Recent elections produced good results for pro-EU parties, but one of the areas in need of attention is the selection process for president of the Commission, writes billionaire lobbyist George Soros

OK, maybe the Green wave ended up lapping gently against the shore and didn’t sweep away all before it.

Hungary’s Viktor Orbán visits the White House today, but Donald Trump will try to cut an arms deal with him, not promote democracy, say Anne-Marie Slaughter and Melissa Hooper.

The dark side of internet technology in general and Facebook — which now owns WhatsApp and Instagram — in particular have been among the many problems governments have wrestled with throughout 2018. They remain unresolved as we welcome the new year. Like the hydrogen bomb, the technology cannot be uninvented, yet legislatures around the free world struggle to find ways to curtail its destructive power.

The biggest danger we face is not a straightforward revival of fascism, but rather a creeping shift in traditional conservatism towards the extreme populist right, says Michael Burleigh.

So here we are, the in-between days. The demilitarised zone between the turkey and the New Year bells is the essence of Christmas.

The electorate has the chance to break the Republicans’ lock on government in possibly the most consequential midterm elections in US history, writes Elizabeth Drew AHEAD of this week’s US midterm elections, domestic

The discovery came after a series of glass-filled pipe bombs targeted Hillary Clinton, former president Barack Obama and other prominent Democrats.

Robert Mercer and his daughter were key players in Trump’s victory. But they will find a repeat performance difficult, writes Bette Browne

Slovakia's Prime Minister Robert Fico has accused the country's president of destabilising the nation after the killings of an investigative journalist and his fiancee.

The US foundation which awarded funding to Amnesty Ireland for its campaign against Ireland’s abortion laws has taken issue with the State ethics watchdog’s claims that it had said the money was for “political purposes”.

The head of Amnesty Ireland has said if the human rights organisation is breaking the law by accepting donations from foreign philanthropic organisations, then “so is the Irish Government”.

Memories of the day when the blue-chip stock index was undone by panic to trigger a record Dow Jones Industrial Average plunge of 508 points, equal to a 22.6% drop, stands as a stark reminder that no market is crash-proof.

The title of novelist Edna O’Brien’s 1965 book, August Is A Wicked Month, may carry more than a little relevance for nervous investors around the world this year.

George Soros says Europe is facing an existential crisis that goes far beyond Brexit and must reinvent itself to generate the buy-in from states and citizens to hold it together.

Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán has pursued control by varied and ruthless means — breaching EU law and his citizens’ rights. EU states have to do more than finger wag, writes Guy Verhofstadt

A group campaigning for the repeal of the constitutional amendment that prohibits abortion has confirmed it returned funding it received from an international organisation following correspondence with the ethics watchdog.

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Good afternoon. Here’s all the news you need to know this lunchtime.

European leaders should recognise their own mistakes and acknowledge the democratic deficit in the current EU arrangements, writes George Soros

Britain’s decision to leave the EU has “unleashed” a crisis in financial markets similar to the global financial crisis of 2007 and 2008, George Soros told the European Parliament in Brussels.

While analysts and traders from New York to London bet that gold will go higher, veteran investor Jim Rogers would rather seek haven in the dollar as the UK’s vote to leave the EU roils global markets.

Today’s Brexit vote is hugely important for Irish exporters and will set the scene for major shifts in the way business will be conducted not just with the UK but right across Ireland’s trading spectrum.

Billionaire currency trader George Soros has warned that a vote to leave the EU will trigger a plunge in the British pound greater than Black Wednesday but without the benefits seen after the crisis that made him a fortune.

As stock markets climb around the world, Chinese traders aren’t celebrating.

Rather than scraping together insufficient funds year after year to deal with the refugee crisis, it is time to engage in ‘surge funding’, writes George Soros    

George Soros says Russian President Vladimir Putin is out to to foster disintegration of the EU by flooding it with Syrian refugees fleeing his bombing campaign

The corporate and financial elite have ended their annual love fest in Davos, the Swiss ski resort.

Billionaire investor George Soros said Donald Trump is playing into the hands of terrorists by creating fear of Muslims in an effort to get elected.

Chris Stone writes that the right to public protest is just one area in which autocratic regimes are limiting the right to free expression.

There’s no respite for sterling.

The influx of people was predictable and manageable, and a co-ordinated response would resolve it, but individual nations are putting their own needs first, says Emma Bonino

Central Bank governor, Patrick Honohan has called for a strengthening of Irish law in order to better deal with reckless bankers and financial directors.

Ukraine is teetering on the edge of an abyss and Russia is expanding its influence while the EU dithers, writes George Soros

While Dr Kevin McCarthy puts recent acts of anti- Jewish prejudice down to “a reflexive action from a cohort that wants to denigrate their fellow human beings ..... in their limited, and limiting, worldview”, he is in denial about the link between this increase in prejudice and Israel’s wanton human rights abuses, as most shamefully shown in the recent assault on Gaza.

Italy’s steps to transform its real estate investment trust industry mirror changes made by Spain that helped attract foreign investors including Bill Gross and George Soros.

Hedge fund mogul David Tepper had a case of deja vu when he ranked as the best paid hedge fund manager for the second year running by earning $3.5bn (€2.5bn) in 2013 with a savvy bet on airline stocks.

Billionaire investor George Soros has warned that the eurozone faces a 25-year deflationary slump if the banking problem is not sorted.

Uruguay’s Senate has approved the world’s first national marketplace for legal marijuana – an audacious and risky experiment that puts the government in charge of growing, selling and using a drug that is illegal almost everywhere else.