‘I was there in 1962’: a reader remembers the start of the German economic miracle
In the early 1960s I had a stroke of luck. Through a Fulbright scholarship in mathematics, I was given the opportunity to study at the University of Freiburg.
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Opinion
Latest reporting and analysis on opinion.
An American finally acts against the Chinese and their outlaw state
Mao Zedong gazed admiringly at page three of his special edition of The Peking People’s Daily Sun. Such exquisiteness, he thought: pert, pink, pretty.
Defeated West is pretending victory in Ukraine, but outsourced the bleeding to Kyiv
Here we go again. The liberal West, that self-anointed guardian of liberty, is dusting off its cape for a grand Ukrainian encore.
Merz will learn from Bismarck, firewall against the AfD may actually be political fuel
Europe pays regular obeisance to remembering “the lessons of the past.
Can Europe buy all its energy from the USA? Trump’s pitch meets reality
In the greater picture of his trade wars, Donald Trump pushed a bold idea: Europe should buy all its oil, gas and coal from the USA. It is a loud, daring proposal.
High tax + high welfare + low defence = European good life threatened by Trump
When one looks at Europe’s responses to the threats which have faced it in the past few years – the Trump administration demanding they defend themselves, Russia’s…
Would Trump defend Taiwan?
President Trump’s tariff bombshell is more than simply a historic economic decision with geopolitical consequences on the side, as second-order effects.
Trump’s tariffs: Europe must realise quality not just price can win US customers
I always found the story behind the “Made in Germany” label interesting.
Trump works a political miracle in Downing Street
Obscured by the deafening cacophony of incomprehension about a number of the policy innovations of the Trump administration, there are some refreshing signs of progress.
Devilish? EU-China relations after Trump’s tariffs surrender Europe to the despot Xi
Donald Trump has unleashed a trade tempest that has got the EU scrambling.
Macron should be a clever statesman and pardon Le Pen
Marine Le Pen’s conviction for embezzlement, coupled with the court’s imposition of a five-year ban on running for public office, matters well outside of France.
Ice-cold calm needed on tariffs and not journalists’ urge to report ‘war’
Perhaps the most sensible thing said in the hysterical particle-accelerator that was world opinion following President Trump’s announcements on tariffs came from…
Europe locked in past strategies while US makes radical break
Before the First World War, European countries decided what happened to the rest of the world.
How Europe is squeezing itself in a two-front war
In Europe, scary days are back again. The old continent is facing a two-front war, the most inconvenient position one can imagine.
EU pauses corporate reporting, worldwide companies not yet under Brussels’ thumb
On April 3, the European Parliament ratified a decision to stop the clock on scheduled corporate reporting and compliance requirements – most notably the Corporate…
Spain still scrabbling around for meaning and values in dust of Civil War secularism
The template for the conduct and outcome of all public controversy, both in Spain and elsewhere, should be the YouTube footage of the “notorious” kiss by the…
America’s Hemispheric Turn?
Donald Trump’s real foreign policy vision in his second term remains an intriguing puzzle.
US foreign policy? You have to wonder if America is even trying
Ah, the United States and foreign policy—a tale as old as time, or at least as old as Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points.
A history of French political convictions: lack of ethics or overheated politics?
The conviction for embezzlement of French Rassemblement National leader Marine Le Pen invites concern that the French are setting off down the same road of politicisation…
Unelected judge and prosecutor make Le Pen a martyr
How does this all end?
French judge dismantles democracy to ‘protect’ it from the will of the people
In the puppet comedy film Team America, the counter-terrorist protagonists defeat a group of Islamic terrorists in Paris, accidentally destroying the Eiffel Tower,…
Le Pen: the will of the people of France is now irrelevant
Liberals and judges everywhere will be rejoicing at the elimination of Marine Le Pen from the presidential race for the Élysée, the former because they will happily…
The EastMed Pipeline, Greece, Cyprus and Israel: do not let cowardice kill it again
The Eastern Mediterranean is at a crossroads, and the EastMed Pipeline - linking Greece, Cyprus, and Israel in a defiant energy pact - stands as a promise and a…
Trump knows what he’s doing, tariffs are a honeytrap to lure industries to the States
Is there any rhyme or reason to what seems like the latest episode of "Tariffs Gone Wild"?
Listen to Vance’s warning: why the cordon sanitaire belongs to the past
To prevent German citizens from fleeing the workers’ paradise in the German Democratic Republic (GDR), the communists built a so-called ‘Anti-Fascist Protection…
It’s too early to jump to conclusions about US foreign policy
The advent of Donald Trump’s second presidency has brought a considerable level of disruption to US foreign policy in a very short space of time.
US says ‘No more money’, South Africa is a failed and racist government
President Trump and Secretary of State Rubio's expulsion this week from the United States of the South African ambassador, Ebrahim Rasool, is another delightful…
It was always just the US: Europe, a continent unwilling to prepare for war
Europe as a political, cultural and economic entity does not deserve to survive.
Are Europe and the US headed for a divorce? Or would that be folly?
If the United States and Europe were a married couple, you would probably say they are headed for a divorce.
Turkey’s turmoil and the taboo question: is Islam compatible with democracy?
Turkey’s democratic façade collapsed on March 19, when Istanbul mayor Ekrem Imamoglu - the West’s secular poster boy - was snatched from his bed in the middle…