Palestinian Reconciliation: Will Fatah, Hamas agreement succeed?

Four weeks before the Bundestag election, Angela Merkel's rival center-left party is seeing a rise in public support. The three leading candidates for chancellor are set to square off on live TV on Sunday evening.

This week in Africa, elite soldiers over throw the government of Guinea's President Alpha Conde. The Islamist party which ruled Morocco for ten years suffers a crushing defeat in elections. South Africa's ex-president wins an early release from prison on health grounds, and farmers in central Nigeria flee conflict, with disastrous consequences for crops and food prices.

The two politicians come from opposite sides of the country but the same party: the Greens. One of the candidates said it was "historic" and another proclaimed it was "madness!"

The elections, which took place amid a widespread election boycott by anti-government activists, didn't generate much enthusiasm among Iraq's young population.

The first session of the Bundestag's 20th legislative period has begun with the traditional gong, signaling that the largest and most diverse German parliament in history may finally convene.

Here are a few reasons to pick up a copy of The Guardian on Thursday. Find these stories and much more when you grab a copy of The Guardian on Thursday. ⁣

The world's richest man sold about 900,000 shares of his company Tesla after asking Twitter followers whether he should sell 10% of his stocks. But documents showed the sale was put in motion much before the poll.

Prime Minister Viktor Orban declared victory in Hungary's parliamentary election after partial results showed his ruling Fidesz party is comfortably ahead of their opposition rivals.

The Geneva-based Swiss newspaper Le Temps has issued a denial via one of its editors on Twitter, saying that a poll conducted in its name was not in reality ordered by the paper at all. The results of the bogus poll on the French presidential election showed that Emmanuel Macron would not make it into the second round and that far-right candidate Eric Zemmour would comfortably defeat far-left candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon in the run-off. All other polls show Macron being narrowly re-elected. We tell you more in this edition of Truth or Fake.

The Geneva-based Swiss newspaper Le Temps has issued a denial via one of its editors on Twitter, saying that a poll conducted in its name was not in reality ordered by the paper at all. The results of the bogus poll on the French presidential election showed that Emmanuel Macron would not make it into the second round and that far-right candidate Eric Zemmour would comfortably defeat far-left candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon in the run-off. All other polls show Macron being narrowly re-elected. We tell you more in this edition of Truth or Fake.

QOTMII is an app that detects online buzz through an AI system using millions of calculations scanning online media and social media. In the past, it has accurately assessed the outcome of presidential elections in France and the US. French far-right candidate Eric Zemmour used data assembled by QOTMII indicating that he could reach the second round of France's presidential election and presented it to supporters as a favourable poll. We tell you more in this edition of Truth or Fake.

On May 15, parliamentary elections will take place nationwide in Lebanon. The Lebanese diaspora, estimated to be double the size of the domestic population, already cast their ballots last week. Around 60 percent of people across 58 countries turned out, slightly more than in 2018. We bring you a special edition of Middle East Matters on Lebanon's first elections since the mass protests of 2019.