Foreign Editor’s Five. En route to Singapore: our exclusive interview with Macron makes for chilling reading. Also why South Africa fell out of love with democracy. Kudos to Sophie Pedder John McDermott Anton La Guardia Sarah Birke Lena Schipper

economist.com/europe/2024/05…

Sikorski: “I've personally, in my previous capacity in the European Parliament but also now—I'm in favor of a heavy brigade, EU rapid-reaction capacity so that we don't have to call on the resources of the U.S. for every emergency on our periphery,' newsweek.com/poland-eu-rapi…

My take on the state of Islamic State jihadists. After their attacks on Iran and Russia, Western countries fear they might be next. None more so than France and Germany, which host the Olympics and Euro 2024. Beware, global jihadists are back on the march
economist.com/international/…

How China has been helping Russia's war machine. Striking charts in this CSIS report on on the surge of Russia's imports of key components for its armaments industry, and from where. China, Turkey and Germany are at the forefront csis-website-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/20…

The question is this: is America ready to do it?

Better late than never on the Ukraine aid package. But delay has come at a great cost
- more ground lost to Russia
- more Ukrainian dead
- more damage to Ukrainian power grid
- no bipartisan reform of migration
- damage to credibility of US, especially Republican party

Tomorrow morning on #WorldReview , Ivo Daalder is joined by Yasmeen Abutaleb, Anton La Guardia, and Peter Spiegel to discuss the implications of Iran's attack on Israel, what's next in the Middle East, and possible US aid for Ukraine.

🕙: 10 a.m. CT
📹: 🔽 brnw.ch/21wIX1e

Interesting thesis. We’ll have to see what actually happened

“No missile” could mean no further retaliation. That would be the least bad outcome

Tehran's Imam Khomeini International Airport (IKA) tells passengers that all flights have been canceled and that they should exit the airport.

The veracity of these reports is less interesting to me than what seems to be a media effort to downplay whatever just happened, which could mean they're trying to prime the public to expect minimal or no retaliation.

A US official confirms to me that Israel has carried out a strike against Iran. Both the official and another senior US official say Israel indicated they would not attack nuclear targets. US didn't 'green light' this attack, the 2nd official told me.

April 19 (Reuters) - Air defence systems in the Iranian city of Isfahan were activated against 'an object suspected to be a drone', sources told the semi-official Fars news agency on Friday, which added that three explosions were heard near an army base in the city's northwest.

According to #Iran media & sources:

- Drones, not missiles
- No target hit on ground
- Air defense worked
- All normal on the ground
- Supreme National Security Council currently meeting
- #IRGC air defense on alert
- Airspace largely closed, air traffic grounded
- #Tabriz fine.

Markets in full risk-off mode on reports Israeli missiles hit Iran
- Old school FX safe havens Swissie and yen surge
- Mexican peso -4%, biggest fall in 4 years
- Oil +4%
- Japan's Nikkei -3.5%, biggest fall in 3 years; -10% from recent peak
- Treasury yields slump 10-15 bps