Global Pulse

分类： politics

  • Slovaks vote in a referendum on lifelong payments for populist leader Fico

    Slovaks vote in a referendum on lifelong payments for populist leader Fico

    BRATISLAVA, Slovakia — Slovak voters head to the polls Saturday for a nationally televised referendum that has emerged as one of the most politically charged tests of public opinion in the country’s recent history. The ballot paper carries two contentious questions that directly challenge key policies of populist incumbent Prime Minister Robert Fico’s administration: whether to scrap the controversial lifelong benefit payments granted to Fico and other senior former leaders, and whether to reverse the government’s decision to shutter the country’s top anti-corruption and organized crime enforcement bodies.

    The referendum itself is the product of a years-long grassroots push led by the Democrats, a pro-Western opposition party that currently holds no seats in Slovakia’s national parliament. Under Slovak law, organizing a binding public vote requires collecting signatures from at least 350,000 eligible citizens — a threshold the opposition easily crossed, collecting more than the required number of endorsements from residents across the 5.4-million-person nation to secure Saturday’s vote.

    The fight over lifelong benefits stems directly from a 2024 national crisis: just months after an assassination attempt left Fico gravely wounded following a public cabinet meeting, an attack that sent shockwaves across the small Central European country and Europe as a whole, Fico’s ruling coalition pushed through legislation expanding the lifelong pension benefit. Previously, the perk was only available to former national presidents; the new law extended it to any prime minister or parliamentary speaker who served at least two full terms in office, setting the monthly payment equal to the full salary of sitting members of parliament, framed by the government as a measure to protect the personal security and financial stability of senior former leaders.

    The second question on the ballot addresses another deeply divisive policy from Fico’s government. Earlier in 2024, Fico’s coalition pushed through legislation to abolish the Office of the Special Prosecutor, the independent agency tasked with investigating high-level corruption, transnational organized crime, and domestic extremist activity, alongside disbanding the dedicated police unit within the National Criminal Agency that supported the office’s work. The move drew fierce condemnation from both domestic watchdogs and international allies, with tens of thousands of Slovak citizens taking to the streets of major cities in repeated waves of protest to demand the reversal of the decision. Critics have repeatedly noted that a number of individuals with close ties to Fico’s ruling party were facing active corruption prosecutions handled by the special prosecutor’s office at the time of its dissolution.

    Fico, a deeply polarizing figure who returned to the prime minister’s office after 2023 parliamentary elections, has faced near-constant public protest since taking power, driven in large part by his pro-Russian foreign policy and rollback of anti-corruption institutions. The prime minister has already announced he will not cast a ballot in Saturday’s referendum, and pre-referendum public opinion polling suggests the vote is unlikely to meet Slovakia’s strict legal requirement of 50% voter turnout for a referendum to be considered binding. In the entire history of independent Slovakia, only one referendum — the 2003 vote approving the country’s accession to the European Union — has ever crossed the turnout threshold, with all other public votes falling short due to low voter participation.

  • 250 years on, US mixed on legacy

    250 years on, US mixed on legacy

    As the United States prepares to mark the 250th anniversary of its 1776 Declaration of Independence this Saturday, the nation finds itself at a defining crossroads, with public opinion fractured by deep political polarization, competing visions of national identity, and growing economic uncertainty that have reshaped how Americans view their country’s legacy and future.

    For Richard Woo, a former technology executive who arrived in Southern California from Taiwan, China as an international student nearly 50 years ago, the contrast between the U.S. he first encountered and today’s nation is stark. When Woo first immigrated, the country projected unrivaled economic strength, widespread accessibility, and widespread optimism, he says. Today, he argues, widening partisan divides and social fractures have eroded many of the traditional values and institutional foundations that once defined the country. “America’s traditional values are facing significant challenges,” Woo told China Daily, noting that the country’s post-war global leadership was built on abundant natural resources, geographic advantage, and an open society that drew global talent to drive successive waves of technological innovation — strengths he says have been weakened by modern divides.

    Woo’s perspective echoes broader public sentiment captured in recent national opinion polls. A joint survey by AP and NORC found that while most Americans retain pride in the nation’s founding principles, large shares express deep anxiety over political division, the state of U.S. democracy, and the country’s trajectory. Gallup polling echoes this mixed picture: a majority of Americans still view the American Dream as a goal worth pursuing, but fewer than ever believe the system provides equal opportunity to achieve it.

    This mix of pride and introspection crosses diverse demographic and ideological lines. Duane Mitchell, a Vietnam veteran based in Montana, plans to mark the holiday by driving his restored 1954 Chevrolet in a local Independence Day parade, saying the anniversary serves as a persistent reminder that “freedom is not free.” In contrast, Chicago resident Laura Davis has openly questioned what she calls “American grandiosity,” while Sydney Crispin of Maine argues the milestone should both celebrate the nation’s progress and push for reflection on unaddressed shortcomings.

    Stanley Renshon, a political science professor at the City University of New York and an expert on presidential leadership and political psychology, explains that these divergent views stem from a deeper national reckoning over core questions of identity, rather than routine policy disagreements. Today’s disputes over immigration, education, cultural values, and the role of government are not just partisan fights, he argues — they are conflicts over fundamentally different understandings of what America is, and what it should become.

    Even amid these divisions, polling shows broad cross-partisan consensus around many founding ideals. The AP-NORC survey finds that large majorities of both Democratic and Republican respondents identify core freedoms such as free speech and religious liberty as central to U.S. national identity, even as they disagree sharply over whether those ideals are fully realized for all Americans today.

    The 250th anniversary has become a flashpoint for competing national visions, particularly as the administration of President Donald Trump has positioned the official America250 commemoration as a centerpiece of its second term. Trump kicked off anniversary events with a campaign-style rally on the National Mall, centered on themes of patriotism and his iconic “Make America Great Again” message. Supporters frame the event as a long-overdue celebration of U.S. history, while critics warn it blurs the line between nonpartisan national commemoration and partisan political gain. Renshon notes that Trump’s vision represents one of two dominant competing outlooks shaping modern America: his movement resonates with voters who seek to preserve what they see as the nation’s traditional institutions and identity, opposing what they view as rapid cultural shifts that erode core national values. The opposing camp holds fundamentally different visions of a more inclusive, progressive American future.

