Poland arrests man over plot to kill PM Donald Tusk

Poland arrests man over plot to kill PM Donald Tusk

Submission Statement: Prime Minister Donald Tusk confirmed the arrest hours after police received information about a possible assassination plot. Poland is still reeling from a wave of school violence this week.

Tusk's tweet followed an emergency meeting by Poland's security services to discuss what officials said was a potential attack against both the prime minister and Defense ‌Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz.

The meeting was convened at short notice after police received a tip-off about a possible assassination attempt, a spokesperson for the Interior Ministry wrote in a post on X.
While the nature of the apparent threat was not immediately clear, Poland remains on high alert after a wave of violent attacks at schools in the country this week.

Poland, which borders Ukraine, has also been facing growing security threats from hybrid attacks by Russia in recent months

Polish police have detained 117 people across the country for carrying knives or dangerous weapons, as well as for threatening to attack schools or students. Police checked 64,000 schools, most of them in central Mazovian province.

dw.com
u/DifficultBarber6969 — 4 days ago

Pakistan cracks down on Imran Khan stronghold province (Khyber Pakhtunkhwa)

Submission Statement: Pakistan has declared a state of emergency and imposed governor’s rule in the western province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, suspending the provincial government led by the party of imprisoned former prime minister Imran Khan.

The move on Sunday marked the biggest escalation yet by the military-backed government against Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party (PTI) in its stronghold, a province of 40mn people that is at the centre of the country’s security crisis.

Since early October, thousands of people have been demonstrating in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to demand the former prime minister and international cricket star’s release and to oppose the military’s counter-insurgency tactics along the border with Afghanistan.

While the federal government said the suspension was caused by a worsening security situation and the provincial government’s lack of action, statistics gathered by the Centre for Research and Security Studies, an Islamabad-based think-tank, suggest a fall in deaths of civilians and security personnel in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Such killings in the province totalled 485 in the first nine months of 2026, down 16 per cent compared with the same period in 2025, according to the CRSS, which says overall deaths of civilians and security forces across Pakistan rose 9 per cent.

Shortly after the emergency announcement, the account on social media site X for Junaid Akbar, a member of parliament and the president of the PTI’s provincial chapter, said he and Sohail Afridi, the 37-year-old provincial chief minister who was leading the protest march, had been arrested. 

Afridi, Pakistan’s youngest-ever chief minister, hails from the country’s fractious tribal belt on the border with Afghanistan and has for days led a “long march” through the province to advocate for Khan and oppose the army’s military operations over alleged collateral civilian deaths and damage.

Khan’s party has ruled Khyber Pakhtunkhwa since 2013, and the PTI secured more than 60 per cent of seats in the provincial assembly in elections in 2024, two years after his premiership was ended by a parliamentary no-confidence vote. 

Candidates loyal to Khan won the most seats in the National Assembly in 2024, but they were blocked from power by the military and Pakistan’s two dynastic political parties.

ft.com
u/DifficultBarber6969 — 4 days ago

Russia steps up bid to kill European defence chiefs, spy agencies warn

Submission Statement: Western intelligence agencies have warned Europe’s defence bosses that Russia is stepping up efforts to assassinate them, prompting companies to increase personal security around their top executives.

Assassinations against European civilian targets — once considered taboo, even by Russia’s spy agencies — are an increasingly prominent part of those plans, European intelligence services have told the FT. 

The FT spoke with officials from five different European intelligence agencies who warned that chief executives and other senior employees at defence companies were being targeted by Kremlin operatives.

Executives at smaller companies — especially those involved in the manufacturing of drones or their components — are also in their sights, the people said.

Germany’s domestic intelligence service (BfV) has significantly increased its outreach to “employees and management” at German defence companies, including recommending the use of privately contracted close-protection teams, a BfV official said.  

Several defence executives, speaking on condition of anonymity, told the FT they had escalated their close-protection arrangements in the past six months on the specific advice of government security services. Others said they only used such measures when travelling outside of their home country.  

In some cases, active plots have already been discovered and stopped. In others, suspicious activity has been observed — including “pattern-of-life” surveillance against individuals at home as well as work. 

Security officials stressed that a key part of the Russian approach was that assassination attempts did not even have to be carried out in order for the campaign have its desired effect.

