Chloé Maurel Created in 1950 and bringing together 187 Member States today, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) is one of the specialized agencies of the United Nations. As the successor to the International Meteorological Organization, founded in 1873, it now brings together almost all the countries of the world around an essential mission: coordinating international cooperation in the fields of meteorology, climate, hydrology and atmospheric observation. Its role is to ensure the rapid exchange of meteorological data, establish common scientific standards, develop early warning systems and provide essential expertise for understanding climate change. ...

Philippe Ward The diagnosis has been clear for nearly two years. Yet, by the summer of 2026, the conclusion has become increasingly stark: the flagship recommendations of Mario Draghi’s report on the European Union’s competitiveness and strategic autonomy have been implemented only in part. While the analysis was lucid and the structural proposals compelling, political and administrative execution has proved to be the initiative’s greatest blind spot. Europe knows what it must do; it simply does not know how to do it within a fragmented institutional framework. ...

Grégory Herpe What Witkoff and Kushner Came to Seek Peace, if one can call it that, has had a rather unlikely face in recent months. Steve Witkoff, a New York real estate developer turned Trump envoy for the Middle East and then for Ukraine. Jared Kushner, his son-in-law. The two men have supplanted Keith Kellogg—the official special envoy for Ukraine, a retired general and a man who has worked on the file from the start—to the point that Kellogg ended up resigning after discovering he had been sidelined without ever being told so directly. You can’t make this up. ...

Jacques de Larosière The political and ethnic situation in Ukraine is, to say the least, complex. In the western part of the country, Ukrainian-speaking inhabitants constitute a clear majority. It was this population that drove the anti-corruption and anti-Russian demonstrations on the Maidan square in Kyiv, where far-right movements — and, on the margins, neo-Nazi groups — ultimately prevailed in overthrowing President Yanukovych, who had been democratically elected. While Yanukovych was certainly favourable to collaboration with Moscow, he was by no means its vassal. ...

Chloé Maurel An emblematic monument showing the tensions between heritage preservation and tourist exploitation Situated at an altitude of 1,570 metres in the southern part of the Sinai Peninsula, at the foot of Mount Horeb, identified by biblical tradition as Moses’ Mount Sinai, Saint Catherine’s Monastery, also known as the Monastery of the Transfiguration, is an Orthodox Christian place of worship and one of the oldest continuously inhabited Christian monastic institutions in the world. Founded during the reign of the Byzantine Emperor Justinian I between 548 and 565, this fortified complex represents an exceptional religious, historical, artistic, and geopolitical heritage. Yet today it is under serious threat. What conflicts are crystallising around it, symbolising the recurring tensions between religious, heritage, economic, and geopolitical concerns? ...

Chloé Maurel This programme, originally known as the “European City of Culture”, was championed with determination by an extraordinary figure: the Greek singer, actress and Minister of Culture, Melina Mercouri. Forty years later, the “European Capitals of Culture” have become one of the European Union’s most emblematic cultural initiatives. More than sixty cities have already received this designation, which has profoundly transformed historic metropolises such as Athens, Florence and Paris, as well as industrial cities in decline such as Glasgow, Lille and Liverpool. Behind this success lies a dual reality: on the one hand, cultural democratisation and urban revitalisation; on the other, processes of real-estate speculation, mass tourism, and sometimes social marginalisation. What does the history of the European Capitals of Culture reveal about the enduring tensions between the European cultural ideal and economic logic? To what extent has this initiative contributed to strengthening the European project? ...

Grégory Herpe On the night of May 23-24, 2026, I watched the sky over Kyiv. The sirens had sounded shortly after midnight. I was in my hotel room working on the photos I had taken during the day, and I stepped out onto the terrace – the instinct not to miss what the walls of an apartment would have hidden. The sky seemed pierced by the luminous trails of falling missiles, glowing like flashes of fire. Then the dull detonations in the distance, the closer explosions whose blast you felt in your ribcage before you even truly heard them. As if waves of pressure were passing right through us. The anti-aircraft batteries chattering in bursts. Then the drones – small, fast points, humming discreetly, before the total conflagration of the sky, of the city. ...

