From Volkswagen to Mercedes, Germany's struggling auto industry is embracing defense production — even as workers question what they're being asked to build. inkstickmedia.com/as-germany-r...

Absolute legend

Spotted in Berlin. “Studenti pobeđuju”

It feels as though the breaking news list is reading like: Dangerous heat wave. Love Island. Diarrhea parasite. Corruption! More about Jack Antonoff's relationship than you ever wanted to know. Someone died but not that person. Don't eat the berries; again, explosive diarrhea.

Spotted in Berlin. “Studenti pobeđuju”

The lawyer for a Palestinian medic from Gaza who has been detained by Israeli authorities for over 18 months without charge told the BBC he fears for his client’s life because his client was so badly beaten that he could not recognise him. www.bbc.com/news/article...

Romania's defence minister plans to sail home across the Black Sea after this year's NATO summit in Ankara. Read that and more in our @euractiv.com live blog: www.euractiv.com/news/live-bl...

When the housing crisis reaches your wardrobe

Spain’s main conservative party allied with the far right to continue governing the key region of Andalusia, in a potential dress rehearsal for next year’s general election. www.euractiv.com/news/right-f...

Germany’s far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) would seek to restore imports of Russian gas if it came to power, party leader Alice Weidel said, arguing that cheap Russian energy was key to reviving Europe’s largest economy. www.euractiv.com/news/german-...

Brussels and Washington are increasingly at odds over the future of the Office of the High Representative (OHR), the international body overseeing Bosnia’s post-war constitutional order. www.euractiv.com/news/eu-us-a...

"It was important to me that the interviews be in Deitsch. There are few audiovisual recordings of native speakers." This is so cool. www.thedial.world/articles/new...

dark www.euractiv.com/news/europea...

Brexit has cost Britain up to £30bn every year, says David Miliband. Reversing it is clearly in the national interest. www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/poli...

Before Bari Weiss slowly strangled 60 Minutes to death in front of our eyes, Scott Pelley interviewed me about the work of Bellingcat youtu.be/keQFk4z7nRI?...

White phosphorus ignites upon contact with oxygen and causes deep tissue burns. The NYT has evidence that Israel is using it in populated areas of Lebanon. www.nytimes.com/2026/06/06/w...

I'm old enough to remember when we were optimistic about the democratizing power of the Internet and its ability to connect activists and fuel civic engagement. How naive we all were...

The Chinese company Geedge Networks is developing new products that use AI to analyse location data and internet activity to predict who might do or say something critical of the government. www.nytimes.com/2026/06/01/u...

Albania’s EU membership bid has hit a new bump in the road over a luxury coastal resort project linked to Jared Kushner, Donald Trump’s son-in-law. www.euractiv.com/news/new-eu-...

This week's newsletter has a deep dive into an all-women's village in Syria. lazoletters.substack.com/p/inside-jin...

EU capitals are considering whether to exclude Ukrainian men of military age from any future extension of the bloc’s temporary protection scheme for the more than four million people fleeing Russia’s invasion. www.euractiv.com/news/exclusi...

A new pan-European movement called Via Nova wants to revive Latin to give Europeans a shared spoken language with historical weight, one that, in its words, carries “civilisational baggage”, Euractiv reports. www.euractiv.com/news/ad-brux...

WELLLL this is an emotional roller coaster of a read conversationalist.org/2026/05/22/s...

A new pan-European movement called Via Nova wants to revive Latin to give Europeans a shared spoken language with historical weight, one that, in its words, carries “civilisational baggage”, Euractiv reports. www.euractiv.com/news/ad-brux...

EU capitals are considering whether to exclude Ukrainian men of military age from any future extension of the bloc’s temporary protection scheme for the more than four million people fleeing Russia’s invasion. www.euractiv.com/news/exclusi...

This week's newsletter has a deep dive into an all-women's village in Syria. lazoletters.substack.com/p/inside-jin...

Now at an expat conference discussing rebellion in Germany, which really just means loudly vacuuming your apartment on Sundays…

Sentences heard at a panel discussion on settling into Germany and navigating the bureaucracy: “Print all your documents. everything. They really like copies.” “If they are friendly, you are very lucky.” 😑😑

The European Commission is to unlock over €16.4 billion in frozen EU funds, Ursula von der Leyen announced. The funds will be disbursed once the agreed reforms are implemented, following talks between the Commission and Hungarian Prime Minister Péter Magyar. www.euractiv.com/news/eu-unlo...

