Outsourcing the industry to China cannot continue, but Europe knows it can no longer count on the US for a solution
The alarm sounded 16 years ago. In 2010, China blocked exports of key rare earths to Japan in a row over disputed islands in the East China Sea. The critical minerals are essential to everything from advanced weaponry and iPhones to electric vehicle batteries and wind turbines, so the rest of the world took note. But it didn’t take much action. China still accounts for about 70% of rare-earth mining globally and 90% of separation and processing.
Then, last year, Beijing forced Donald Trump to back away from his trade war – not with its retaliatory tariffs, but the curbing of rare-earth exports. A scramble for new supplies began in earnest. The year-long trade truce is due to expire in November. The price of erbium, an element essential to communications infrastructure, has already jumped because of fears that export controls will soon be renewed.
The move sends the right signal. While we’re at it, can we ban using ringtones and scooting on the sidewalk?
Imagine driving in Italy, with its narrow, cobblestone streets and scooter enthusiasts. I find it hard enough to drive in Los Angeles, a city designed specifically with the automobile in mind. I’d probably squash a pedestrian or two trying to navigate Italian roads.
The modern world is just too hectic for the ancient streets of Europe, so Italy is considering doing the only sensible thing it can: outlawing texting in crosswalks. The Italian government’s updated draft of its highway code proposes fines of €75 or more for anyone caught sending a DM, updating their LinkedIn, finishing Wordle on the fifth guess, or anything else phone-related that might make them miss an oncoming metal projectile. I’m sure most people will risk the slap on the wrist to get that message off, but it at least sends a signal to the Italian people that paying attention to traffic is actually kind of important.
Dave Schilling is a Los Angeles-based writer and humorist
Les Islandais ont rejeté une reprise des négociations d'adhésion à l'Union européenne, selon les résultats définitifs du référendum sur la question, publiés dimanche. La candidature avait été déposée en 2009, avant d'être gelée en 2013 sur fond d'euroscepticisme.
Ukraine is striking deeper into the heart of Russia than ever before with swarms of drones that have led Russians into a panic.Experts say that Kyiv’s resourcefulness is a result of studying Moscow, Maira Butt reports
Des coups de feu tirés en marge d'une rave party dans le nord de la Suisse, à Aarau, ont fait un mort et au moins cinq blessés, dont certains gravement, a indiqué, dimanche, la police locale. Les recherches pour retrouver les auteurs, encore inconnus, sont en cours. Un appel à témoins a été lancé afin de recueillir des vidéos ou des photos de l'incident.
Au moins 37 personnes sont mortes dans une frappe russe sur un entrepôt près de la capitale ukrainienne, tard vendredi, selon un bilan des autorités, qui ont également évacué plus de 200 personnes dans la nuit. Une enquête a été ouverte portant sur "la légalité" du stockage d'explosifs sur place.
Ukraine has been littered with mines since Putin invaded the country in 2022, posing a devastating risk to civilians. Antonina Kulhava, a humanitarian deminer, tells Maira Butt how she is trying to make her country safer
Quelque 273 000 électeurs sont appelés à voter samedi lors d'un référendum sur une reprise des négociations d'adhésion à l'Union européenne, treize ans après que les discussions ont été gelées par l'arrivée d'un gouvernement eurosceptique au pouvoir. La question de la pêche, cruciale pour l'économie locale, est l'un des principaux points de friction.
The Ukrainian president has promised to punish those responsible as munitions were unknowingly stored in the area causing a huge fire to spread from the explosion
Considérée comme un quasi-État membre, l'Islande se prononce samedi sur la reprise des négociations en vue d'une adhésion à l'Union européenne (UE). La poursuite de ce processus, motivé en partie par les menaces de Donald Trump contre le Groenland, divise les 400 000 habitants de l'île, attachés à leur identité et à un secteur de la pêche crucial pour l'économie locale.
Une manifestation organisée par les habitants de l'enclave espagnole de Ceuta, en Afrique du Nord, pour protester contre la présence de migrants sur le territoire après la vague migratoire survenue fin juillet a dégénéré en affrontements. Le ministre espagnol de l'Intérieur, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, a appelé au calme et à la "cessation de toute forme de violence".
Après le décès vendredi du roi Harald V, le prince héritier accède au trône sous le nom de Haakon VIII aux côtés de son épouse Mette-Marit. Moderne et mesuré, le nouveau monarque de 53 ans hérite d’une couronne fragilisée par une récente série de scandales qui touchent la famille royale.
