Friedrich Merz wants to be a foreign-policy chancellor. One might not have known it from Germany’s parochial federal election campaign, or the business-as-usual foreign-policy passages of the coalition deal between his Christian Democratic Union (CDU, along with its Bavarian partner the Christian Social Union, CSU) and the Social Democratic Party …

In the Damascus suburb of Ashrafiyat Sahnaya, the sounds of prayer bells and muezzins used to blend peacefully into the rhythm of daily life. Here, families from Syria’s diverse communities — Sunni, Druze, Christian, and Alawite — shared neighbors’ bread and exchanged Eid and Christmas greetings with equal sincerity. But …

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, during his visit to the White House in February 2025, was expected to sign a critical minerals agreement with US President Donald Trump. The televised meeting between Trump and his deputy JD Vance with Zelensky, though, took an unexpectedly hostile turn. During the meeting, Trump accused …

The Trump 2.0 presidency’s aversion to multilateral cooperation, the EU and even NATO is radically reshaping the transatlantic security alliance. While previous US presidents have called for a more balanced distribution of the financial burden for North Atlantic security, we argue that the current moment represents a fundamental shift. This …

Slovakia’s Prime Minister Robert Fico and his protégé President Peter Pellegrini have been through a lot together down the years. Now, they’re sharing a prison cell – or, at least that’s what an AI-produced video clip that went viral in early April showed. The faked video, which racked up millions …

Après la dérive de l’UE qui est passée de l’économie à l’idéologie, celle-ci instaurant le contrôle numérique à une vitesse record, il est tout aussi important de ne pas oublier l’autre face obscure du miroir technologique. L’humanité a longtemps perçu le progrès comme un moteur indiscutable de civilisation, et on …

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On May 7, 2025, between 1:05 and 1:30 a.m. (IST), airstrikes carried out by the Indian Air Force hit nine locations inside Pakistan and Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK). It was codenamed Operation Sindoor. Significantly, this is the first time since 1971 that India struck across the international boundary (IB) or …

The UK’s closest ally in the Middle East was involved in corruption, a former ambassador has told a judge. Sultan Qaboos, a UK ally who ruled the Gulf kingdom of Oman for half a century until his death in 2020, has been criticised in surprisingly frank terms by a senior …