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And why leaving would be a mistake “Beware! i am going to speak in French!” So said Winston Churchill as he stood in Place Kléber, a square in central Strasbourg, on August 12th 1949. In the speech that followed, Britain’s...

Potholes lie in the road to a second term If a politician gives a speech but no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission since 2019, might...

The elderly, the displaced and the disabled are the worst affected As soon as the volunteers appear, those that have been waiting for them on Kyiv’s central Independence Square (known as Maidan) form a queue, shuffle forward and take a...

Good news comes from the success of a terrorist-linked political party Sometimes good things come in strange packages. On April 21st Spain’s Basque Country voted in regional elections. The Basque Nationalist Party (pnv), the conservative separatist movement that has led...

Pedro Sánchez stunned Spain with a promise to announce plans on April 29th Pedro sánchez knows drama. When he was clobbered at last May’s regional and local elections, Spain’s prime minister promptly called national ones. To bet it all at...

Intelligence sources are concerned about the country, which is surrounded by Italy Emmanuel goût has a long record of involvement with Vladimir Putin’s Russia. The 65-year-old Frenchman has acted for some of Russia’s leading energy groups and helped set up...

Giorgia Meloni’s supporters accuse RAI of left-wing bias Antonio scurati is one of Italy’s leading authors. His historical novel “M: Son of the Century” won the Strega prize, Italy’s most prestigious literary award, and has been widely translated. It was...

Thanks to a price mechanism that actually works “Our most pressing challenge is keeping our planet healthy,” declared Ursula von der Leyen on the day she was elected president of the European Commission in July 2019. Five years on, it...

Why the ANC’s losses are not the official opposition’s gain For the Democratic Alliance (da), South Africa’s largest opposition party, the election on May 29th should be a golden opportunity. For the first time since it came to power in...

Abiy Ahmed is imposing his vision on Ethiopia’s capital The historic neighbourhood of Piassa, at the old heart of Addis Ababa, is being taken apart. Workmen are uprooting pipes, felling lampposts and chiselling at façades. One building is being dismantled...

The British Museum is sending one of Iran’s adored antiquities to Israel The cyrus cylinder is, at first glance, an unremarkable chunk of clay, the size of a rugby ball. And yet it is one of Iran’s most treasured antiquities....

Middlemen are profiting from Gazans’ desperation On a clear night in March, Ahmed sat on a rooftop in Rafah, in southern Gaza. It was the only place he could get a phone signal in the crumbling and crowded city. Two...