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Pakistani Imam Preaches Jew-Hate in Belgian Parliament

Three months to the day after Hamas’s bloodthirsty massacre of Jews, an Islamist preacher from Pakistan comes to the rostrum of the Brussels Regional Parliament, in the capital of the European Union, to chant verses from a sura celebrating the defeat, surrender and massacre of Jews and the enslavement of …

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Pakistani Imam Preaches Jew-Hate in Belgian Parliament

Three months to the day after Hamas’s bloodthirsty massacre of Jews, an Islamist preacher from Pakistan comes to the rostrum of the Brussels Regional Parliament, in the capital of the European Union, to chant verses from a sura celebrating the defeat, surrender and massacre of Jews and the enslavement of …

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Moldova’s Sandu Stakes Reelection on EU Integration

Moldovan President Maia Sandu is going all in on EU integration successes as she looks to win presidential elections in the fall. The second half of 2024 will be a tense time for Moldova, with a presidential election scheduled for the fall in which President Maia Sandu will seek reelection. …

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United Against America: Russia-Iran Military Cooperation Is a Looming Threat

We appear to be witnessing the emergence of a united front against Washington that extends from the Baltic Sea to the Persian Gulf. There are many reasons why Russia and Iran are not formal allies. Their rulers don’t trust one another; they compete with each other on energy markets; and …

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Qatari emir in France to discuss Gaza war, economic deals — and talk Mbappe

Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani has a wide-ranging agenda on his first state visit to Paris. Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani arrived in Paris Tuesday for his first state visit to France, where he is expected to discuss the Gaza war with President Emmanuel …

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The Power Of Absent Things.

I’ve written a lot over the last couple of years about the bizarre complaisance of the western political classes and the Professional and Managerial Caste that serves them, in the face of the disastrous development of the crisis in Ukraine. I’ve cited it as an aspect of their inability to …

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Europe’s Inner Demons

If you take a tram out of Vienna and climb to the top of the Leopoldsberg, you can see a series of memorials to the successful defence of Vienna in 1683 against the invading Ottomans. Looking out over the Danube to the East, you can see an awful lot of …

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Dealing With Foreigners …

I was going to write about something quite different this week, but I got distracted by a number of stories criticising the diplomacy of the US and the EU, especially towards China. I was also struck by several people expressing scepticism about my comment that in 2014 Merkel and Hollande …

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A Clash Of Symbols

Living through the Cold War wasn’t without its moments of anxiety, and even fear: there were times when you went to bed wondering if you would wake up a radioactive crisp in the morning. Yet for all the angst and the serial crises, there was actually something quite comforting about …

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I Don’t Want this Sunak: Don’t You Have a Better Model?

People often talk about the current political crisis in the West in antiseptic and impersonal terms: the end of the Tory Party, the decline of neoliberalism, the strengthening of the extreme Right, and so on. But ideologies, parties and tendencies don’t have agency: people have agency. So let’s look at …

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