The war in Ukraine is a crime. But European leaders should be working for peace, not preparing young people to fight and die

When I was growing up, the most German sentence imaginable was: “We’ve lost two world wars and we’re proud of it.” We were so anti-military, we even gave our policemen green uniforms, to make them look more like foresters than soldiers. Now, the chancellor, Friedrich Merz, wants our army to become the strongest in Europe. I mean, what could go wrong?

After we lost the second world war – or, as we prefer to say, after we were liberated by the allies – we swore “never again”: never again to war, and never again to Auschwitz. Admittedly, Germany rearmed in 1955, but just as “citizens in uniform”, not as soldiers following orders. Mind you, that didn’t mean that you could say “no” to an order; it just meant that we had conscription for most young men until 2011.

Kanal is 95% complete and on schedule but plans to slash its budget mean conversation around its opening have moved from ‘when’ to ‘if’

A year before its scheduled opening on 28 November 2026, building works at Kanal, a new contemporary art museum in Brussels, are running on time.

Housed in a remodelled former Citroën garage on the north-western edge of the city centre, the centre is 95% complete. Curators are putting the finishing touches to an opening show that will feature works by Matisse, Picasso and Giacometti on loan from the Centre Pompidou in Paris. Trilingual wall texts in English, Dutch and French have already been signed off.

Defiant message from Ukraine’s top negotiator follows Putin’s claim that he would not end war unless Kyiv cedes land to Russia

BREMEN – The European Space Agency’s Human and Robotic Exploration (HRE) program fell short of its budget request at the ministerial, with member nations agreeing to contribute 2.66 billion euros ($3.08 billion), accounting for roughly 70% of the 3.77 billion euro ask. ESA set its overall budget at 22.1 billion euros — a significant increase […]

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