A conversation with Curtis Yarvin, the Trump-aligned guru who worships dictatorships
It is just after three in the morning when Curtis Yarvin (52) suddenly begins to cry. We are sitting in the lounge bar of Schloss Elmau, a five-star hotel in the Bavarian Alps. The last bottle of riesling has been empty for more than an hour. The staff have gone to bed. I am left […]
Why AI is making your skill grids obsolete
Now that artificial intelligence has become an inescapable fixture of strategic roadmaps, the human resources dimension has crossed a threshold: it is no longer a support function, it is a business imperative. Over the past months, one question has surfaced with stubborn consistency in every boardroom, every editorial meeting, every off-site: How do we transform […]
Why efforts to replicate Silicon Valley fail
In the early 2010s, Ecuador set out to do something audacious. On a former sugarcane plantation, about two hours north of Quito, the government began building Yachay: a new research university and a “city of knowledge.” Backed by one billion dollars in public investment, Yachay was meant to leapfrog Ecuador into the knowledge economy by […]
The uncertain future of the Atlantic alliance – what the experts say
For Donald Trump, NATO, without the United States, is nothing more than a ‘paper tiger’. The American president, frustrated by Europe’s refusal to back him in the war against the Iranian regime, threatens to ‘remember’ this snub. Yet, at the same time, he insists that NATO is useless, anyway. As for the defense of Ukraine, […]
Trumpf has broken a historic taboo and started making anti-drone lasers
Ditzingen lies fifteen kilometers northwest of Stuttgart city center, in the heart of the industrial Swabia that has driven the German economy for decades. This is also where Trumpf has its plants — a world leader in laser technology. Square buildings, large glass facades, long and wide raw-concrete corridors: everything is designed to convey solid […]
The EU struggles with Trump’s decisions as hostility grows
April is normally a quiet month for European institutions. The double Easter — Catholic and Orthodox — imposes an extended pause. Meetings of the Council of the European Union are kept to a minimum, as they are held in Luxembourg. The European Parliament’s plenary session takes place only at the end of the month. This […]
Adventurous music, documentaries, the jungle, and the spring festival before the vote
Film Music Rousseau 17–26 APRIL. VISIONS DU RÉEL / NYON, SWITZERLAND The Ukrainian night and a coyote’s coming out “The Illusion of a Quiet Night” by Ukrainian director Olga Chernykh was shot in a single night in July 2025 by forty directors and hundreds of Ukrainians. It paints a collective fresco of a country at […]
The ambiguity over rules and regimes that is also tearing Europe apart
When Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu commenced their attack on Iran last weekend, they didn’t bother to consult the UN Security Council. Unlike George Bush’s invasion of Iraq in 2003, there was no effort to cobble together a ‘Coalition of the Willing.’ Trump didn’t even seek authorisation to declare war from Congress, something mandated in […]
The truth about Chagos Islands and the “special relationship”
Why has the Labour Government worked so hard so for long to handover the Chagos Islands to Mauritius? I have to admit, even as a former Foreign Office Special Adviser who worked on the deal, I do understand how odd this seems, which is why I want to set the record straight. Labour arrived in […]
In Kyiv, the Hotel Ukraina keeps a secret
At the entrance, behind the long reception desk from which a blonde girl’s head pokes out as she welcomes guests with quiet kindness – no broad smiles – there are clocks showing the time in various cities: Beijing, Berlin, London, New York. Moscow time is not among them. On 24 February 2022, when Russia launched […]