"The main goal from the Russian perspective is still psychological,” said one intelligence official. “Just by making people feel they might be a target, they are having their effect. They want individuals to think twice before doing business with Ukraine.”  

Defence executives at Europe’s largest arms companies have been on high alert since early 2024, when US and German intelligence uncovered a Russian plot against Armin Papperger, the chief executive of Germany’s Rheinmetall. 

Intelligence sources believed Russian agents had been looking at a single high-profile hit, and Papperger, who had been an outspoken advocate of arming Ukraine against Russia, was a unique target. Papperger has said he now has round-the-clock close protection from a combination of private security guards and police.

ft.com
u/DifficultBarber6969 — 4 days ago
▲ 115 r/neofrance+1 crossposts

France meets fiscal reality with a crunch

Submission Statement: “Reality is catching up with us,” French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu warned this week on the eve of presenting the 2027 budget. Lecornu was referring to this year’s surge in government borrowing costs which aggravates France’s fiscal woes just as it enters the presidential election campaign. Amid a broader debt market sell-off, France has become a focal point of investor jitters about debt sustainability.

France’s debt-to-GDP ratio now stands at 119 per cent. Its 10-year bond yields this week climbed above 4.9 per cent, the highest in the Eurozone, from 3.6 per cent in early July. The premium that Paris must pay compared with German debt has risen sharply to more than 125 basis points, the highest level since the peak of the Eurozone crisis in 2012. A country that has not run a budget surplus since 1974 is now paying dearly for its profligacy.

The worst-case scenario for debt investors would be a run-off between the far-left Jean-Luc Mélenchon and the far-right Marine Le Pen. Mélenchon has proposed cancelling government debt held by France’s central bank, which would send fear rippling across debt markets. Le Pen has committed to a 3 per cent deficit ceiling but lacks anything like a serious plan for the €140bn or so in annual savings needed to get there by 2032.

Since France is too big to fail, investors expect the European Central Bank to eventually intervene in case of crisis, keeping a lid on yields. The ECB has the tools and could step in to prevent contagion to other Eurozone sovereigns. But it would also face stiff opposition in other capitals to bailing out a country that has repeatedly failed to get its house in order, especially if led by a president who is at loggerheads with the EU on other fronts. The market squeeze and France’s fiscal pain could get much worse before any rescue.

ft.com
u/DifficultBarber6969 — 13 days ago

JPMorgan sees India outbound M&A rising as firms move to secure supply chains

Submission Statement: JPMorgan Chase expects more Indian companies to look for mergers and acquisitions overseas as they seek to secure key supply chains against volatile geopolitics that has led to the weaponisation of key supplies such as critical minerals.

Outbound M&A from India has had a strong ‌year, Paul Uren, head of investment banking for Asia Pacific at the Wall Street firm, said in an interview with Reuters in Mumbai.

"There are a number of Indian companies that have a very good acquisition currency, and they also have access to the capital markets, whether it's equity or debt. So you'll continue to see more of that," Uren said. "We'll be active in pursuing opportunities along those lines."

Overall M&A in India hit the $100 billion ⁠mark in the first half of 2026 across 680 deals, data from JPMorgan showed. Outbound deals have already reached close to $24 billion so far this year, on track to hit a record high.

Deals announced this year include Sun Pharmaceuticals' deal to buy U.S. drugmaker Organon & Co in an all-cash deal valued at $11.75 billion including debt. JPMorgan was an advisor to the deal which is expected to close in early 2027.

Indian firms are in conversations to secure energy supplies and critical minerals as part of free trade agreements. As part of trade talks with Canada, for instance, a number of companies are in talks to invest in LNG and critical mineral projects, Canada's trade minister said over the ‌weekend

This announcement comes at the heels of Jamie Dimon heading to India where he will be meeting executives from India's top conglomerates, as well as Blackstone's President Jon Gay stating that India has reached a tipping point for foreign capital absorption.

reuters.com
u/DifficultBarber6969 — 24 days ago

India's data center boom creates new engine for renewable energy

Submission Statement: India's push to become a major hub for artificial intelligence is creating a massive opportunity for the country's renewable energy industry, as data center companies need enormous amounts of electricity and are willing to sign long-term contracts for it.