The Prime Minister is dead, long live the Prime Minister! It will take the UK two months to replace the resigning Starmer with Andy Burnham, 56, the long-serving mayor of Greater Manchester, a ‘man of the North’ and therefore feared by the City, but also a politician who has worked with three very different Labour leaders: Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and Jeremy Corbyn, and who is suspected of being a smooth talker but remains a ‘chameleon’. However, the crisis runs deeper, caused by the hubris that led to the break with the European Union 10 years ago, by the rise in racist unrest, and by the uncertainty surrounding foreign policy. ...

Philippe Ward Ten years after the 2016 referendum and more than five years after leaving the single market, the United Kingdom resembles neither the Global Britain promised by Brexit enthusiasts nor the wasteland predicted by its most radical opponents. In April 2026, the country finds itself in a phase of uneasy normalization: a pragmatic yet difficult realignment with the European bloc, against a backdrop of economic slowdown and political fragmentation. ...

Alessandro Giacone Tajikistan is often referred to as the “other roof of the world” (after Nepal), because 90% of its territory is covered by mountains. Its highest peak is Ismail Samani Peak (7,495 m), formerly known as Communism Peak. Unlike its neighbors, the country is rich in water resources thanks to the presence of around one thousand rivers. The Rogun Hydropower Plant, currently under construction in the Pamir region, will, at 335 meters, become the tallest dam in the world. Italian companies are involved in the project. The initiative is strongly opposed by Uzbekistan, which fears a reduction in water flows reaching its territory. ...

Giorgio Malfatti The broader context described above sometimes makes us forget that the Caspian Sea is by no means in good health. Several studies have shown that its water level could drop rapidly due to global warming: a decline of between nine and eighteen meters is expected by the end of this century. Temperatures are rising, water is evaporating, and precipitation is decreasing. A perfect mix for an uncertain future. ...

Giorgio Malfatti di Montetretto The Caspian represents the only major maritime basin in Central Asia. A body of salt water, with no outlet to the open sea, in which the interests of the coastal countries have shaped negotiations over its legal regime. The question of the Caspian Sea gained importance following the dissolution of the USSR, an event that increased the number of littoral states from two (Iran and the Soviet Union) to five (Iran, Azerbaijan, Russia, Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan), and subsequently led to the discovery of major new hydrocarbon deposits. The region stretching from the Caucasus to Central Asia is one of the oldest oil-producing areas in the world, and had remained largely unexplored until the collapse of the Soviet Union, which had prioritized exploration in Siberia. From that moment on, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan were seen by multinational oil companies as alternative suppliers to Russia and therefore as territories worthy of significant investment. ...

Giorgio Malfatti di Montetretto The Entry of Azerbaijan into Central Asia In this context, a significant development has recently taken place with the inclusion of Azerbaijan in the consultative group of Central Asian countries, transforming the C5 into the C6. The group has so far focused on issues such as trade, foreign policy, and dispute resolution. The new configuration, now involving both shores of the Caspian Sea, also represents a response to the repercussions of the war in Ukraine and Western sanctions against Russia, which have made it necessary to seek alternative logistical solutions. Thanks to ethnic-religious affinities and a shared Soviet legacy, Azerbaijan integrates smoothly into the Central Asian environment, where Tajikistan represents the only exception due to its Persian origins. The country actively participates in European neighbourhood and Eastern Partnership programmes and plays an essential role in energy corridors toward Europe. Baku also maintains privileged relations with Turkey and adopts a balancing position between Russia, the United States, the European Union, and China. The resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and the agreement on the Zangezur Corridor—strongly supported by Donald Trump—which will connect Azerbaijan to Turkey via Armenia, have further strengthened the country’s international prestige, consolidating its role as a key regional actor. ...

