GERMANY - Germany's deindustrialisation: capital flight, green policy, and the point of no return. The German Chamber of Industry and Commerce (DIHK) sees the German economy in a prolonged phase of deindustrialization. Together with the Federation of German Industries (BDI), the chamber reiterates calls for far-reaching reforms to boost growth and investment. Yet both associations still shy away from touching the golden calf of the green transformation. Existing reforms are failing to reach companies, Melnikov warns, pointing to high labor and energy costs. The BDI likewise called 2026 a “year of reforms” in comments to Reuters. All of this is correct. And yet the question remains why leading figures of German business still lack the courage to openly criticize government policy and finally bury the visibly failed project of greening German society.

MIDDLE EAST - Things are getting very tense in the Middle East. The Islamic radicals that are ruling Iran believe that the United States and Israel intend to use the mass protests that have been going on for nearly two weeks to try to overthrow their regime. If Ayatollah Khamenei and his top advisers reach a point where they are convinced that the Iranian government could actually fall, there is no telling what they might decide to do. Meanwhile, President Trump has declared that the US is ready to take military action if the Iranians continue to kill more protesters, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has warned that there will be “very severe” consequences for Iran if Israel is attacked. If either Khamenei, Trump or Netanyahu pulls the trigger, the Middle East will erupt in flames. Have the Iranians given the Russians advance warning? It is being reported that the Russians are “urgently” evacuating their diplomatic personnel from Israel right now…

ISRAEL - The terrorists don't need to show up again. The inhibition is already installed, running quietly in the background like software that updates itself. Eleven years ago today, two brothers walked into the Paris offices of Charlie Hebdo and murdered 12 people for drawing cartoons. Two days later, another gunman, this one pledging allegiance to ISIS, walked into a kosher supermarket and murdered four Jews buying groceries for Shabbat. We thought we were watching an atrocity. We were actually watching the beginning of the end of Europe as we knew it. These weren’t random acts of violence. They were tutorials. These were demonstrations of how terror rewrites the rules of free societies without the need to pass laws. The lesson was easy to comprehend: Publish what we don’t like, and we’ll kill you. Be visibly Jewish in public, and we’ll kill you. Once we’ve done it a few times, the fear will do the rest of the work for us. That’s the evil genius of the strategy. You only have to strike once or twice before the inhibition becomes self-sustaining.

GREENLAND - A close adviser to President Trump says the US leader will order more military action on Cuba, Colombia and even Mexico — but he will never attack Greenland. The retired US general Jack Keane, now a well-known American television personality, speaks to the president regularly and knows his private thinking. Despite a White House statement to the contrary on Tuesday, he insisted the president “has never seriously thought about taking physical control of Greenland by military means”. Instead, Keane said Trump was using the threat of force as “intimidation” to forge a security deal.

VENEZUELA - The most revealing response to Nicolás Maduro’s removal did not come from diplomats, NGOs, or international legal bodies. It came from Venezuelans themselves. Across the Diaspora – in Miami, Madrid, Bogotá, Toronto – the reaction was not confusion or fear, but relief. Celebration. A stunned disbelief that the nightmare might finally be ending.

VENEZUELA - Forget fentanyl and cocaine. The substance Donald Trump really wants to stop flowing out of Venezuela is crude oil to China. This is not because America craves the stuff itself. The United States produces more oil than Saudi Arabia and more gas than Russia. True, some American refineries would like more of Venezuela's glutinous oil, which is good for making asphalt and similar products, but it is by no means essential. No, what really bothers Washington is Beijing's special deal with Venezuela's narco-communist thugs: to buy oil on the cheap, reportedly at a $14-per-barrel discount on the price of Brent crude, the world benchmark.

IRAN - US Senator Lindsey Graham warned that if Iran’s security forces continue killing protesters, President Donald Trump would order the killing of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Tuesday. Graham delivered the warning in a Fox News interview, addressing Iran’s clerical leadership and urging an end to the crackdown. His comments came as nationwide demonstrations entered their eleventh day. Graham said Tehran’s leadership should “take Trump seriously,” asserting that continued lethal force against demonstrators would invite direct retaliation at the highest levels. The senator directed his message at the regime's leadership, saying, "If you keep killing your people who are demanding a better life, Donald J Trump is going to kill you.”

VENEZUELA - Cocaine trafficking was a transparent excuse for attacking Venezuela. US President Donald Trump ordered the midnight raid and seizure of the country’s president because he sought a bigger prize, not because of any imminent threat of drugs flooding American cities. He was confident he could get away with it. He saw no need to consult Congress, much less ask for a declaration of war, his advisers said. He was confident that a toadying GOP-led Congress would buy his argument that this was merely law enforcement arresting a wanted criminal. Moreover, he believes he has a blanket grant of immunity from the Supreme Court to do as he pleases and a disposition that sees himself as the ultimate ruler, not an elected president.

FRANCE - Britain and her allies need to accept that Trump cannot be depended on to defend Ukraine. The Prime Minister is in Paris to co-host a meeting of the coalition of the willing alongside Emmanuel Macron, attended by Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky and his other allies. Donald Trump has deigned to send special envoy Steve Witkoff and his own son-in-law Jared Kushner to lead the US delegation – incidentally, Witkoff has met with Putin at least twice as many times in the last 12 months as he has with Zelensky.

GREENLAND - For the past eight decades, NATO has survived the plots of its enemies and the disputes of its allies. But the only storm the alliance could not weather would be the spectacle of one ally invading another. If Donald Trump acts on his public threat – or even promise – to seize Greenland from Denmark, that would make a nonsense of NATO’s core function, which is to convince an aggressor that every ally would defend any member which came under attack. Mr Trump surely knows this. He must also grasp that wrecking NATO would hand the greatest possible victory to Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping. But that only raises the question: does Mr Trump care?