    Economic opportunity remains one of the most pressing themes shaping public sentiment around the anniversary. Beyond just political divides, multiple polls confirm widespread economic anxiety: Pew Research Center surveys rank inflation, healthcare costs, and the growing federal deficit among the top concerns for most U.S. households. CBS News polling found that only half of all Americans now believe the American Dream is still attainable, a marked decline from previous decades. Renshon argues that this economic insecurity directly drives declining confidence in national institutions. “When people feel less secure economically, they’re also more likely to question whether institutions are working for them,” he explained.

    The anniversary also arrives at a moment of shifting international perceptions of U.S. global standing. A 2026 Pew Research Center survey of global public opinion found declining confidence in the U.S. as a reliable international partner across most surveyed countries, a trend that analysts tie directly to domestic political volatility and shifts in U.S. foreign policy leadership. Renshon noted that global perceptions of U.S. influence change over time, and argued that the country’s global standing should be assessed over the long term, rather than judged by the policies of any single presidential administration.

    As celebrations and protests unfold across the country this Independence Day, the 250th milestone stands not as a unified moment of national celebration, but as a mirror reflecting the deep, unresolved debates that will define the United States’ next chapter.

  • Fireworks, flyovers and a ‘really long’ Trump speech as US celebrates 250th

    Fireworks, flyovers and a ‘really long’ Trump speech as US celebrates 250th

    As the United States marks its 250th year of independence, a massive, heavily hyped Fourth of July celebration spearheaded by former President Donald Trump on Washington DC’s National Mall is poised to kick off Saturday – but the event has become tangled in political conflict, overshadowed by severe weather forecasts, and met with widespread public ambivalence, with many Americans simply noting “it could be worse” when assessing the current state of the nation.

    Organized through a public-private partnership backed by the White House, the event, officially branded as Salute to America 250 Celebrations & Fireworks, is billed by Trump as a “spectacular rally” intended to make history. The centerpiece of the day’s programming is a record-breaking fireworks display that organizers hope will claim the Guinness World Record for the largest official fireworks show ever hosted. To hit that mark, roughly 850,000 fireworks will be launched from 10 locations across DC, including eight barges anchored along the Potomac River, for a 40-minute show – double the length of the city’s standard annual display, which typically uses just 20,000 fireworks. The current record has been held since 2016 by a megachurch event in the Philippines.

    Adding to the fanfare, military aircraft will conduct hourly flyovers over the nation’s capital starting at 1:15 PM local time and continuing through sunset, with Trump’s newly updated Air Force One set to feature in one of the ceremonial formations. Trump has also teased that he will deliver a “really long speech” at the event, scheduled to begin at roughly 9:45 PM, as a playful demonstration “to show that I can do anything.”

    But for all the planned spectacle, the event has faced persistent headwinds on multiple fronts. First, extreme summer heat has already forced the cancellation of all earlier Saturday programming planned for the National Mall, with forecast temperatures set to hit a sweltering 38 degrees Celsius (100 degrees Fahrenheit). The late start time for the main event, combined with the extreme heat and humidity, is expected to keep crowd sizes lower than organizers initially hoped, and even administration insiders have privately expressed concern about turnout. Forecasts also warn of possible evening thunderstorms that could derail proceedings entirely. Adding to public health concerns, internal documents obtained by the Washington Post and Politico from the National Park Service warn that the massive fireworks display could produce “very unhealthy” air pollution in downtown Washington DC, raising fears of respiratory risks for attendees.

    Beyond weather and public health concerns, the event has become mired in political controversy. Critics have accused Trump of deliberately politicizing the nonpartisan national anniversary to advance his own political agenda. In the weeks since the rally was announced, multiple scheduled musical performers have dropped out of the lineup in protest. Critics also argue that the White House-organized Freedom250 committee, which is overseeing the event, has effectively pushed aside America250, a bipartisan congressional commission created a decade ago specifically to plan the 250th anniversary celebrations.

    “President Trump couldn’t help but try making America’s 250th birthday all about himself,” California Democratic Senator Alex Padilla said during a June 24 hearing on the event. Organizers have pushed back hard against these claims, dismissing them as a “partisan smear” by opposition politicians seeking to gain political advantage rather than celebrate the historic national milestone.

    While Trump’s DC rally draws the most national attention, celebrations are unfolding across the country to mark the 250th anniversary. In New York City’s Times Square, the iconic New Year’s Eve ball will drop eight times over the course of the day to mark midnight across every U.S. time zone, with a local fireworks display scheduled for 9:25 PM. In Philadelphia, the birthplace of American independence where the Declaration of Independence was signed 250 years ago, a star-studded celebration concert featuring headliners Christina Aguilera and Meek Mill is planned, and the city will also host its final match of the 2026 FIFA World Cup earlier in the day.

    Against the backdrop of these celebrations, public sentiment across the country remains muted, with many Americans taking a measured, ambivalent view of the state of the nation in its 250th year, summed up by the common refrain: it could be worse.

  • ‘Baseless’: Cair sues Florida governor for terrorism designation alongside drug cartels

    ‘Baseless’: Cair sues Florida governor for terrorism designation alongside drug cartels

    A landmark legal challenge has been launched against Florida Governor Ron DeSantis by the United States’ largest Muslim civil rights advocacy organization, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), over a controversial state law that labeled CAIR a domestic terrorist organization — placing the civil rights group in the same legal category as some of the hemisphere’s most violent international drug cartels.

    The lawsuit, filed Thursday, brings together three major non-profit legal and advocacy organizations: CAIR itself, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), and the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). The legal teams describe the designation enshrined in House Bill 1471 (HB 1471) as entirely unfounded, constitutionally flawed, and a direct threat to fundamental First Amendment rights.