If a 1 gigawatt data center gets up to 80% of its power from renewable sources, it would need about 6 GW of renewable generation due to the intermittent nature of renewable energy, estimates Kuldeep Jain, managing director of green energy company CleanMax. That would comprise a mix of wind, solar and battery storage for a truly round-the-clock solution supported by the grid.

The demand is already shaping renewable developers' businesses. Of CleanMax's contracted capacity, 42% is with data center and AI companies, Jain said, adding that two years ago it was only 250 megawatts.

Google and Amazon are pouring billions into building large-scale data centers in India. Google's upcoming project in the south Indian city of Vizag will draw at least 51% of its power from renewables, while Amazon's renewable energy portfolio in India comprises 53 solar and wind projects nationwide.

A long-term contract with these so-called hyperscalers or an established data center operator can provide strong revenue visibility to potential lenders. For developers, that can improve the bankability of the project while giving them a stronger incentive to invest in more sophisticated options combining solar, wind and batteries, which otherwise may not be justified on the economics alone, power companies said.

"There is a clear cost premium for round-the-clock, time-matched renewable power compared with conventional solar generation or simply meeting an annual renewable-energy target," said Kishor Nair, CEO of clean power company Avaada Energy.

Over the next three years, operators are expected to reduce their reliance on local utilities, as the procurement model is likely to shift to solar-wind-battery systems run by the companies themselves or by an independent generator, companies and analysts said.

asia.nikkei.com
u/DifficultBarber6969 — 24 days ago

Samsung Electronics to Offshore DDR5 Memory Manufacturing to India, Vietnam, Phillipines

Submission Statement: Samsung Electronics plans to outsource all additional production of conventional memory modules as it focuses its in-house capacity on high-value memory products such as high-bandwidth memory (HBM).

Samsung Electronics’ outsourcing partners are also expanding production facilities in line with the company’s increased outsourcing of memory modules.

Dreamtech, which began mass production of DDR5 modules in India in November last year, is also expanding its production lines. In June, the company approved equipment investment to convert and expand its Noida Plant 1 in India, which had assembled printed board assemblies (PBAs) for smartphones, into a large-scale memory module production line. The expansion work will be completed this month, followed by a gradual increase in production capacity. The plant is ultimately expected to secure annual production capacity of more than 50 million units.

Hanyang Digitech is working to improve productivity at its existing memory module plant in Vietnam. The company invested more than 31.5 billion won in the first half of this year to introduce new machinery and automate production processes.

SFA Semicon is transferring DDR5 testing and module assembly equipment previously used at Samsung Electronics’ Onyang campus to SFA Semicon’s plant in the Philippines. The first phase is scheduled to begin operations in November, followed by the second phase in the second quarter of next year. The move is expected to significantly increase DDR5 final testing and module production capacity. SFA Semicon handles fine-pitch ball grid array (FBGA) packaging of memory chips at its Cheonan plant in South Chungcheong Province and conducts final testing and module assembly at its Philippine plant.

thelec.net
u/DifficultBarber6969 — 24 days ago

Germany’s far-right AfD win another state election, piling pressure on Chancellor Merz

Submission Statement: German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party is facing a dire set of results in state elections, exit polls show, and is set to be squeezed both by the surging far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) and parties on the left.

The AfD is projected to win the north-eastern state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern on 38%, the exit poll from Germany’s public broadcaster shows, just two weeks after the party had its best result yet in Saxony-Anhalt.

In the other election on Sunday, the left-wing Die Linke party leads in Berlin on 26%, followed by the CDU and the Greens, according to the exit polls.

AfD co-leader Alice Weidel was gleeful as the exit polls were announced, telling CNN that her party is “clearly the new people’s party in Germany.”

“We have overtaken the CDU, and people want a change of policy,” Weidel said. She described Merz as “strongly damaged,” adding: “I believe the CDU cannot continue with Friedrich Merz, with a weak chancellor.”

Sunday’s elections come at a critical moment for Merz, arriving just two weeks after the AfD delivered a crushing blow to his party with a historic state election victory in Saxony-Anhalt, where it took 44% of the vote.

cnn.com
u/DifficultBarber6969 — 25 days ago

Why India Baffles China

Submission Statement: Chinese scholarship on India has grown in breadth but not depth.