Giorgio Malfatti di Montetretto The war in Ukraine has highlighted the weaknesses of the former Soviet “-stan” countries of Central Asia, which, although already well known, have been exacerbated by the current international environment. The most significant challenge, and perhaps the most important one, is the lack of access to the open sea. All of these countries belong to the category of Landlocked Developing Countries (LLDCs), meaning that they have no direct access to maritime routes and are therefore disadvantaged in international trade. Economists estimate that countries in this situation lose around 20% of their development potential. ...

Giorgio Malfatti di Montetretto Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the heart of Central Asia underwent a profound geopolitical transformation with the emergence of five new republics in 1991, while three others appeared in the neighboring Caucasus region. This process brought to an end more than two centuries of Russian and Soviet domination over the area. Although independence was proclaimed at roughly the same time, the formal declarations were issued on different dates for purely administrative reasons: Kyrgyzstan on 31 August, Uzbekistan on 1 September, Tajikistan on 9 September, Turkmenistan on 27 October, and finally Kazakhstan on 27 December. ...

Giorgio Malfatti di Montetretto Despite the arbitrary definition of territorial borders drawn on a purely administrative basis during the Soviet era, there are no state claims capable of undermining regional stability, apart from the persistent dispute concerning the Fergana Valley. This area is politically divided between eastern Uzbekistan, western Kyrgyzstan, and northern Tajikistan, and represents a node of primary importance for the three countries involved. Roughly the size of the Po Valley, the Fergana Valley is rich in agricultural and water resources and is historically located along the main overland routes connecting China with the Caucasus, the Iranian plateau, and the Eurasian steppes. It was, not surprisingly, a key sector of the ancient Silk Road and a strategic center for all the empires that have succeeded one another in the region. ...

What is your assessment following the latest informal European Council, Orbán’s defeat and the change of government in Bulgaria? Have the political balances shifted? They have changed, but only to some extent. We need to see what political priorities Magyar, the new Hungarian Prime Minister, will pursue. In any case, I would like to point out that, until two years ago, he was a member of the same party as Orbán. Some deadlocks have been broken, such as the €90 billion loan to Ukraine, as Orbán’s veto has been lifted. However, there are other issues where we need to understand what the new government’s stance will be. Incidentally, Orbán did not attend the last European Council, whilst Magyarhad had not yet been officially appointed: so Hungary was not represented, whereas for Bulgaria, the outgoing government was still in place, pending the formation of the new government. ...

Francesco Segoni In Port-au-Prince, bursts of Kalashnikov fire are part of the everyday soundscape. But violence is no longer fought only with small arms. Rocket launchers, heavy machine guns, and military-grade assault rifles are now widely circulating among armed groups, marking a deep militarization of urban conflict. Entire neighborhoods are under the control of gang coalitions; major roads are opened or closed depending on shifting criminal balances; the capital lives in a permanent state of suffocation. ...

In 1960, with the recovery of independence, Africa inherited an entirely new form of political organisation: the nation-state, defined by fixed, demarcated borders. These borders corresponded to the lines that former colonial powers had drawn to delimit the geographic extent of their presence. Far from reflecting the human realities of the continent, they obeyed an exclusively political logic, shaped by rivalries between neighbouring powers. At the time of independence, the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) recommended the absolute respect of the principle of the intangibility of borders inherited from colonisation. At the time, this was simply prudent. The partition was admittedly far from satisfactory — ethnic groups were divided, culturally and historically antagonistic communities were forced to coexist, and some borders were incoherent to the point of absurdity, such as the Caprivi Strip or the enclave of Cabinda — but everyone could imagine the near-impossible negotiation required to achieve any version of border perfection. Today, this principle appears to have reached its limits. After all, as the man of letters reminds us, “human history is the history of shifting borders.” ...

Francesca Tortorella The diagnosis of a demographically ill Europe is entirely accurate: the active workforce is shrinking, while economic dependency — young people, retirees and inactive populations — is increasing. National social systems are therefore becoming more fragile, raising questions about their long-term sustainability. However, it is precisely on this issue that federalist ideas could provide a solution. First of all, a genuine European federal system would make it possible to pool demographic risks. Today, although the European Union as a whole is clearly a “very old” continent, population ageing and productivity decline do not occur at the same pace in all Member States. A coordinated European fiscal and social policy could help compensate for these differences, just as a federal state redistributes resources among its regions. ...