    In an official statement announcing the legal action, CAIR emphasized that the terrorist designation exposes the organization to immediate and irreversible damage. If enforced, the law would allow Florida state authorities to shut down all of CAIR’s programming, advocacy, and community operations across the state. Beyond CAIR, Florida’s new terror list also includes two additional vaguely defined entities: the Muslim Brotherhood, a transnational Islamist movement that has no documented active operations in the United States and no centralized global headquarters, and antifa, the loose decentralized anti-fascist movement that has no formal structure, membership roster, or fixed operating base.

    The law grants Florida officials sweeping power to attach crippling stigmatizing labels to non-profit organizations, then deploy a broad range of state powers to immediately silence and disable the targeted group, its staff, its members, and any other individuals connected to the organization. Penalties include harsh criminal charges, civil fines, and administrative sanctions that reach far beyond standard regulatory measures, CAIR argues in the suit.

    Alongside CAIR, the Muslim Brotherhood, and antifa, DeSantis has proposed adding more than 90 other organizations to the state’s terror registry. That list includes major international groups like the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the Venezuela-based transnational criminal gang Tren de Aragua, and Mexico’s notorious Sinaloa Cartel, one of the deadliest drug trafficking organizations in the world.

    The current designation traces back to HB 1471, a bill approved by the Florida state legislature in March this year, signed into law by DeSantis in April, and implemented on July 1. This is not the first time DeSantis has attempted to blacklist CAIR: in December 2023, the governor issued a unilateral executive order to place the group on a terror watchlist, but that action was blocked by a federal judge earlier this year.

    In his ruling blocking the initial executive order, federal judge Mark Walker centered his decision on a core constitutional question: whether a state governor can, outside of a formal emergency, unilaterally label one of the nation’s largest civil rights groups a terrorist organization and cut off any government benefits to individuals or entities that provide material support or resources to the group. Walker’s ruling was clear: “This Court finds he cannot.”

    Now, CAIR is asking the court to issue an emergency injunction to block enforcement of HB 1471 entirely, arguing the new law retains all the constitutional flaws of the original executive order.

    The text of HB 1471 states that any person or entity that provides support to a designated terrorist group can face criminal prosecution, and it also includes a provision asserting that no religious code — a measure widely interpreted to target Sharia law, which is protected under First Amendment religious freedom provisions for many American Muslims — can supersede Florida state law.

    In their legal challenge, CAIR and its co-counsel point out that the designation process laid out in HB 1471 lacks basic due process protections. The law does not require state officials to provide the targeted organization with formal notice that includes all justifications for the designation, all material evidence — both incriminating and exculpatory — that decisionmakers relied on to approve the label. It also does not require the state to prove, or even provide evidence, that the targeted organization has violated any existing state or federal law.

    Founded in 1994, CAIR is a U.S.-based non-profit focused on protecting civil liberties for Muslim Americans, and it funds almost all of its work through public donations from American citizens of all faith backgrounds. Edward Ahmed Mitchell, CAIR’s deputy national director based in Washington, D.C., previously told Middle East Eye that when similar executive orders targeting CAIR were in effect in Florida and Texas, the organization was blocked from purchasing property and barred from accessing state government contracts. Both states have also added the Muslim Brotherhood to their domestic terror lists.

    Republican leaders, most notably Texas Senator Ted Cruz, have repeated longstanding claims that the Muslim Brotherhood maintains secret influential ties to CAIR and seeks to impose Sharia law across the United States. CAIR has repeatedly pushed back against these accusations, noting that more than 95% of its annual budget comes from individual donations from the American public, including both Muslim and non-Muslim supporters.

    Internationally, the Muslim Brotherhood is designated a terrorist organization by several Middle Eastern nations, including the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Syria, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia. At the U.S. federal level, the Trump administration issued an order designating specific national chapters of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Jordan, and Lebanon as terrorist organizations, but no such designation applies to the movement as a whole or to any U.S.-affiliated groups. Critics of these designations have long argued that blacklisting the Muslim Brotherhood is largely a geopolitical concession to authoritarian monarchies and authoritarian regimes in the Middle East that view the popular reformist movement as a threat to their hold on power.

    Cruz has argued that the movement, which retains widespread public support in many parts of the Arab world thanks to its combination of Islamic religious identity, grassroots political organizing, and community social welfare programs, poses a direct threat to U.S. national security. But when asked by Middle East Eye how the Muslim Brotherhood threatens U.S. security, Nathan Brown, a leading expert on Middle East politics at George Washington University and a trustee of the American University in Cairo, offered a blunt response: “None at all.”

  • Trump’s new take on 250 years of American expansionism

    Trump’s new take on 250 years of American expansionism

    Two and a half centuries have passed since the United States formally severed political ties with Great Britain to declare its independence. In that time, the young, scattered collection of Atlantic coastal settlements has evolved beyond all recognition into a transcontinental global superpower, but the core cultural and political fractures that marked its earliest days remain embedded in the fabric of modern American life, reshaping contemporary politics from immigration policy to territorial ambition.

    When the first 13 colonies secured independence, their combined territory stretched across just 430,000 square miles (1.1 million square kilometers). Today, that geographic footprint has expanded eightfold to roughly 3.7 million square miles. Population growth has followed an even more staggering trajectory: the 1790 national census counted just 4 million residents (including enslaved people), while the 2025 population estimate puts the total at 343 million – an 8,475% increase over two centuries.

    Even as the nation’s physical and demographic size have exploded, historians trace modern political fault lines directly to the cultural identities that formed in the nation’s earliest years, a split that continues to define the presidency of Donald Trump. Key pledges of his agenda – from strict curbs on immigration to renewed calls for territorial expansion – echo the divisions that existed from the founding era, when heated disagreements over slavery, constitutional governance, and economic systems left the new nation deeply fractured. As Boston College history professor and prominent Substack author Heather Cox Richardson notes, 18th century observers widely predicted the fragile new experiment would collapse on its own: “All we need to do is stay over here and wait till they tear themselves apart and go back and pick them up,” she summarizes the contemporary perspective.

