While earlier polls have pointed to near-certain victory for the opposition headed by Social Democrats leader Magdalena Andersson, the latest surveys show that the government of Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson, in office since 2022, may still win

International News via Reuters:

Sweden’s ruling right-wing bloc has narrowed the gap to the centre-left opposition ahead of a parliamentary election on September 13, according to an opinion poll released on Thursday, the second survey this week to indicate a close race.

While earlier polls have pointed to near-certain victory for the opposition headed by Social Democrats leader Magdalena Andersson, the latest surveys show that the government of Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson, in office since 2022, may still win.

Backing for the four centre-left parties was 50.6% in the Demoskop survey for dailies Aftonbladet and Svenska Dagbladet, while the three-party government and its support party, the anti-immigration Sweden Democrats, stood at 47.3%.

“The election is in no way decided yet. It is going to be close,” Andersson told reporters on Thursday.

The gap of 3.3 percentage points between left and right was the second-smallest of any Swedish opinion poll published this year and compares with a 5.8 point gap in Demoskop’s previous poll.

But the new poll still showed Kristersson’s junior coalition partner, the Liberals, firmly below parliament’s 4% threshold, at 2.8%. Taking that into account, the right would take 163 out of 345 parliamentary seats, well below 186 for the centre-left.

Professor Emeritus Jonas Hinnfors, a political scientist at Gothenburg University, said the Liberals appeared likely to miss the 4% limit on election day.

“If that is what’s going to happen in the actual election, I think it’s still likely that the current government and their support party, the Sweden Democrats, will lose the election,” he said.

Two weeks ago the centre-left held a 10 percentage point lead in a poll by a different agency, which political scientists at the time said was a near-insurmountable gap to bridge before election day.

Demoskop polled 1,998 voters between August 25 and September 1.

Reporting by Anna Ringstrom and Simon Johnson, and Louise Rasmussen in Copehagen, editing by Terje Solsvik

Police arrested two people suspected of throwing incendiary devices and causing a fire at a construction site at the headquarters of Rohde & Schwarz, whose products include radar systems to detect, track and jam drones

International News via Reuters:

Germany was investigating a suspected arson attack outside a defence firm in Munich on Thursday, days after two sabotage attempts on the power grid and a month after an airport drone attack that Berlin and its allies blamed on Russia.

Police arrested two people suspected of throwing incendiary devices and causing a fire at a construction site at the headquarters of Rohde & Schwarz, whose products include radar systems to detect, track and jam drones.

The suspects, a 28-year-old woman and a 38-year-old man, both Bulgarian, were arrested at a nearby petrol station, police in the state of Bavaria said. The fire caused no significant damage and no one was injured, according to officials. Rohde & Schwarz confirmed a police and fire brigade operation near its premises. Bulgarian Interior Minister Ivan Demerdzhiev promised cooperation but declined to give details.

Germany has been the focus of European fears about the vulnerability of critical infrastructure this week.

Allies rallied round after Germany blamed a drone attack in August at Leipzig/Halle airport on Moscow as part of hybrid warfare meant to intimidate and divide countries that have supported Ukraine since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022.

GERMANY ON ALERT AFTER ATTEMPTS TO ATTACK POWER GRID

While investigations continue and the European Union weighs more sanctions, Russia strongly denies involvement and on Thursday said it would close Germany’s Goethe-Institut cultural centres, reciprocating similar moves from Berlin. Poland and Britain summoned Russian diplomats, as other European allies had.

German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul welcomed an “impressive display of solidarity” ad he met Polish and French counterparts, adding: “I believe that its impact has not gone unnoticed in Moscow, either.”

This week, police investigated two attempts to sabotage the electricity grid within 24 hours in the states of Brandenburg and North Rhine-Westphalia.

The authorities have said they cannot rule out either foreign involvement or domestic left-wing extremists. Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt has said foreign powers could also use extremist groups as proxies for sabotage operations.

On Sunday, a closely-watched election takes place in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt, where the far-right, Russia-friendly Alternative for Germany (AfD) holds a commanding lead in surveys.

At the meeting with Wadephul in Weimar, Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski said Warsaw had summoned the Russian ambassador to express a “strong condemnation of Russian state terrorism”.