Giuseppe Sacco In the history of the Catholic Church, there have been, to date, 266 Pontiffs. Of these, 217 – four out of five – were born in what is now the Italian Republic. In particular, all the Popes during the 455 years between the pontificate of Adrian VI (1522–1523), originally from the Netherlands, and that of the Polish John Paul II (1978–2005), were Italian. But how can this extraordinary predominance be explained in the most universal institution in human history? ...

Roberto Bertoni What escapes Donald Trump is that with someone like Leo XIV, turning up the volume — to the point of making statements that would warrant a psychiatric hold — achieves very little. This mild-mannered Augustinian, unlike Francis, is not the trench-warfare type, does not go in for grand gestures, and does not possess, perhaps, the same prophetic charge as his predecessor; nor does he give interviews to talk shows, at least not yet. The thing is, on the rare occasions when he does speak, he does so with precision and clarity, drawing unanimous approval from every corner of the world. And so, if Francis was a pope we loved almost to distraction — if only for his courage, his determination, and his embodiment of the universal message of the Gospel — Leo is the moderate version, though no less effective for that. ...

Francis Fukuyama’s “end of history,” prophesied in the final stretch of the twentieth century, now seems to have reversed itself — by a paradoxical twist of fate — into its very opposite. We feel surrounded by unrelenting conflicts, a sensation compounded by a “globalized” world that delivers news in real time and appears to erase every distance, physical and psychological alike. Our era exists in a permanent state of crisis — whether economic, social, political, strategic, military, or humanitarian in nature. ...

Chloé Maurel Since the early 2020s, artificial intelligence (AI) has become a major issue in global governance, raising economic, environmental, and ethical challenges. The rapid advances of machine learning systems - particularly generative models and autonomous systems - has given rise to new political, economic, and societal risks: manipulation of information, automation of warfare, mass surveillance, the amplification of technological inequalities, and systemic risks linked to advanced systems. An energy-intensive technology ...

Gaia Marchi The elections of 29 October 2025 marked a turning point in Tanzania’s history: the Chama cha Mapinduzi (CCM, the Party of the Revolution) achieved a landslide victory, winning 98% of the vote. President Samia Suluhu Hassan was thus re-elected. A Muslim woman originally from Zanzibar, Hassan had already assumed the presidency following the death of former president John Magufuli during the Covid-19 pandemic, and has now been confirmed by popular vote. The president needed an overwhelming victory to reunify the CCM, within which she did not command unanimous support. ...

Ioan-Victor Popa November 2025: Romania’s presidential and legislative elections sent a shockwave through Europe. The far right’s strong showing in the parliamentary vote, combined with the first-round success of a little-known candidate with fringe views in the presidential race - a result ultimately annulled by Romania’s Constitutional Court - marked a sharp and sudden break with a political landscape long defined by stability. The status quo built on the alliance between the Social Democratic Party (PSD) and the National Liberal Party (PNL) absorbed an unexpected blow, made all the more striking by the fact that the Social Democratic candidate, Marcel Ciolacu, failed to make it to the second round - an unprecedented outcome in the party’s history. Parliament emerged considerably fragmented, forcing the former PSD–PNL alliance to seek new coalition partners. ...

Giuseppe Sacco With unusual boldness, the Financial Times published a front-page article based not on verified information—as is the tradition of the London daily—but on rumors, leaks, and indiscretions coming from Brussels and Oslo, though certainly read with great interest in Berlin. According to EU sources, or at least those close to them, the leadership of the European Union is seriously considering the possibility of further backtracking—after other decisions, such as postponing the date after which it will no longer be possible to market cars with internal combustion engines—on one of the main pillars that has shaped the current worldview over the past fifty years: environmental awareness. Within the framework of a true turning point, they are reportedly assessing the convenience and opportunity of abandoning their opposition to oil exploitation in the Arctic region. ...