    Colin Woodard, director of the Nationhood Lab at Salve Regina University, maps these early divides into distinct regional identities that still shape American politics today. The first, what Woodard terms “Yankeeland” across the northern U.S., traces its roots to Puritan settlers fleeing religious persecution in Europe, later reinforced by German and Scandinavian arrivals who cemented a pluralistic cultural outlook. In contrast, the broad mid-continental band of Greater Appalachia was first settled by independent-minded Scots-Irish migrants, whose experience of English oppression left them deeply suspicious of centralized state power. “For them, freedom means maximising the autonomy and freedom of the individual and any growth in the power of government axiomatically means individuals are less free,” Woodard explains, a philosophy directly opposed to Yankee New England’s more communitarian outlook. Further south, the Deep South developed into an oligarchic, hierarchical society built around a landowning elite, many of whom brought the system of chattel slavery with them from Caribbean plantations.

    The young nation nearly doubled in size overnight with the 1803 Louisiana Purchase from France, and by the 1820s, territorial expansion had pushed the U.S. border all the way to the Pacific Coast via the Oregon Country acquisition. This westward push was ideologically fueled by the doctrine of “Manifest Destiny,” the widespread belief that the U.S. was divinely ordained to expand across the entire North American continent and beyond. This expansion brought competing regional cultures into new conflict: the harsh interior West mirrored Appalachia’s rugged wilderness and attracted similarly individualist settlers, while the Pacific Coast became a battleground between those values and the commercial, more government-friendly culture of transplants from the Northeast.

    These same divides are clearly visible on today’s presidential electoral map. The U.S. Northeast and West Coast remain strongholds of liberal politics, broadly supportive of expanded government involvement in social and economic life, while the South, stretching from Texas to Florida, and the interior West have become the backbone of modern Republican conservatism.

    By the end of the 19th century, large-scale territorial expansion had come to a halt, but demographic growth continued to accelerate, driven almost entirely by successive waves of immigration. “One of the things that really is at the center of the United States of America is immigration,” Richardson says. “The one thing that does link us all is that concept that we can make a future that we want.”

    The first major immigration wave ran from the 1840s to 1889, bringing 14 million primarily northern and western European arrivals to U.S. shores. A second wave from 1890 to the 1920s brought more than 18 million migrants from southern and eastern Europe, and each new influx sparked a fierce nativist backlash, as established residents worried new arrivals would undercut wages and erode existing cultural norms. Restrictive policies soon followed: the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act barred all immigration from China, and the 1924 Immigration Act imposed strict national origin quotas that cut overall immigration dramatically enough to create a clear, lasting dip in annual U.S. population growth.

    It was not until the 1960s that these restrictive quotas were lifted, opening the door to the current immigration wave that has reshaped American demography. Since that reform, more than 70 million new immigrants have settled in the U.S., the vast majority from Asia and Latin America, including roughly 18 million from Mexico alone. Data from the Migration Policy Institute shows that by 2024, foreign-born residents made up 14.8% of the U.S. population, matching the all-time historical peak set in 1890, and immigration accounts for 84% of all current U.S. population growth.

    Historically, early 19th and 20th century immigration waves – driven by industrial expansion in the northern states – shifted national political power toward the North. This geographic imbalance intensified sectional tensions: Southern political leaders pushed for continued territorial expansion to add new slave-holding states and maintain their national influence, a conflict that ultimately led to Southern secession and the American Civil War.

    Modern demographic shifts have reversed this historical pattern. Today, large numbers of immigrants and transplants from northern states are relocating to the South, drawn by booming urban economies in Texas and Florida. At the same time, the ongoing crisis of unauthorized migration across the U.S. southern border has stoked widespread cultural and political anxiety, creating the conditions for the resurgence of populist conservatism embodied by Donald Trump’s second presidency.

    Since returning to the White House, Trump has moved quickly to fulfill his campaign promise of mass deportations of undocumented migrants. He has also openly embraced a nostalgia for 19th century territorial expansion, floating proposals to acquire Greenland, repatriate control of the Panama Canal from Panama, and even annex Canada and Venezuela as new U.S. states. This agenda marks a sharp reversal of the last century of American history: for 150 years after the end of continental expansion, the U.S. shifted focus from growing its territory to gradually opening its borders to broader immigration. Today, Trump has flipped this script, prioritizing new territorial gains while sharply restricting entry to new arrivals.

    Trump and his supporters argue that mass immigration threatens to permanently alter the fundamental character of the American nation, with the former president frequently warning, “We won’t have a country anymore” if current policies continue. Woodard argues this anxiety is not a new, modern phenomenon – it is the latest iteration of a 250-year-old core debate over what it means to be American. “That does not come out of nowhere,” he says. “We have the meta struggle in American history: Are we a civic nation devoted to … a society where every individual human can be equally, universally and sustainably free over time? Or is this a state that belongs to a certain group of people that are the real Americans by blood and descent?”

    In the scope of human history, 250 years is a fleeting moment, barely a blip on the timeline of global civilizations. But for the United States, two and a half centuries have brought transformation unlike almost any other nation on Earth. Even so, the deep-rooted divisions at the nation’s core and the persistent anxiety over its future have remained a constant through every era of growth and change.

  • France weighs up resetting Turkey ties as Europe’s security landscape shifts

    France weighs up resetting Turkey ties as Europe’s security landscape shifts

    During a high-profile October press conference in Cairo focused on a Gaza ceasefire deal, a small but symbolic moment laid bare a quiet shift in geopolitics. As U.S. President Donald Trump gathered regional and European leaders to stand behind him for photos, French President Emmanuel Macron rejected the role of a backdrop prop. Instead, he invited Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to join him at a table in the audience – an arrangement the 72-year-old Turkish leader readily accepted.

