Mark Nayler

1 week ago | fee.org | Mark Nayler

Could a 27-nation force even work? Europe is once again talking about forming its own defense alliance. The idea of a European army—discussed on and off since the early days of the Cold War—was revived in February by Volodymyr Zelensky. The Ukrainian president claims that Donald Trump’s retraction of military support for Ukraine and ambivalence towards the EU shows that the bloc urgently needs its own military unit.

1 week ago | surinenglish.com | Mark Nayler

Pedro Sánchez travelled to Beijing this week, hoping to forge closer economic ties with China to counter Donald Trump's tariff onslaught. But there was a huge pig in the room during his latest talks with Chinese president Xi Jinping, which both leaders want to pretend isn't there. This was Sánchez's third visit to Jinping.

2 weeks ago | the-tls.co.uk | Pablo Scheffer |Norma Clarke |Martin Beagles |Mark Nayler

Winner of the 2024 Niche Market Newspaper of the Year Award and proudly niche since 1902. Venice with bicyclesA sympathetic introduction to AmsterdamTo Albert Camus, Amsterdam’s concentric waterways resembled the circles of hell. His protagonist in The Fall (1956), a “judge- penitent” who whiles away his days in a seedy sailors’ bar on the Zeedijk, unkindly describes the city’s “little space of houses and canals, hemmed in by fogs” as an enfer bourgeois.

2 weeks ago | the-tls.co.uk | Martin Beagles |Norma Clarke |Pablo Scheffer |Mark Nayler

Winner of the 2024 Niche Market Newspaper of the Year Award and proudly niche since 1902. ¡Camelón, plis, camelón!A Spanish writer’s reflections on living the English wayShortly after arriving in a cold London in December 1910, the prolific Spanish journalist and travel writer Julio Camba (1884–1962) tried to go for a walk. To his surprise, Camba, a foreign correspondent for various Spanish newspapers, was prevented from achieving this modest aim by a succession of anxious policemen.

2 weeks ago | fee.org | Mark Nayler

In Spanish politics, today’s accuser is tomorrow’s accused. Until late last year, Spain’s right-wing Vox could claim a rare distinction: being the only major party in the country without a corruption allegation to its name. That changed in December when the ruling Socialists, led by Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, filed a complaint accusing Vox of illegal financing.