Finnish police and the Border Guard suspect a scheme that turned paper employment into residence permits and citizenship, Yle reported. Investigators believe one man organized it through companies that did little or no business, and that it may have run for more than two decades. The suspected organizer and the people who obtained citizenship are Russian nationals.
Russia's invasion of Ukraine pushed European states to restrict Russian travel, freeze assets, and harden their borders, while Moscow expanded sabotage, espionage, and recruitment across the continent. A passport from any member state carries movement, residence, and work rights across the whole union, so documents issued on false grounds in one country become an opening into all of them.
Jobs that existed only in documents
Authorities suspect the main figure arranged fictitious employment relationships for foreign nationals. That paperwork let them apply for Finnish residence permits and, later, for citizenship. From 2003 he registered several companies in southeastern Finland, police and the Border Guard said. The firms either did no real business at all or very little of it. The suspected criminal arrangement appeared shortly after 2003.
Applicants are suspected of paying for the fictitious jobs and for help assembling their documents.
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At least 12 citizenships, five unfinished applications
At least 12 people obtained Finnish citizenship without grounds, by the investigation's account. Five more naturalizations were still unfinished when the preliminary investigation opened in 2024. Criminal police commissioner Teppo Tähtinen said the scale of the case came as a surprise to investigators.
Investigators also believe the arrangement ran further back, with people naturalized earlier possibly involved. The statute of limitations has expired on those cases.
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The preliminary investigation found that the main suspect and his accomplices sat Finnish language exams for other people. They also completed study assignments in Finnish on their behalf. Without that, the applicants probably could not have obtained citizenship, the investigation found.
Naturalization normally requires five to eight years ofresidence on a residence permit, Finnish or Swedish at B1 level, and confirmed income, The Moscow Times reported. In 2025, 14,689 people received Finnish citizenship. Russians were among the nationalities filing the most applications, together with citizens of Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, and Somalia.
Finland's harder line toward Russia
Finland has kept its eastern border with Russia closed, and Helsinki has accused Moscow of steering migrants toward the crossings. The country has also rearmed since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, raising its reserve age and setting a long-term troop target. Last week Finnish authorities opened an inquiry into a suspected Russian airspace violation over the Gulf of Finland.
Condamné à la prison à vie pour génocide, crimes de guerre et crimes contre l’humanité, l’ancien chef militaire des Serbes de Bosnie, Ratko Mladic, mort jeudi, reste une figure adulée en Serbie. Le ministre serbe de la Justice Nenad Vujic a annoncé qu'il aura droit à des obsèques avec "les honneurs militaires et d'État".
Le Palais royal norvégien a annoncé vendredi la mort du roi de Norvège, sur le trône depuis 35 ans. Des milliers de Norvégiens s'étaient rassemblés dès jeudi soir devant le palais royal d'Oslo pour soutenir le roi Harald V, 89 ans, qui avait été hospitalisé le 17 août. Son héritier, le prince Haakon, devient le nouveau roi de ce pays scandinave.
Les autorités de Kherson ont appelé jeudi les habitants à quitter cette ville située dans le sud de l'Ukraine, où les frappes russes visant les infrastructures essentielles s'intensifient, faisant craindre des coupures prolongées d'électricité et de chauffage.
Ratko Mladic, l'ex-chef militaire des Serbes de Bosnie, est mort en détention, a annoncé la télévision publique serbe jeudi. Le "Boucher des Balkans" avait été condamné en 2017 par la justice internationale à la perpétuité pour crimes contre l'humanité et crimes de guerre pendant la guerre de Bosnie.
Donald Trump has downplayed a visit to Moscow by the CIA director, John Ratcliffe, as “semi-routine” after he turned up in the Russian capital unannounced, triggering a wave of speculation about the reasons for his trip.
Ratcliffe was reported to have flown to Moscow on a government transport plane on Tuesday in a rare visit after taking off from the Andrews air force base in Maryland.
Slovak police foiled a planned arson attack on a drone factory in the country's east, the force said on 25 August. Investigators charged three foreigners with preparing the attack on commission and seized incendiary material and equipment at the scene. The plant belongs to the Ukrainian drone maker Skyeton, Militarnyi reported.