    This quiet act of defiance against the U.S.-led event staging capped years of frosty relations between Paris and Ankara, and it may signal the start of a new chapter for the two NATO allies, multiple sources with knowledge of internal negotiations told Middle East Eye. For years, the pair have been locked in bitter disagreements over the Syrian civil war, the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan, and competing territorial claims in the Eastern Mediterranean. Today, shifting global alignments and overlapping security interests have created unprecedented momentum for a full reset.

    “France is envisaging the future of European security with Turkey as one of its pillars,” one senior Western source close to diplomatic talks explained.

    This potential new partnership is not happening in isolation. It comes amid a noticeable cooling of relations between Turkey and Russia, a shift that has not gone unnoticed in Paris. There have been no bilateral presidential visits between Ankara and Moscow since 2023, and the frequency of high-level engagements between Erdoğan and Russian President Vladimir Putin has dropped sharply. Turkey has also increasingly aligned with Western sanctions regimes targeting Moscow, and it has declined to renew its long-term major natural gas purchase agreements with Russia.

    Gerard Araud, a former French ambassador, said many French policymakers have been impressed by Turkey’s deft navigation of the war in Ukraine. “Turkey has succeeded in antagonising almost no one while, at the same time, effectively siding with Kyiv,” he noted. Araud argued that as France prepares for long-term Russian pressure on the continent, Ankara has emerged as a critical geopolitical player. “We think that in Paris there is a strong feeling that, on one side, the Americans are gradually reducing their security commitments to Europe; that whoever is elected in the 2028 U.S. presidential election, we will not return to the close transatlantic security cooperation of the past,” he explained. “We will be facing Russian pressure. And in this equation, I think Turkey is obviously an important factor.”

    Overlapping regional priorities further underpin the push for closer ties. In Syria, both France and Turkey have thrown their support behind interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa’s new administration. In Lebanon, both countries back the creation of a strong central government and oppose aggressive Israeli military actions in the country. On the Iranian nuclear file and regional tensions surrounding Tehran, both Paris and Ankara favor a negotiated peaceful resolution. As Israel adopts an increasingly hardline stance toward Turkey, it has also sparked repeated diplomatic crises with France over Lebanon, reinforcing shared interests between the two countries.

    Beyond geopolitics, a major partnership in the defence and arms industry is emerging as a cornerstone of the reset. Last week, Turkish Defence Minister Yasar Guler confirmed Ankara is deeply interested in purchasing SAMP/T air defence systems, manufactured by a French-Italian defence consortium. For years, Paris blocked the sale over political tensions and disagreements over Ankara’s demand for joint production rights. But intelligence outlet Intelligence Online reported in May that Macron has ordered a full review of the SAMP/T deal to find ways to accommodate Turkish co-production demands, ahead of his planned visit to Ankara for next week’s NATO summit. Senior French diplomat Alice Rufo, a recent member of Macron’s inner circle, has already traveled to Ankara to hold talks with top Turkish defence officials, boosting expectations that an agreement could be announced during the summit.

    Private defence firms have already begun building ties. Leading French aerospace and defence group Safran recently signed a strategic partnership agreement with Turkey’s top drone manufacturer Baykar, focused on co-developing integrated systems combining optronic sensors, navigation technology, and guided weapon capabilities for unmanned aerial and air-to-ground missions. Under the deal, Baykar’s popular TB2 combat drones will be outfitted with Safran’s Euroflir electro-optical surveillance system. French government sources also confirm Paris is considering expanding defence dialogue to cover partnerships in drone and helicopter development.

    Turkey’s defence industry has grown into a global powerhouse in recent years, with national defence exports hitting $10 billion in 2024. Ankara now exports warships, combat drones, and ammunition to countries across the world, including many NATO allies. Araud noted that Europe’s own defence industrial sector has faced major setbacks, pointing to the recent collapse of the €114 billion Future Combat Air System programme earlier this month over intractable disagreements between French and German defence contractors. “Turks have been quite good in this field,” he said. “What the Turks are doing, first, is cheaper; second, it is more robust. While some Turkish weapons may not match the highest sophistication of Western systems, the war in Ukraine has proven that this affordability and durability is a major advantage. Tomorrow’s war will require the ability to produce large volumes of reliable, low-cost weaponry.”

    Still, not all analysts are optimistic about the pace of a Franco-Turkish reset. Dorothee Schmid, head of the Turkey and Middle East Department at French leading think tank IFRI, warned that deep structural divisions remain. “France considers that Turkey has embarked on an autocratic course and is pursuing a power-based policy centred on its own interests, which are not compatible with those of Europeans,” she said.

    Longstanding frictions continue to complicate negotiations. Macron has declined all invitations to visit Ankara from Erdoğan since 2022. Sources say a full state visit by Macron could only move forward if Turkey reopens its border with Armenia, a step that would be politically popular with France’s large Armenian diaspora community. Another persistent irritant is Ankara’s decision to bar Turkish citizens from attending French embassy-operated schools in Turkey. Turkish officials argue they need reciprocal legal arrangements approved by parliament to resolve the issue, while French officials say the policy has poisoned bilateral relations. The dispute has lingered in bureaucratic gridlock, and the schools have gradually lost students and fallen into decline.

    “In short, the two sides are continuing to negotiate, but against a backdrop of low levels of trust,” Schmid said. “The NATO summit in Ankara is expected to provide an opportunity for Turkey to showcase its power, which never fails to surprise the French: the two countries have entered into a sort of systemic symbolic rivalry.”

    The Eastern Mediterranean remains another core point of contention. France has a bilateral defence treaty with Greece, and during a visit to Athens earlier this year, Macron publicly reaffirmed the pact during an event at the Roman Agora, emphasizing Paris’ commitment to defending Greek sovereignty against any potential Turkish aggression. Araud argued that this strong show of support for Greece ran counter to Macron’s own signature foreign policy doctrine of *en meme temps* – “at the same time” – which holds that seemingly contradictory initiatives are used to maintain ties with competing regional actors.