We do not know how the Iranian tragedy will end. We do not know what Benjamin Netanyahu —whom we have come to recognise as the true global master — has in mind, nor what Trump is prepared to concede to him under the pretext of the Strait of Hormuz and the brutality of the ayatollahs’ regime. The apocalypse, deferred by barely a fortnight, seems perpetually on the verge of eruption, sustained by a false truce that, in the absence of any substantive negotiation, presages a global equilibrium founded on terror. ...

The Urumqi talks between Afghanistan and Pakistan, hosted by China in April following months of tensions and clashes along the border between the two countries, produced neither formal agreements nor statements of particular significance. This apparent stalemate may offer a partially positive interpretation. In a context marked by cross-border raids and mutual accusations of supporting terrorism culminating, on the evening of 16 March 2026, in a bombing of Kabul that struck a hospital and caused, according to Afghan authorities, around 400 deaths and over 250 injuries. [JM1.1]The silence at the conclusion of the talks signals an intent to avoid a diplomatic rupture, keep communication channels open and postpone a political resolution to a later stage. China, for its part, has confirmed an approach based on discreet mediation, attentive to the security of Xinjiang and the stability of regional corridors, but cautious about forcing solutions imposed from above, likely to avoid putting either side’s back against the wall. In short, in their interim outcome, the Urumqi negotiations effectively capture the current situation: a precarious balance, devoid of structural solutions, which risks reigniting dynamics of instability, at least at the regional level. In the shadow of the war in the Middle East, almost five years after the Taliban’s return to power, Afghanistan remains one of the unresolved issues of the international order. The Western withdrawal has paved the way neither for a process of stabilisation nor for the country’s gradual reintegration, but has instead left behind a sort of quiet chaos: a context rife with latent tensions, strategic ambiguities and structural fragility. It is against this backdrop that the regime has stepped up its efforts in the realm of regional diplomacy, in an attempt to mitigate risks and break, at least partially, the de facto isolation in which it finds itself. The agreement reached with Kazakhstan to increase bilateral trade to three billion dollars a year (from the current 500 million) is an attempt to integrate Afghanistan into a network of economic interdependencies that would make its complete isolation more costly. The Towrgondi–Herat–Kandahar–Spin Boldak railway project, the backbone of the so-called CASA (Central Asia–South Asia) corridor, also fits into this framework: for Kabul, this means positioning itself as a transit hub and not merely as a security concern. A similar dynamic is evident in relations with Uzbekistan: intensified trade ties, expanded customs facilitation and investment in key logistics hubs such as the Hairatan rail port, with the aim of increasing the volume of trade to five billion dollars. It is worth noting that these agreements were concluded without Tashkent formally recognising the Afghan government, confirming a pragmatic regionalism driven more by security and stability needs than by political legitimacy. This regional pragmatism, however, finds no echo at the global level. The major multilateral platforms – the UN, the G20, international financial institutions – and Western governments continue to maintain a stance of open mistrust towards the Taliban regime, which is not merely ideological but rests on structural factors: a lack of political inclusivity, systematic human rights violations and repression of independent media. In 2021, following the chaotic withdrawal of foreign forces and the collapse of the government they had supported, some analysts had speculated about a possible ‘Taliban 2.0’: less extremist, more focused on governance and regional non-interference. This expectation quickly proved illusory: whilst today’s Afghanistan seems a far cry from the al-Qaeda sanctuary it was in the 1990s, the optimism of those analysts has in every other respect proved to be premature and naive. The systematic exclusion of women from secondary and university education, from public sector employment and from large swathes of economic and cultural life is not only a despicable form of discrimination, but a factor in structural self-marginalisation. It signals the regime’s refusal to meet the minimum conditions set by the international community. Completing the picture is the problem of corruption, which undermines one of the rhetorical pillars of the Taliban movement. Over the past two years, a series of allegations and resignations has involved ministers and senior officials, particularly in the justice and health sectors. Within a totalitarian regime that imposes police-state control over information, the fact that these allegations have received media coverage and, in some cases, have erupted into full-blown scandals points to the existence of internal rifts, power rivalries and patronage practices that reinforce the mistrust of external actors. Today’s Afghanistan is walking a fine line. Kabul’s regional diplomacy appears more as a survival mechanism than as a project for reintegration into the international order. Moreover, there is nothing to suggest that the latter is an objective: the leadership seems impervious to external pressure and indifferent to the political, human and economic cost of this isolation. Afghanistan remains a potential source of instability, contained but not resolved. ...