In Germany’s northern neighbour Denmark, the national security and intelligence service PET said Russia was recruiting Danish citizens to help plan sabotage against Danish defence firms with ties to Ukraine.

The PET has uncovered examples of Russia trying to recruit Danes on social media and gaming platforms for tasks such as taking photos of companies or infrastructure that could be used in planning sabotage, a statement said.

German investigators are also still pursuing leads in Poland and Serbia related to the Leipzig drone attack, the Spiegel magazine reported on Thursday, citing security sources.

One suspect was linked to another act of sabotage at a hardware store in Lodz, Poland, in July 2024, Spiegel reported.

Investigators are also examining links between the Leipzig attack and the discovery of a drone and explosives at the Serbian-Hungarian border, Spiegel said.

The Federal Criminal Office did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment. A court in the Serbian city of Subotica said proceedings were under way against two suspects.

Additional reporting by Ludwig Burger, Alan Charlish, Pawel Florkiewicz, Aleksandar Vasovic, Cian Muenster, Jacob Gronholt-Pedersen, Alistair Smout, Alex Lefkowitz; Writing by Friederike Heine and Matthias Williams; editing by Andrew Heavens and Kevin Liffey

The cuts will flatten management layers, reducing organizational complexity that was built during a period of rapid growth but is now proving a hurdle to decision-making

International News via Reuters:

Uber Technologies will lay off about 3,300 employees, or 10% of staff, in its largest cuts since the COVID-19 pandemic, to better navigate the rise of robotaxis encroaching on its ride-hailing business.

The cuts will flatten management layers, reducing organizational complexity that was built during a period of rapid growth but is now proving a hurdle to decision-making, CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said in a note to employees on Wednesday.

Unlike several tech executives, Khosrowshahi did not blame the cuts on AI even as a push to adopt the technology and the efficiencies it can unlock have driven large cuts in the industry this year, with tracking website layoffs.fyi putting the overall number at over 123,000 across nearly 390 companies.

“A leaner organization will mean clearer ownership, faster decisions, and more time spent building rather than coordinating. It will also generate savings that we intend to reinvest in growth, innovation, and the capabilities that will matter most over the coming years,” Khosrowshahi said.

Uber shares rose nearly 2%. The stock has underperformed the S&P 500 and rival Lyft this year with a near 8% decline driven by worries about growing competition.

DoorDash, Instacart and local delivery platforms have been putting pressure on Uber Eats, forcing the company to turn to deals such as its $14.8 billion Delivery Hero acquisition to build scale and compete better.

GROWING ROBOTAXI COMPETITION

Some of the concern stems from reports of growing tension between Uber and Waymo, the biggest U.S. robotaxi operator, which runs its cars through Uber’s app in Austin and Atlanta.

Waymo has also been expanding into new markets without Uber, while rivals such as Tesla double down on robotaxis, feeding fears that a growing fleet of driverless cars could erode Uber’s lucrative role as the middleman between vehicles and riders.

To defend its position, Uber plans to put more than $10 billion into robotaxis in the coming years, backing the companies developing autonomous-driving systems and positioning itself as a go-to marketplace for driverless rides.

“As AV tech and relationships grow and expand – there is a different type of employee needed to scale that business than one built around human drivers and all the cost to serve entailed with that, including management layers,” said Adam Ballantyne, analyst at Uber shareholder Cambiar Investors.

As part of Wednesday’s overhaul, Uber will reduce the number of employees positioned seven or more reporting layers below the CEO by 20% and cut the number of teams with only one or two direct reports by nearly half. It will also combine some teams and concentrate much of its staff presence around key hubs.

It will also limit fully remote roles to about 1% of staff, while maintaining its three-day office policy.

The layoffs, first reported by Bloomberg News, are Uber’s largest since May 2020, when a pandemic-driven demand collapse forced it to shed 6,700 jobs, or nearly a quarter of its staff.

The company is also grappling with AI costs after employees used up their entire 2026 budget for the technology in just four months, according to media reports.

Uber had about 34,000 employees globally at the end of last year, according to its annual report.

Reporting by Akash Sriram and Aditya Soni in Bengaluru; Editing by Devika Syamnath