Russia has intensified its efforts to undermine Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s bid for re-election next month. In addition to disinformation campaigns, Moscow plans to transport tens of thousands of Russian-Armenians to sway the vote. www.reuters.com/world/import...

"In Hungary over the last decade, a government publicly committed to not accepting a single migrant has opened up to ‘guest workers’ instead, and immigration rates have climbed dramatically since 2016."

"Population decline will be why even politicians elected on anti-immigrant platforms are opening the doors to more migrants. Politics cannot sweep away demographic trends." indevelopmentmag.com/wheres-my-mi...

The European Commission will propose opening the first ‘cluster’ of negotiating chapters on Ukraine and Moldova’s EU membership on 16 June, a senior official has told Euractiv. www.euractiv.com/news/brussel...

The United Arab Emirates trained Colombian mercenaries before sending them to fight alongside the Sudanese Rapid Support Forces paramilitary, Human Rights Watch said in a report. www.hrw.org/report/2026/...

In today's Rapporteur newsletter, "around 130 conflicts are currently raging worldwide – more than double the number 15 years ago – while nearly 240 million people are expected to require humanitarian assistance this year."

The UN General Assembly adopted a resolution backing a 2025 International Court of Justice opinion that countries have a legal obligation to address climate change. The US joined Saudi Arabia, Russia, Israel, Iran, Yemen, Liberia, and Belarus in opposing it. www.reuters.com/legal/litiga...

A growing movement in Spain argues that everyday gestures and phrases preserve the legacy of Muslim Iberia and offer a rebuttal to the far right’s narratives of national identity. newlinesmag.com/essays/the-l...

All the articles I read last week: from the Roma village that Borat made famous to who will rule Chechnya. lazoletters.substack.com/p/long-weeke...

All the articles I read last week: from the Roma village that Borat made famous to who will rule Chechnya. lazoletters.substack.com/p/long-weeke...

A growing movement in Spain argues that everyday gestures and phrases preserve the legacy of Muslim Iberia and offer a rebuttal to the far right’s narratives of national identity. newlinesmag.com/essays/the-l...

The UN General Assembly adopted a resolution backing a 2025 International Court of Justice opinion that countries have a legal obligation to address climate change. The US joined Saudi Arabia, Russia, Israel, Iran, Yemen, Liberia, and Belarus in opposing it. www.reuters.com/legal/litiga...

"From 2018 to 2025, as U.S. sanctions grew more punitive, Cuba’s once-impressive infant mortality rate skyrocketed by 148 percent." Horrifying piece by two members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee who visited Cuba to see the impact of the US blockade. www.nytimes.com/2026/05/11/o...

Germany’s leader, Friedrich Merz, has launched a fresh proposal to fast-track Ukraine’s entry into the EU by giving it one foot in the door straight away, according to a letter seen by Euractiv’s Rapporteur. www.euractiv.com/news/germany...

Turkish opposition warns EU that Erdoğan’s course limits strategic partnership

Germany plans Brussels office for its defence procurement agency

At the beginning of the US strikes against Iran, when I heard that the strikes had hit Ahmadinejad, I was genuinely confused. In 2026, who still cares about Mahmoud Ahmadinejad? Now we know why his house was targeted: www.nytimes.com/2026/05/19/u...

Five EU countries have called on the European Commission to rethink how it involves prospective members from the Western Balkans in the bloc’s single market, pitching it as a way to keep membership hopefuls out of Russia’s sphere of influence. www.euractiv.com/news/exclusi...

A truly dystopian description from the New York Times of the Ukrainian Defence Minister Mykhailo Fedorov's job.

I just fed Claude AI a list of all the books I've read over the past 6 years and asked it to tell me which of them were written in first person.

I'm sure everyone's heard about the Bosnian tattoos by now. I explored the story for the @newlinesmag.bsky.social, and if you’re curious about Ottoman Bosnia, Catholic women, and the stakes of turning complicated histories into myths, take a look: newlinesmag.com/essays/the-o...