As expected, just one hour before the deadline set by Donald Trump to “unleash Hell,” the United States announced a new trucewith Iran. An event that was easy to foresee, given the international contextin which a highly significant role is played by a clownish president whose truevocation is that of a speculator capable of extracting personal profit fromabrupt stock market fluctuations. Fluctuations that are themselves easy toanticipate, since he can provoke them directly by virtue of the political roleto which Americans have unwisely elected him. ...

The defeat of Viktor Orbán carries an очевидent geopolitical dimension. For sixteen years, he had established in Hungary a model for the far right in Europe and the United States. Donald Trump himself had drawn inspiration from it. This model, described as an “illiberal democracy,” was gradually evolving toward a form of authoritarian regime. Its fall therefore also constitutes a new symbolic defeat for Trump. Orbán’s regime had become deeply unpopular. This unpopularity is particularly strong among those under 30: 65% of them voted for the opposition Tiza party, and only 15% for Orbán. There is a strong generational divide: young people suffer from structural unemployment, and emigration in search of work is high. Other converging factors explain Orbán’s predictable defeat. As early as the 2010s, he clearly displayed his ambition to transform Hungary. As Steve Bannon, ideologue of the MAGA movement, pointed out, he was “a Trump before Trump.” The first step in this transformation was control of the media: today, nearly 85% of Hungarian media are under government influence. After public media, the few remaining independent private outlets were gradually targeted. Young people were able to access alternative information through the internet. The judiciary has lost all independence. It is the primary target of far-right governments, along with the press. ...

Contrary to the hopes of those who spreading rumors about his possible resignation, Pope Francis died in action. The way one could expect from a man such as he was, a fighter steadfast in his convictions in defense of the common good, of justice, and of the poorest on earth, he feared nothing and no one. Never afraid of expressing his political views – sharp and lapidarily succinct, as in the case of “NATO barking at Russia” – he was endowed with clear-sightedness that professional historians or literary scholars have rarely been able to match. So that it is no coincidence that the Palestinian people—victims of the most brutal and deliberate massacre of this century—have always considered him a faithful friend, whose evening phone calls to the catholic Parish in Gaza were nothing less than an unceasing appeal to humanity to put an end to the ongoing martyrdom. Such as was his latest walkabout. ...

The fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in December 2024 marked a turning point in Syria’s recent history, opening a phase characterized by deep uncertainty but also by the possibility of change. In this new context, Abu Mohammad al-Julani, now known as Ahmed al-Sharaa, has emerged as a central figure in the country’s transitional process. His trajectory reflects a significant evolution, not only on a personal level but also within the broader Syrian political landscape, marked by a shift from an insurgent approach to a still-evolving governance structure. Understanding al-Sharaa’s current role therefore requires retracing the path he followed to consolidate his power during the Syrian war. In this process, al-Sharaa not only strengthened his authority but also gradually transformed the nature of Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the organization he leads. ...

In the same way that the United Nations, back in 1947-48, had proposed making Jerusalem an ‘international city’, many voices, over much of the world and over many decades, have spoken out in favour of ‘internationalising’ the Amazon, the largest expanse of primary forest on the planet. For some, the Amazon rainforest, a source of water and oxygen and an outstanding reservoir of biodiversity, should be seen as a global public good, belonging to us all. It is an idea somewhat reminiscent of the Pachamama or ‘Mother Earth’ concept in Andean culture. ...