    “Senior French officials agree with me that Paris should improve its ties with Turkey, and Macron went a bit overboard in his overtures to Greece. Macron is aware of it, and he wants to improve the relationship with Turkey,” Araud said. “Macron has a very good analysis of foreign policy, I think, but when implementing it, from time to time, he ends up reaching the opposite goal.” Turkish officials dismiss Macron’s rhetoric around defending Greek sovereignty as a sales tactic to boost French arms exports to Athens, noting that Turkey has no plans to attack Greek territory. “It is a nothing burger, really,” one senior Turkish official said.

    A final wildcard is French domestic politics: Macron is set to leave office in April 2025, and his potential successors could adopt a far different policy toward Turkey, particularly if right-wing National Rally leader Marine Le Pen or her protégé Jordan Bardella win the presidency. However, multiple sources confirmed that Turkish diplomats have already engaged in quiet outreach to Le Pen’s team for months, laying groundwork for continued cooperation regardless of the election outcome.

  • Andy Burnham to drop spy-tech firm Palantir from NHS, reports say

    Andy Burnham to drop spy-tech firm Palantir from NHS, reports say

    As Andy Burnham prepares to take office as Britain’s next prime minister and leader of the Labour Party, one of his first major policy shifts is set to target a controversial contract between the National Health Service and American technology and data surveillance firm Palantir, multiple sources confirm.

    Per reporting from The Telegraph, Burnham’s incoming administration is currently conducting a full review of the UK government’s existing artificial intelligence strategy, a process that is expected to result in Palantir being dropped from its NHS contract. The current £330 million seven-year deal between Palantir and the NHS has only been active for two years, leaving five years remaining on the original agreement if it is not terminated early.

    Palantir’s footprint across UK public institutions extends far beyond the health service. The firm already holds a £240 million contract with the UK Ministry of Defence, a £15 million agreement tied to Britain’s nuclear deterrent program, and at least 34 additional uncovered contracts across sectors including law enforcement, child social care, refugee support services and environmental regulation. Many of these agreements have been marked by a lack of public transparency around the scope of Palantir’s data access and work.

    The push to oust Palantir from the NHS comes amid growing global outrage over the firm’s documented ties to military operations in Gaza. In January 2024, Palantir publicly announced a partnership with the Israeli Ministry of Defense to deploy its technology to support so-called “war-related missions”, which include drone missile strikes targeting civilian areas in Gaza that have killed dozens of journalists and humanitarian aid workers. When confronted with accusations that Palantir’s technology enabled the deaths of Palestinian civilians in Gaza in April 2025, Palantir CEO Alex Karp responded by claiming the targets were “mostly terrorists, that’s true”.

    Francesca Albanese, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, said Karp’s comment confirms the firm has “executive-level knowledge and purpose vis-a-vis the unlawful use of force by Israel” in occupied Palestinian territories. Additional scrutiny has emerged after reports that the U.S. Pentagon is investigating whether Palantir’s AI-powered target identification system Maven was involved in a February 2025 U.S. “double-tap” missile strike on an Iranian girls’ school that killed more than 170 people, the vast majority of whom were children.

    Founded by tech billionaire Peter Thiel, a controversial figure who once famously stated “I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible”, Palantir received partial funding from the Central Intelligence Agency at its launch. Thiel has also drawn fierce criticism in the UK for his previous comments attacking the National Health Service, claiming the beloved public institution “makes people sick” and framing British public support for the NHS as a case of “Stockholm syndrome”.

    Burnham’s long-standing stance on Palantir predates his expected ascension to Downing Street: during his tenure as Mayor of Greater Manchester from 2017 to 2025, the Greater Manchester Combined Authority never awarded any public contracts to the firm.

    The proposal to terminate Palantir’s NHS contract has drawn immediate pushback from the Conservative opposition. Stuart Andrew, the Conservative shadow health secretary, argued that “if Andy Burnham tears up a programme that is improving patient care, he will have to explain why he chose politics over patients.” Andrew added that the NHS should leverage the best available technology to cut waiting lists, save lives and support frontline staff, and that barring leading global firms for political reasons would undermine confidence in NHS technology partnerships. “Patients should never pay the price for Labour’s political posturing. Lives are too important to be sacrificed for Andy Burnham’s political beliefs,” Andrew said.

    Despite Conservative opposition, discontent with Palantir runs deep even within the Labour Party, and public opposition to the firm’s UK public sector contracts has grown steadily over the past year. Last month, a cross-party group of MPs issued a formal call for the incumbent government to activate the 2027 break clause in Palantir’s NHS contract and pursue either an in-house UK-built alternative or a domestic provider. The cross-party Science, Innovation and Technology Committee’s report warned that growing reliance on Palantir across the UK public sector represents an “unacceptable point of weakness” that could leave critical public services “at the mercy” of foreign actors.

    Palantir’s UK CEO Louis Mosley has pushed back against critics, accusing opponents of the contract of prioritizing “ideology over patient safety”. However, multiple NHS hospital trusts have already rejected Palantir’s technology, reporting that adopting it would cause them to “lose functionality rather than gain it”.

    With the upcoming termination of Palantir’s NHS contract expected, scrutiny is now growing over the fate of the firm’s dozens of other public sector contracts across the UK. The debate over Palantir’s UK presence already made headlines in recent months, after London Mayor Sadiq Khan blocked a proposed £50 million contract between the Metropolitan Police and Palantir in May, citing a “clear and serious breach” of public procurement rules. Khan’s office noted that the deal would have left London police locked into a long-term relationship with Palantir without demonstrating value for taxpayer money, and Khan had previously stated he had “concerns about using public money to support firms who act contrary to London’s values”. Khan later reversed his veto after Palantir launched legal action against the decision, granting the firm a 12-month pilot project that could be extended.

    This reporting was originally published by Middle East Eye, an independent outlet providing dedicated coverage of the Middle East, North Africa and surrounding regions.

