In Western Europe recently, from the Baltic states to Italy, concern has grown about electronic drones which buzzed around critical infrastructure, mainly airports, some of which even had to close for the night. Apparently it was discovered that the internal protection in European countries against the disruption that drones could cause was/is extremely weak. For instance - who should have been responsible for it, internal police forces or the national army?
What was also strange was how in many cases, the authorities apparently couldn't identify who was running the drones... apart from the fact that immediately suspicions were voiced and spread around that they were being organised by Russia to "test" the Europeans. This tied in with the narrative which has become standard in Europe since the start of the war in Ukraine - that Europe needs to consider how best to defend itself against a Russian threat.
However if truly, Russia was responsible for the disruptions caused by the drones, a disqueting question arises: why was European security left so weak, that a foreign power could organise, very very easily it seemed, the flight of drones over an airport like the one in Munich, say?
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EUROVISION
Morally and politically no other option should have been considered as consonant with Malta's sovereignty and neutrality other than that of doing like Ireland, Spain and the Netherlands, and retiring from the 2026 Eurovision contest.
Israel's participation in it will serve as an endorsement and excuse for the war crimes that country has committed with the greatest impunity in Gaza.
The claim that artistic considerations justify Malta's participation for on their basis, human values are being affirmed through dialogue and shared experiences is a clownish and hypocritical argument. For it should then be equally applied to Russia and Belarus, both excluded from the contest because of the Ukraine war.
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US NATIONAL SECURITY
The document published last week by the White House on US national security strategy has shocked many in Europe, national governments included. It presents a vision of how the US should define its role in global affairs and how it should evaluate other outside actors in a radical different way to how the US has operated since when Roosevelt and Churchill set out the foundations of the Atlantic alliance, and when later Henry Kissinger retouched their approach by pasting on it his real politik concepts. Coloured according to the bombastic style of the Trump administration, the new strategy gives evidence of a highly derogatory attitude towards the European political scene and is inspired by positions that in Europe are championed by the extreme right.
Despite all this, it would be a mistake if the document is not studied attentively, and not only because it is being published by an administration that is still in charge. More pertinently, it makes statements about the conduct of US policy that have never before been expressed at this level. Top of the list is the statement that the US should not seek to "dominate" the world. True, some proposals in the strategy will be understood as contradicting this aim. Still, the fact that it is being put forward in this way is significant.
There remains much more to say about this extremely unusual document.