India has long been an important place for China to study. It is a neighbour, a potential rival and the only other member of the billion-plus club. It is also a fellow member of many international forums including the brics, whose summit Narendra Modi will host in Delhi on September 12th and 13th. Xi Jinping is expected to attend, on his first trip to India since 2019. As India’s economy, global heft and bilateral relations with China have grown, so have the ranks of researchers dedicated to studying it.

For all that, the quality of much of this research is poor. Rising interest “has also exposed clear shortcomings”, note Lin Minwang of Fudan University in Shanghai and Mao Keji, a doctoral candidate at Tsinghua University in Beijing, in a survey of the field published last year. “Many of the viewpoints lack sufficient depth, historical perspective and the necessary intellectual grounding,” they write. Indian analysts who look at China have reached much the same conclusion. Raj Verma, a political scientist who spent 11 years in China and has published papers exploring Chinese scholars’ attitudes towards India, says that while older researchers are “sensible and moderate”, younger ones can be “aggressive and hubristic”. Even as China produces more research about India, it seems to understand it less.

Many Chinese scholars point to a lack of access. India has always been cagey about granting visas to researchers and journalists of any nationality. But ever since a lethal high-altitude clash between the two countries’ troops in Ladakh in 2020, Chinese researchers have been barred from India. A thaw in relations in recent months has seen the issuance of tourist visas resume, and there is talk that the pair might even allow back each other’s journalists. Perhaps scholars will follow.

A lack of introspection also plays a part. Indian analysts publish extensively on their country’s policy missteps towards China. Writing in his newsletter earlier this year Ananth Krishnan of the Hindu, a newspaper, noted the lack of similar self-reflection in Chinese analysis of India: “A conversation can’t go very far if the basic premise is that every problem in the relationship is because of the other side’s insecurities, which is what I increasingly hear and read in Beijing.”

economist.com
u/DifficultBarber6969 — 1 month ago

Surprised by Russian poverty on Street View

I was Street View driving through 2021 Russia and I was shocked by how poor the capital of an entire Russia state (Buryatia) was. Most of the residential areas lacked paved roads, plumbing, and street lights.

The fact that you could see a household manually pumping water into a water jug truly broke my mind.

And this is a city with a population the size of Iceland. I cannot imagine how much worse rural Russia is.

u/DifficultBarber6969 — 1 month ago

European Defence officials resist EU plan to curb reliance on US tech giants

Submission Statement: Many European defence officials are pushing back against Brussels’ attempts to cut reliance on American tech giants, warning the move could leave Europe with inferior systems, greater cyber risks and problems in co-ordinating with Nato allies.

The Commission’s proposed Cloud and AI Development Act, presented in June, would force member states to evaluate the sensitivity of each public sector service, with the highest level requiring solely domestic tech. It estimates only 1 per cent of Europe’s public services would clear that bar.

But defence officials and executives said they fear the rules could prevent militaries from using American hyperscalers for some of their most sensitive operations before European alternatives are capable of replacing them, arguing that US cloud services are at the heart of cutting-edge hardware, such as US-made F-35 fighter jets.

Opposition to the strict sovereignty requirements is the strongest in eastern and Nordic countries, according to people familiar with the discussions.

ft.com
u/DifficultBarber6969 — 1 month ago

How the Delhi Metro Became a Leading Transit System

Submission Statement: In a city of more than 35 million people the Delhi Metro moves 6.5 million people a day. There are 303 stations spread over 258 miles and growing, and in 2026 the Indian capital’s subway system passed New York’s in length for a total cost of roughly $10 billion — less than New York spent to build a 3.5-mile tunnel.

The metro kept 600,000 vehicles off Delhi’s streets, according to an estimate by the International Union of Railways, a Paris-based industry association.

Success at home has led to global opportunity for the D.M.R.C - the company operating the Delhi Metro. The company is now consulting for metro projects in Dhaka, Bangladesh, and Jakarta, Indonesia, and bidding on projects in Bahrain and Vietnam, as well as on a 303-kilometer railway link between the United Arab Emirates and Oman, as well as being involved in almost every metro project in the country.

nytimes.com
u/DifficultBarber6969 — 1 month ago