees had been deported in recent weeks.

Shiite religious leaders in Pakistan estimate as many as thousands of Shiite Pakistanis have been deported from the Emirates since mid-April. Pakistan’s 35 million Shiites, who have deep spiritual ties to Iran, have often faced sectarian violence in Pakistan, where the majority of people are Sunni Muslims.

The reasons for the expulsions are unclear, and both countries claim their ties are strong. » | Elian Peltier, Zia ur-Rehman and Vivian Nereim | Elian Peltier reported from Islamabad, Pakistan; Zia ur-Rehman from Kohat District in the country’s northwest, and Vivian Nereim from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. | Friday, May 8, 2026

Putin Is Facing Growing Disenchantment among Russian Elites | Mark Galeotti

May 7, 2026 | “There is a sense that he’s really lost touch with the country.”

There is a “growing disenchantment among the Russian elites” with Putin’s war on Ukraine, says historian and director of Mayak Intelligence Mark Galeotti.

Stocks Are Exuberant. Bonds Are Subdued. Why the Divergence?

THE NEW YORK TIMES: Stock investors are betting that companies will make enormous profits, despite the war. But investors in bonds, including U.S. Treasuries, have other concerns.

The U.S. stock market has been splendid lately, while the bond market has wobbled. These two barometers of the global financial world have responded quite differently to the higher oil prices and increased economic risks induced by the war in Iran.

After a rough stretch in March, the U.S. stock market has regularly shrugged off risk — not only recovering its losses since the start of the war but going on to new highs, as investors bet that publicly traded U.S. companies would keep reaping enormous profits, regardless of what happened in the war.

Other international stock markets, which had performed marvelously before the war and took heavy losses in March, have also rebounded stoutly. International stock markets overall are ahead of the U.S. stock market since the start of the year.

But the bond market is another matter. Bond traders have maintained a much sharper focus on risk. Yields remain correlated with shifts in the price of oil. As oil prices have spiked and inflation has risen, yields have risen and bond prices, which move in the opposite direction, have fallen. » | Jeff Sommer | eff Sommer writes Strategies, a weekly column on markets, finance and the economy. | Thursday, May 7, 2026

As U.S. Debt Hits a Worrying Milestone, Washington Barely Notices

THE NEW YORK TIMES: The debt is outgrowing the size of America’s economy. The president’s policies could accelerate the country’s fiscal headaches, experts say, unless policymakers intervene.

The U.S. government learned last week that it may have reached an unfortunate milestone: The size of its debt surpassed the nation’s total economic output.

It was a striking imbalance, according to early estimates, one that the country has experienced only in rare circumstances — briefly during the pandemic, and in the aftermath of World War II. But the development barely seemed to register in the nation’s capital, where few policymakers bothered to acknowledge the latest warning sign about the government’s poor fiscal health.

The root of the problem is well-documented and widely known. U.S. debt has soared in recent years because of a mismatch between federal spending and tax revenue, one complicated by a rapidly aging population, which has driven up costs across government.

For economists, the fear is that these conditions are inching the United States toward a fiscal crisis, one in which its debt is so great that the country can’t easily afford to pay the rising interest on it. But their warnings have long gone unheeded in Washington, calcifying the strains on the government’s balance sheet in ways that President Trump’s agenda is expected to exacerbate. » | Tony Romm | Reporting from Washington | Thursday, May 7, 2026

UAE’s Ruling Royal Family Benefits from More Than €71m in EU Farming Subsidies

THE GUARDIAN: Al Nahyans’ control over farmland in Europe has meant they receive proportion of payments to farms

This screenshot was taken from this Guardian article. | Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, leader of Abu Dhabi and president of the UAE, is at the helm of the Al Nahyan family. Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images
The United Arab Emirates’ ruling royal family is benefiting from tens of millions in EU subsidies to grow crops destined for the Gulf, it can be revealed.

A cross-border investigation by DeSmog and shared with the Guardian found subsidiaries controlled by the Al Nahyans collected more than €71m (£61m) in six years for farmland it controls in Romania, Italy and Spain.

The Al Nahyan family is the second richest in the world, with an estimated wealth of more than $320bn (£235bn), mostly derived from the Emirates’ vast oil reserves.

Subsidies under the common agricultural policy (Cap) make up a third of the EU’s entire budget, paying out about €54bn each year to farmers and rural areas across the bloc.

But an unknown proportion of this ends up in the hands of foreign investors – including those controlled by autocratic states. » | Clare Carlile | Thursday, May 7, 2026

Having a Big Family Is Now the Preserve of the Rich

THE TELEGRAPH: As Britain’s birth rate tumbles, having several children may be the new status symbol

Subtle signs of riches come in many forms: a fancy car, private club memberships and paying someone else to do your cooking and cleaning.

But as Britain’s birth rate keeps tumbling to new lows, the ultimate status symbol may be having several children.

Think of the Prince and Princess of Wales with their three children, the Beckhams with four, or even Baroness Morrissey, a financier, with nine.

