Painting was spotted online by Dutch journalists when the daughter of a former Nazi official put her house up for sale in Mar del Plata. There was nothing very remarkable about the middle-aged couple who lived in the low, stone-clad villa on calle Padre Cardiel, a quiet residential street in...
The French government is on the brink – and Le Pen is the only winner
François Bayrou may have thought it was a smart pre-emptive move to call a parliamentary vote of confidence in his minority government ahead of a planned national protest day on 10 September and the start of a fraught parliamentary budget season.Determined not to meet the same fate as his predecessor...
Largest Russian air attack of war sets fire to Ukrainian cabinet building and kills three
Unclear if fire at main Ukrainian government building the result of a direct strike or falling debris Russia’s largest overnight air attack of the war has set the main building of the Ukrainian government in Kyiv on fire and left three people dead, including an infant, Ukrainian officials said on...
Pentagon plan prioritizes homeland over China threat
This marks a major departure from the first Trump administration, which emphasized deterring Beijing. Pentagon officials are proposing the department prioritize protecting the homeland and Western Hemisphere, a striking reversal from the military’s yearslong mandate to focus on the threat from China. A draft of the newest National Defense Strategy,...
What the US-EU $40 Billion Chip Deal Means
The transatlantic trade deal promises $40 billion in European purchases of American artificial intelligence chips. Significant gaps remain. At first glance, this looks like a breakthrough: a transatlantic alignment on AI chips, the foundational technology for models, systems, and agents. It projects the image of cooperation in a landscape otherwise...
Xi, Putin, Kim and the optics of a new world order
Waving over the crowd of 50,000 spectators assembled in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square on Wednesday, Xi Jinping exuded an aura of confidence that many leaders in the West could only envy. To his left stood North Korea’s Kim Jong-un, the supreme leader of an increasingly strident hermit kingdom. To his right...
Europeans demand more EU unity on bloc’s defence
Europeans want greater co-operation and unity from their governments to help the EU better face the continent’s defence, security, and economic challenges, according to a new survey published (September). Some 90 percent of Europeans want the bloc to be more unified, the Spring Eurobarometer poll found. And 37 percent of...
Von der Leyen’s Trump deal guts EU’s anti-deforestation law
As if it wasn’t already in a jam over the delayed rollout of its anti-deforestation regulation, the European Union could have made things a whole lot worse in its desperation to appease Donald Trump. It had been humiliating enough for Ursula von der Leyen to hot foot it to a...
Fico, Putin and the EU: an ‘independent’ foreign policy?
Slovakia’s Prime Minister Robert Fico is once again in the spotlight for his closeness to Moscow. Yesterday, Tuesday, he met Russian President Vladimir Putin in Beijing where the Russian leader praised him for pursuing what he called an independent foreign policy. But what does this so-called “independence” really mean for...
Putin warns foreign troops in Ukraine would be ‘legitimate target
Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned today, Friday 5 September, that any foreign troops deployed to Ukraine before a peace agreement is signed would be treated as “legitimate targets” by Moscow’s forces. This statement comes hours after 26 of Ukraine’s allies pledged to send troops as part of a so-called...