Amid strains in U.S.-European relations, the Trump administration has worked to strengthen ties with Hungary and its far-right leader, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who is facing his biggest challenge in 16 years. With just days to go before parliamentary elections, Orbán’s Fidesz party is trailing the center-right pro-EU Tisza party led by Péter Magyar. U.S. Vice President JD Vance traveled to Budapest this week and appeared alongside Orbán to openly campaign for his reelection. “This election is really crucial, not just for Hungary, but for the international right wing,” says Kim Lane Scheppele, professor of sociology and international affairs at Princeton University. “There’s been a lot of American signaling that the U.S. […]

The U.S.-Israeli war on Iran has deepened rifts with several European countries. The Spanish government has been most outspoken in its opposition to the war, and U.S. allies like Germany and the United Kingdom have voiced some criticism while providing logistical support for the assault on Iran. NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte has tried to smooth over differences and placate President Trump, even as he has mused about pulling the U.S. out of the military alliance and renewed his threats to seize Greenland. “If there’s one thing that actually one can say about President Trump, it’s that he’s been very consistent in his total disdain for Europe and for NATO,” says Nathalie Tocci, an international affairs scholar based in Madrid, […]

As the United States and Iran prepare to hold talks in Pakistan aimed at ending the war, Israel is continuing to bomb Lebanon, where the death toll from Wednesday’s massive wave of attacks has topped 300. “It was 10 minutes of terror, a day that the Lebanese are calling Black Wednesday,” says Lebanese Australian journalist Rania Abouzeid, speaking with Democracy Now! from Beirut. “It was hard to tell what was blowing up where, because those hundred or so attacks were all happening simultaneously.” Israel and the U.S. have claimed the Iran ceasefire deal struck this week does not include Lebanon, contradicting Iran’s position. Abouzeid says direct talks between Israel and Lebanon are very “divisive” as many Lebanese fear […]

Death Toll from Israel’s “Black Wednesday” Attack on Lebanon Tops 300, Iran Warns Israeli Attacks on Lebanon Could Destroy Ceasefire Deal and Diplomacy with U.S., House GOP Blocks Democratic Effort to Force Vote on Iran War Powers Resolution, Israel Approves 34 Settler Outposts Amid Continuing Settler Violence in Occupied West Bank, 9-Year-Old Palestinian Girl Shot Dead in Front of Classmates in Gaza’s Beit Lahia, Federal Court Blasts Pentagon for Ignoring Prior Order to Restore Reporters’ Access, Federal Judge Postpones Cancellation of Protected Status for Ethiopian Immigrants, U.N. Warns Nearly 1,000 Asylum Seekers Have Died Attempting to Cross Mediterranean in 2026, Melania Trump Denies Past Ties with Jeffrey Epstein in […]

As Iran destroyed energy facilities and infrastructure in all six of its Persian Gulf neighbors and blocks their shipments of oil through the Strait of Hormuz, the Gulf states — Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman and the United Arab Emirates — are reevaluating their strategic alliances with the United States. We speak to Yasmine Farouk, the Gulf and Arabian Peninsula project director at the International Crisis Group, about where else the Arab Gulf is looking toward in Asia and Europe to diversify its defense relationships, and what exactly the war has put at risk in the region. “Let’s remember the ceasefire came at a moment when energy infrastructures, desalination, power plants, nuclear plants could have been in the […]