  • NYT: Israel plotted to kill Iran peace negotiators to derail talks

    NYT: Israel plotted to kill Iran peace negotiators to derail talks

    Fragile diplomatic efforts to end a months-long joint US-Israeli military campaign against Iran have been thrown into turmoil by new reports revealing that senior Trump administration officials detected Israeli plans to assassinate Iran’s top negotiating leaders to sabotage any potential peace deal. Two leading US outlets, The New York Times and The Washington Post, have corroborated the claims, citing unnamed current and former American officials and on-the-record confirmation from a senior Iranian aide.

    According to the Times’ reporting published Thursday, US intelligence concerns over planned Israeli targeting of two senior Iranian figures—Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf—grew sharply amid sensitive ceasefire negotiations that launched in April. The alarm was so severe that US officials went so far as to coordinate with regional third countries to relay explicit warnings to Iran about the looming threat to the two negotiators.

    The timeline of the crisis dates back to late February, when the US and Israel launched a joint offensive campaign that has already killed dozens of high-ranking Iranian officials. By late March, both countries had temporarily removed Araghchi and Ghalibaf from their official target lists, a step that opened the door for high-level talks to end the ongoing conflict. But the Times reports that Israeli leadership remained determined to eliminate the negotiators, a finding later confirmed by independent reporting from The Washington Post.

    One dramatic April incident laid bare the severity of the threat. Ghalibaf had planned a trip to Islamabad, Pakistan, to meet with US Vice President JD Vance, and Pakistani fighter jets escorted the Iranian aircraft carrying the 70-member delegation from the Iran-Pakistan border to the capital and back after the meeting concluded. However, as the plane began its return trip to Tehran, Israeli security threats emerged. Two unnamed American officials confirmed that Iranian security intercepted intelligence indicating Israel planned to target the plane, and that two Israeli fighter jets had entered Iranian airspace through the western border near Iraq.

    Mahdi Mohammadi, a senior adviser to Ghalibaf who accompanied the delegation on the Islamabad trip, later confirmed the entire account on his public social media page. To avoid the imminent threat, the plane made an emergency landing in Mashhad, the closest major Iranian airport to the Pakistani border, and the entire delegation completed the remaining journey to Tehran over an eight-hour land trip.

    The revelations have further exposed growing rifts between US and Israeli strategic approaches to the conflict, rifts that first emerged after Israel assassinated top Iranian national security official Ali Larijani in March. Speaking to reporters in late March, former President Donald Trump himself acknowledged that Israel’s widespread assassination campaign had complicated efforts to find viable Iranian negotiating partners, noting “They’ve wiped out everybody.”

    Analysts say Israel’s efforts to derail peace talks align with long-standing strategic goals and the immediate political interests of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, argued that while Israel is formally classified as a US partner, its leadership is so committed to undermining US-led diplomacy that it is willing to assassinate the very Iranian officials Washington is negotiating with.

    “I can’t recall a government as terrified of peace as the one running Israel,” Parsi wrote in response to the new reporting.

    Netanyahu has already escalated tensions in the region through his ongoing military occupation and assault on southern Lebanon, a core issue that Iran has identified as a non-negotiable point in the ongoing ceasefire talks. During a visit to occupied southern Lebanon earlier this week, Netanyahu told Israeli troops that “our insistence is that we will not leave … until the threat is removed,” a statement that further weakened trust ahead of negotiations.

    Parsi added that beyond Netanyahu’s long-stated goal of leveraging US power to bring Iran under Israeli dominance and reshape the regional balance of power in Israel’s favor, the Israeli prime minister faces urgent personal and political incentives to disrupt any peace deal. The emerging US-Iran memorandum of understanding on a ceasefire has already come at a major political cost for Netanyahu, whose chances of winning re-election in October’s national vote are now weaker than they have been in months. Once positioned as the only Israeli leader capable of maintaining a strong alliance with the Trump administration, Netanyahu now faces the prospect that a successful peace deal will leave Israel in a strategically weaker position, undermining the core justification for his leadership.

    Most critically, if Netanyahu loses the October election, he will lose his legal immunity as prime minister and faces ongoing corruption trials that could result in years of prison time.

  • Outrage after Turkish stand-up comedian arrested for ‘insulting’ Erdogan

    Outrage after Turkish stand-up comedian arrested for ‘insulting’ Erdogan

    A high-profile arrest of one of Turkey’s most popular stand-up comics has reignited fierce debate over freedom of expression in the country, after authorities took Deniz Goktas into custody on charges of insulting President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and violating Islamic religious values.

    Goktas was detained upon his arrival at Istanbul’s main airport on Thursday, just after returning from an overseas vacation, according to an official statement released by the Istanbul public prosecution service. He was formally placed under pre-trial arrest following initial processing. The charges stem directly from a 1 June stand-up set he performed in Istanbul, which was later uploaded to YouTube and has accumulated nearly 9 million views to date.

    During the widely circulated performance, Goktas wove sharp satirical commentary on Turkish politics and society, targeting not just President Erdogan, but also imprisoned main opposition Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, and two of Erdogan’s sons-in-law: former finance minister Berat Albayrak and leading defense industry figure Selcuk Bayraktar. One of Goktas’s most talked-about quips described Erdogan’s political evolution as shifting from a “shy dictator” to a leader who is now “at peace with his own identity.” He also joked that he would like to work as Erdogan’s personal therapist, noting the role would come with generous pay, extensive job security, and substantial perks, calling it a “perfect fit” for him.

    The controversial jokes that triggered the religious value charges centered on a quip about the Quran, the central religious text of Islam. Goktas framed the Quran as the fourth and final holy text in the Abrahamic tradition, saying “The first three books were good, but the translation was weak in the fourth. I think it was the best of the four books.”

    Appearing before a court on Friday for his formal arraignment, Goktas pushed back against all allegations, emphasizing he has performed the same stand-up routine since 2023 without incident, and never held any intention to insult either religious communities or the Turkish presidency. “The word ‘dictator’ is a political characterization. It is also a subject that is frequently debated in public,” Goktas told prosecutors. “I had no intention of insulting or denigrating anyone.”