Russia's war has an arm inside Europe that usually works without missiles against Ukraine supporters — agents and recruited locals, carrying out arsons, parcel fires, flying an explosive drone at a Ukrainian cargo plane in Germany, plotting against arms-industry figures — and the point of hiring strangers to light fires is that a burned production hall costs Moscow nothing it can be held to account for.
Had the attack in Slovakia gone ahead, it risked a large fire, danger to life and health, and damage on a large scale, police stated. About 70 employees could have been in the building at the time, by preliminary estimates. Property inside the production hall is worth tens of millions of euros, according to the findings so far.
Officers seized a larger quantity of incendiary mixture, along with tools, mobile phones, an action camera, and a hand-made plan. The police Criminalistics and Expertise Institute gave a preliminary finding that the substance was a mixture of gasoline and polystyrene, commonly called napalm. Slovakia's anti-crime unit ÚBOK, part of the Police Presidium, identified the people preparing the attack and stopped it. Nobody was hurt and no property was damaged, police said.
Items seized during the operation, and one of the detained men, eastern Slovakia, August 2026. Photo: Police of the Slovak Republic
The charges, and where the three were detained
An ÚBOK investigator charged the three foreigners with preparing a particularly serious crime of general endangerment, committed as co-perpetrators on order. Officers detained two of them in Slovakia, and the investigator moved to have both taken into custody. German authorities detained the third on a European arrest warrant. The investigation continues, and the legal classification of the men's actions may still change.
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The plant, and a company Russia has already hit
Slovakia, a NATO and EU member, borders Ukraine on its eastern edge. Skyeton builds the Raybird, a fixed-wing reconnaissance drone that has served with Ukraine's Armed Forces since 2018 and stays airborne for up to 28 hours. The company began production in Slovakia in 2024, and more than €10 million in foreign investment went into the plant, one of several sites Ukrainian firms opened abroad to cut the risk of Russian attacks.
That risk is not theoretical. Russia destroyed Skyeton's Kyiv office in May, and the company said it had already spread production capacity across Ukraine and abroad in anticipation.
A Skyeton representative told Militarnyi:
"The recent attempt on our production in Slovakia is another sign that Ukrainian arms makers are already a bone in their throat, which means we are on the right path."
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Arson against Ukraine's defense partners in Europe
Companies working for Ukraine have been hit across several countries this year and earlier.
In March, suspects who claimed a pro-Palestinian motive set fire to the Pardubice production of Archer, a Ukrainian maker of thermal imaging sights, destroying nearly all of the company's capacity in Czechia.
Estonia opened a Russian-link investigation this month into a suspected arson at a military robot maker supplying Ukraine, and Lithuania charged six people in January over an attempt to burn a factory that supplied radio-wave scanners.
A powerful explosion of undetermined cause hit EMCO, one of Bulgaria's largest private arms makers, which produces artillery ammunition for Ukraine, on 10 August.
Le directeur de la CIA, John Ratcliffe, s'est rendu à Moscou pour échanger "entre services secrets", sans rencontrer le président Vladimir Poutine, a affirmé, mercredi, le porte-parole du Kremlin, Dmitri Peskov.
L'Islande doit se prononcer samedi sur une reprise des négociations avec l'Union européenne lors d'un référendum au résultat très incertain. Les discussions d'adhésion, ouvertes en 2010, avaient été interrompues trois ans plus tard après l'arrivée au pouvoir d'une coalition eurosceptique.
While the president remains the most dominant figure in the world, other leaders and institutions are pushing back more vigorously than at the beginning of his second term.
Lawyer Baltasar Garzón, representing Chambers, said case against his client is ‘very strange’ as US requests extradition
FBI agents raided the Ibiza, Spain, vacation rental of 41-year-old James “Fergie” Chambers, a US citizen and wealthy donor to leftwing and humanitarian projects worldwide, in the days following his arrest last month, the Guardian has learned.
Baltasar Garzón, a human rights lawyer representing Chambers, revealed the details in an exclusive interview. Chambers is wanted for extradition by the Trump administration for alleged financial support of Hamas, as well as other charges.
Unannounced trip reported by US media is said to be Ratcliffe’s first known visit to Russia as CIA chief
The CIA director, John Ratcliffe, has made an unannounced visit to Moscow, US media reported, after flight data showed an American military aircraft flew to the Russian capital, where a US diplomatic motorcade was later spotted.
CBS News quoted sources familiar with the situation as confirming Ratcliffe’s trip, saying it was his first known visit to Russia as CIA chief. Axios separately confirmed the visit, quoting a US official.
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