In mid-March, Romania, together with Austria, Croatia, Greece, Italy, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia, signed a letter addressed to the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, and to the President of the Council, António Costa, calling for an urgent revision of the deadlines set by the energy transition plan. This issue, seemingly highly technical, brings together a group of states with specific interests: some display a clear hostility toward European institutions in their current form (the most extreme case being that of Viktor Orbán, who has based his electoral campaign on AI-generated videos portraying the EU and Ukraine as public enemies); others have direct economic interests, linked to the nature of their energy consumption or to infrastructure projects, which are largely incompatible with the timelines adopted at the European level. ...

In March 2023, the United Nations Water Conference brought together some 10,000 representatives of UN member states, NGOs and businesses in New York, and called for the appointment of a UN Special Envoy on Water* to address the urgent need to ensure greater respect for the human right to this essential resource. This imperative is underpinned by the UN General Assembly resolution adopted on 28 July 2010, recognizing “the right to safe and clean drinking water and sanitation as a human right that is essential for the full enjoyment of life and all human rights”. Indeed, water, one of the Earth’s natural resources, is not just another commodity, and given its vital importance to humankind, it is only fitting that it should be considered a global public good, a common good. ...

European governments—and the media that follow their lead—continue to react to Donald Trump’s “National Security Strategy” as if the current president had invented Washington’s hostility toward any genuine European unity, whereas he has merely made it provocatively explicit, in well-tested alignment with Moscow. In doing so, the President of the United States provides Europeans with a valuable opportunity to define and focus the urgent correction of the structure and direction of the European Union, toward its independence —not merely “autonomy”— in strategic terms, restoring to its peoples the only sovereignty possible. A further paradox is that Giorgia Meloni —the supposed sovereigntist and former fascist who, as Prime Minister of the Italian Republic, allows herself to be kissed on the head by Joe Biden, only then to become the factotum (certainly not a courtier) of Donald Trump— reminds our homegrown pseudo-Europeanists that there exists another Europe beyond the current EU: that of Ventotene. It will not happen now, but that must be the perspective. ...

Now that the White House is occupied by a figure whom calling “questionable” would be an understatement, many are beginning to recognize a geopolitical fact that has eluded them for more than thirty years: European and American interests do not coincide. In reality, they never have. Just think of the underlying reasons for the American Revolution, through which the thirteen colonies emancipated themselves from the English motherland in 1776—exactly two hundred and fifty years ago. “No taxation without representation” was the slogan. And to express their indignation, they threw a shipment of tea—the pride and glory of the British crown—into the sea. The ultra-conservative Tea Party movement, from which Secretary of State Marco Rubio emerges today, takes its name from this episode. ...

Today the whole world is discovering Pedro Sánchez, the Spanish socialist leader who heads a left-wing coalition government. His “no to war” in Iran resonates as a powerful warning signal in the face of the deadly danger threatening the system of collective security established in 1945. The United Nations—whose true meaning was an “organization of nations united against fascism”—was meant to prevent any new war. This “no” is also a resounding rejection of Trumpism. Pedro Sánchez is the only European head of government to oppose head-on the war sought by Donald Trump, by refusing to allow the United States Air Force to use American bases located in Andalusia. By contrast, France and United Kingdom have granted the U.S. military access to their bases as American aircraft methodically bomb Iran, in disregard of international law. This refusal is all the more striking given that Trump’s war initiative appears wholly reckless: a war against a country with a millennia-old history could lead the world toward general chaos. ...

Iran is a political entity in which the ethno-confessional dimension is essential. The millennia-old tradition of the Persian Empire was based on tolerance toward all minorities. The most powerful Persian emperor, Darius I, described himself as “the king of the land of all ethnicities.” This phrase is engraved on his tomb in Susa (Shush), in 486 BC. This tradition of tolerance was broken in 1928 in favor of a hyper-centralized system of repression of minorities. ...

Geopolitics Today is a political news website that embraces a wide diversity of opinions and perspectives. Its aim is to shed some light on issues that, at least from the standpoint of mainstream media, have too often been left in the shadows. The Founders Alessandro GIACONE is an Associate Professor in the Department of Political and Social Sciences at the University of Bologna and a specialist in European integration and contemporary Italian history. ...