    According to prosecution records, the performance drew 185 separate formal complaints from members of the public. Turkey’s Information and Communication Technologies Authority (BTK), the country’s top digital regulator, has already moved to block public access to clips of the set shared across major social media platforms.

    News of Goktas’s arrest has quickly sparked widespread condemnation from Turkish opposition politicians and human rights organizations, who frame the arrest as a deliberate attack on artistic expression and the latest in a long string of government crackdowns on public criticism of Erdogan’s administration. Murat Emir, a Member of Parliament from the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), accused Turkish courts of acting in bad faith to “invent a crime to arrest someone.” “You folks gripe about comedians, but the real improv show in this country is happening in the courthouse hallways,” Emir wrote on the social platform X, formerly Twitter.

    The Turkish Human Rights Association called Goktas’s arrest a “severe blow to freedom of expression.” In an official post on X, the group stated “We demand that this judicial harassment against Goktas be immediately ended and that he be released.”

    Goktas’s case is far from an anomaly in modern Turkey: thousands of people are arrested and prosecuted annually across the country under charges of insulting the presidency, outlined in Article 299 of the Turkish penal code. Convictions under the statute can carry prison sentences of up to four years.

  • Brazil’s top presidential candidates Lula and Flávio Bolsonaro clash over US tariff proposal

    Brazil’s top presidential candidates Lula and Flávio Bolsonaro clash over US tariff proposal

    RIO DE JANEIRO — A sharp public dispute has erupted between Brazil’s sitting President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and his leading electoral rival Senator Flávio Bolsonaro over a planned 25% tariff on Brazilian goods proposed by the Trump administration, a policy that has quickly become a polarizing flashpoint just months ahead of the country’s October presidential election. Both political leaders have publicly pushed back against the proposed tariff hike, while using the ongoing trade debate to attack one another’s credibility and political positioning ahead of the vote, a reflection of how much both sides believe handling the unpopular U.S. trade measure will shape voter sentiment.

    The proposed new tariffs come amid a years-long U.S. goods trade surplus with Brazil, making the Trump administration’s protectionist move unusual on paper. The trade friction first escalated last July, when the U.S. imposed a 50% tariff on select Brazilian imports, with then-President Donald Trump framing the move as a response to what he called a political “witch hunt” targeting Flávio’s father, former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro. The elder Bolsonaro was on trial at the time for his role in the 2022 coup attempt following his election loss to Lula, and was ultimately convicted on charges related to the insurrection.

    In June of this year, the U.S. Trade Representative’s office led by Jamieson Greer released the findings of a probe launched earlier this year at Trump’s direction, which accused Brazil of a range of unfair trade practices including lax anti-corruption enforcement and discriminatory tariff policies. The proposal for a 25% across-the-board tariff on Brazilian imports reversed a brief period of warming bilateral relations that followed meetings between Lula and Trump in 2024, and has once again soured ties between the two nations. Lula has repeatedly warned the U.S. against interfering in Brazil’s upcoming electoral process.

    Flávio Bolsonaro, who is the frontrunning opposition candidate for October’s presidency, argued in a formal submission to USTR this week that increased U.S. tariff pressure has already helped boost Lula’s standing with Brazilian voters. He included polling graphs in his filing, noting that “Brazilian public polling shows that the incumbent government’s electoral position has strengthened during precisely the periods when U.S. tariff pressure has been most salient.” He added that moving forward with the proposed tariffs would hand Lula a pre-election “political victory”, and called for the implementation of any tariffs to be postponed while upholding the USTR investigation’s findings.

    Lula has rejected Flávio Bolsonaro’s framing outright, calling the senator’s submission to USTR “yet another act of treason against the fatherland.” Expanding on the attack in a post on X Thursday, Lula accused the entire Bolsonaro family of advancing sell-out policies that subordinate Brazil’s national interests to Washington. “It is unacceptable that the Bolsonaro family, with its sellout policies, seeks to submit Brazil to the interests of the United States,” he wrote. “There has never been, nor is there, any justification for a tariff hike now or later.”

    Three hours after Lula’s post, Flávio Bolsonaro fired back on the same platform, claiming that Lula is secretly the only political figure in Brazil who wants the tariff hike to go forward. The senator also announced he would travel back to the U.S. next week to ramp up lobbying against the implementation of the new tariffs. The dispute has also drawn attention to the ongoing legal troubles of the Bolsonaro family: another of the former president’s sons, Eduardo Bolsonaro, who resides in Texas, was convicted earlier this year of illegally lobbying the U.S. government to pressure Brazilian officials to drop the coup charges against his father.

    Beyond the tariff fight, the two candidates have also clashed over a recent Trump administration decision to designate two of Brazil’s largest domestic organized crime groups — First Command of the Capital (PCC) and Red Command — as official terrorist organizations. Flávio Bolsonaro has publicly supported the designation, which many independent analysts view as a clear attempt by the U.S. to influence Brazil’s upcoming election. Lula, meanwhile, has argued that the classification is legally and strategically inappropriate, noting that the groups are primarily motivated by profit from drug trafficking and organized crime rather than ideological or political change, the core criterion for terrorist designation. Earlier this week, the U.S. followed up the classification with new sanctions targeting companies and individuals linked to PCC, which U.S. officials called the “largest transnational criminal organization in the Western Hemisphere.”

    On the trade front, Lula’s administration has formally rejected all of USTR’s core grievances, including the claim that Brazil’s popular PIX instant payment system unfairly disadvantages competing private electronic payment services. Brazilian officials have countered that PIX operates under lawful, neutral regulatory frameworks that actually promote greater competition in the country’s fintech sector. The entire tariff dispute has reinvigorated Lula’s campaign narrative centered on defending Brazilian national sovereignty, a message that resonated strongly with voters during his 2022 campaign and delivered an unexpected boost to his popularity ahead of this year’s re-election bid.