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LONDON — When Donald Trump suggested during the 2016 presidential campaign that he might not honor a U.S. commitment to defend other NATO countries if they were attacked, it triggered alarm throughout the trans-Atlantic alliance.

With Trump’s “America First” rhetoric drawing cheers from fervent supporters, the future of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization is once again on the agenda. But this time, European leaders acknowledge the alliance must evolve to meet the challenges of the 21st century and say they are ready to shoulder more responsibility for their own defense.

A lot has changed in eight years.

First, Trump’s presidency forced Europe to recognize that U.S. military support was no longer guaranteed, then Russia’s invasion of Ukraine underscored the threat on its eastern border. Meanwhile, the U.S. has increasingly focused on China’s expansion in the Asia-Pacific, as well as Iran and North Korea.

“Confronted with powers such as Russia and China, and a United States whose pivot to Asia seems inevitable, no matter who wins the next election, we Europeans need to do more to ensure our own security,” Josep Borrell, the European Union’s foreign policy chief, wrote last weekend in The Times of London.

After relying on U.S. leadership of NATO to protect them with overwhelming nuclear and conventional capability for the past 75 years, European nations must take on a larger role in funding and leading the 32-nation alliance because their interests are increasingly diverging from those of the United States.

“We are talking about a NATO which the United States is still part of, but which the United States is no longer the indispensable leader (of),” said Malcolm Chalmers, deputy director-general of the Royal United Services Institute, a London-based think tank focused on defense and security. “I mean, that is what JD Vance and Donald Trump are talking about. They’re talking about a NATO that is transformed and one in which the Europeans take the greatest share of the burden.”

NATO grew out of secret talks among U.S. officials after World War II about how to supply military equipment to Western Europe and ensure a coordinated response to any attack by the Soviet Union. The 12 founding members signed the North Atlantic Treaty on April 4, 1949.

NATO’s military structure is headed by the Supreme Allied Commander Europe, who is also the commander-in-chief of American forces in Europe. The U.S. is expected to spend almost twice as much on its military this year as all the other alliance members combined, according to NATO statistics.

Trump’s skepticism about NATO was underlined last week when he named Vance as his running mate. Vance has opposed U.S. support for Ukraine, has criticized European nations for slashing defense spending since the Cold War, and said it’s time for “Europe to stand on its own feet.”

Europe got another wakeup call on Sunday when President Joe Biden, whose strong support for NATO was cemented during standoffs with the Soviet Union in the 1970s, said he would not seek reelection. Vice President Kamala Harris, the likely Democratic presidential nominee, has backed the administration’s position on NATO and aid to Ukraine, but she entered politics long after the Cold War and is better known for her work on domestic issues.

“The question is whether she will have that same strong trans-Atlantic view that’s kind of part of her blood in the way that Biden had it,” said Armida van Rij, an expert on European security policy at the Chatham House think tank in London.

Trump’s threat to renege on NATO’s collective security guarantee, a cornerstone of the alliance, is based on his belief that member states aren’t living up to their funding commitments, forcing U.S. taxpayers to subsidize Europe’s defense.

That argument has weakened since 2016.

Twenty-three of the alliance’s 31 non-U.S. members will meet or exceed their commitment to spend at least 2% of economic output on defense this year, up from just three 10 years ago, according to figures compiled by NATO. Overall, the non-U.S. members now spend 2.02% of gross domestic product on defense, compared with 3.4% by the U.S.

Besides that, the European Union has ambitious plans to boost its defense industry in response to the threat posed by Russia’s war on Ukraine. France’s President Emmanuel Macron has urged European nations to seek more independence on airspace defense and relocate production to the continent rather than purchasing material off the shelf from American arms merchants.

The EU plans center on streamlining arms procurement and to increasingly produce them within the 27-state bloc in a multibillion-dollar pivot away from the United States.

The risks for Europe, as well as the United States, are evolving. It’s not just about Russian tanks on Europe’s borders. NATO, as a defensive alliance, must also consider the threats posed by Iran, China and North Korea and be prepared for cyber warfare and foreign interference in elections, as well as conventional military attacks, van Rij said.

That means European nations need to increase troop numbers, upgrade equipment such as tanks, fighter planes and transport aircraft, and improve their ability to counter technological threats, she said. “We need to look at this not as Trump-proofing, but as future-proofing European security and the NATO alliance as a whole,” van Rij said. “Because yes, while there are concerns about U.S. engagements in Europe … — and the JD Vance appointment as Trump’s running mate has only accelerated concerns — there is a bipartisan focus on China, which in the medium- to longer-term could mean that we see resources being reallocated elsewhere.”

One model may be NATO’s newest members, Finland and Sweden, which joined the alliance to bolster their security in the face of Russian aggression.