In this economy, it is hard enough for many young people to entertain having one child, let alone two or three.

The Telegraph’s analysis of the Office for National Statistics’ Labour Force Survey shows that the higher your income, the more children you are likely to have. » | Eir Nolsøe Economics Correspondent. Ben Butcher Data Editor | May 6, 2026

The day that mothers decided that staying at home to do their motherly duties was worthless and insisted, instead, on going out to work to earn a living was the day that the death knell was sounded on traditional British culture and values, and it was also the harbinger of the downfall of the West. Fie on women’s liberation! I can think of nothing that has been more harmful to Western culture than so-called women’s liberation. The empowerment of women has meant the disempowerment of men. And this, to society’s detriment. — © Mark Alexander

Something Much Bigger Is Coming — and It Starts Here | Prof Jeffrey Sachs

May 4, 2026

Unspoken Diet Tricks Every 1950s Woman Knew (That Kept Them All Skinny)

Apr 28, 2026 | In 1961, Jean Wilson wore a 23-inch waist dress to her wedding in Dayton, Ohio. She wore the same dress to her daughter's wedding in 1989. Nobody in her household counted a single calorie the entire time.

These are the 10 diet habits that were ordinary in 1950s American kitchens - every one of them worked, every one was either abandoned or replaced with something you could buy and not one required a subscription, a food journal or anything called a "program".

Droits de douane : Emmanuel Macron déplore des « menaces de déstabilisation » de Donald Trump

LE FIGARO : Le président français a par ailleurs estimé que l’Europe devrait « activer » ses instruments anticoercition si les États-Unis taxaient les voitures importées.

Emmanuel Macron a déclaré ce mardi 5 mai qu’en cas d’application d’une surtaxe américaine de 25% sur les voitures importées depuis l’Union européenne, l’UE devrait « activer » ses instruments anticoercition, en déplorant des « menaces de déstabilisation ». « Je pense que dans la période géopolitique que nous vivons, des alliés comme les États-Unis d’Amérique et l’Union européenne ont bien mieux à faire que d’agiter des menaces de déstabilisation », a-t-il dit lors d’une conférence de presse à Erevan. » | Par Le Figaro avec AFP | mardi 5 mai 2026

Steve Rosenberg: Russian Parade Warning, Economic Worries: I Read Today's Russian Papers

May 5, 2026 | In this morning’s Russian newspapers: Moscow warns Kyiv not to target the Red Square parade; problems with Russian bonds, with “almost 25% of the bond market at risk of default”; and what a newspaper joke section is saying about the state of the Russian economy.

Democrats, Britain’s Prime Minister Is a Warning

Screenshot from this NYT Guest Essay. | Suzanne Plunkett/Reuters
THE NEW YORK TIMES — OPINION: In Democratic primaries across America, a familiar debate is playing out. Is it the time for a moderate or a maverick? Should the party be looking for someone to heal and stabilize a troubled country or someone to energize supporters, antagonize opponents — Republicans, big business, maybe even the Democratic establishment itself — and promise sweeping change?

Until recently, Britain seemed to offer moderate Democrats a clinching case. In 2024, after leading the Labour Party to a crushing victory over a reviled right-wing government, Keir Starmer was hailed as a centrist hero. He marginalized progressives in his own party, enticed Conservative politicians to switch sides and secured Labour’s largest majority since 1997. For the Democratic think tank Third Way, the takeaway from Mr. Starmer’s triumph was clear: “Centrism wins elections.”

That seems a long time ago now. Britain’s government is in the doldrums and Mr. Starmer has become one of its most unpopular leaders ever — with negative approval ratings on a par with the short-lived prime minister Liz Truss, a paragon of political failure. Reform U.K., a Trumpian anti-immigration party spearheaded by Nigel Farage, has led the polls since last April. And in recent months, Labour has also been overtaken on its left by a surging Green Party.

This week, it’s going to get worse. In local elections across the country, which are being treated as a referendum on Mr. Starmer’s leadership, Labour is headed for a historic wipeout. The leader once heralded as centrism’s shining future now survives on borrowed time. In many ways, his fall is a very British story. But the Democrats, casting about for an election strategy, should pay attention — for Mr. Starmer’s collapse was written into the nature of his victory. » | GUEST ESSAY by Samuel Earle | Mr. Earle is the author of “Tory Nation: The Dark Legacy of the World’s Most Successful Political Party.” He wrote from New York. | Tuesday, May 5, 2026

If joylessness is your thing, if freedoms mean little to you, if you are unconcerned about democratic freedoms, if you like your leaders colourless, if your children’s rights as they grow into adulthood mean little to you, if your are indifferent to their infantilization as adults, if you are insouciant about being imprisoned for writing the wrong thing on social media, if you like your leaders to have a tinge of authoritarianism about them, if you like them stern, then Starmer could well be your man, and he could well be a role model for Democrats in America to emulate . Good luck with that! — © Mark Alexander

Nigel Farage’s Golden Geese

Michael Lambert enlightens us on the details.