As historically non-aligned nations, they were forced to develop strategies to fight off any Russian incursion largely on their own, equipping their militaries with a full range of capabilities sometimes missing in NATO countries that are used to relying on the U.S. for commanders and battle plans. Both have military service, important weapons industries and large standing armies.

“The Finnish defense people would say … we planned up to now to fight Russia by ourselves, now NATO is definitely a bonus…,” Chalmers said. “NATO countries have the opposite problem. They’re so used to thinking about fighting with others and particularly fighting with the Americans, they sometimes get out of the habit of thinking about fighting for themselves.”

The risks of over-reliance on the U.S. were highlighted this year when the House of Representatives blocked $61 billion of military aid for Ukraine for months while conservative Republicans argued the government should focus on domestic border security and the nation’s rising debt.

While the funding was eventually approved, the delay left Ukraine short of ammunition and hardware as Russia launched a brutal spring offensive.

A second Trump presidency would bring that mindset to the White House.

“Today … we peer apprehensively across the Atlantic at a worst case in which an erratic, ignorant, self-obsessed prospective U.S. president might cut us loose,” historian Max Hastings wrote in The Times. “Trump is right about one big thing: behind an American shield, since the 1950s Europeans have enjoyed an almost free ride. This is now over, and Vladimir Putin is licking his lips.”
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Dakar, Senegal — Mali’s army and its Russian allies suffered a major setback and significant losses on Saturday while fighting separatists in the country’s north, a spokesman for the rebels told AFP. 

The West African nation’s military leaders, who took power in a 2020 coup, have made it a priority to retake all of the country from separatist and jihadi forces, particularly in Kidal, a pro-independence northern bastion. 

“Azawad fighters are in control in Tinzaouaten and further south in the Kidal region,” said Mohamed Elmaouloud Ramadane, a spokesman for an alliance of predominantly Tuareg separatist armed groups called CSP-DPA. 

“Russian mercenaries and Malian armed forces have fled,” he added. “Others have surrendered.” 

He also shared videos of numerous corpses of soldiers and their allies. 

“The Malian army has retreated,” a local politician told AFP, citing at least 17 dead in a provisional toll. 

“The CSP people are still in Tinzaouaten. The army and Wagner are no longer there,” he said, referring to the Russian mercenary group.  

Fighting also took place further south toward Abeibara, the politician said.  

A former United Nations mission worker in Kidal said: “At least 15 Wagner fighters were killed and arrested after three days of fighting” adding that “the CSP rebels have taken the lead in what happened in Tinzaouaten.”  

Mossa Ag Inzoma, a member of the separatist movement, claimed that “dozens and dozens” of Wagner fighters and soldiers had been killed and taken prisoner. 

Fighting on a scale not seen in months broke out Thursday between the army and separatists in the town of Tinzaouaten, near the border with Algeria, after the army announced it had taken control of In-Afarak, a commercial crossroads in Kidal.  

Mali has been unsettled by violence by jihadi and criminal groups since 2012. 

A junta led by Colonel Assimi Goita took power in 2022 and broke the country’s traditional alliance with France, in favor of Russia. 
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HAVANA — Havana residents watched from shore on Saturday as Russian warships arrived for the second time in as many months in a visit that Cuba called routine. 

Cuban authorities fired shots into the air to signal their welcome, while curious fishermen watched from Havana’s waterside promenade as the ships advanced up the bay. Russian residents were also among the few up early to see the fleet’s arrival. 

The patrol ship Neustrahimiy, training vessel Smolniy and support vessels, all from the Baltic Fleet, are scheduled to depart on Tuesday. 

A brief statement by the Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces described their arrival as routine. 

A Russian nuclear submarine, frigate and support ships in June also flexed Moscow’s muscles in the port of Havana, less than 160 kilometers (99.4 miles) from Florida. 

“Russia’s deployments in the Atlantic pose no direct threat or concern to the United States,” a U.S. Northern Command spokesperson said, adding the command monitored all approaches to North America. 

Tensions between the United States and Russia have increased since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, and Russian naval activity — though routine in the Atlantic — has ratcheted up because of U.S. support for Ukraine, U.S. officials say. 

Simultaneously, relations between Cold War allies Russia and Cuba have markedly improved as the Communist-run country battles an economic crisis it charges is due mainly to U.S. sanctions. 

High-level contacts between the countries have increased to a level not seen since the fall of Cuba’s former benefactor, the Soviet Union, with Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel visiting Moscow four times. 

Russia has sent oil, flour and increasing numbers of tourists to the Caribbean nation, which is short of cash and goods. Citizens suffer through daily power outages and other travails, resulting in scattered protests and record migration. 

Ana Garces, a 78-year-old retiree, told Reuters she remembered the Soviet Union was the only country to help Cuba during the 1962 missile crisis, the peak of tensions with Washington, when the world teetered on the brink of nuclear war. 

“We are very grateful,” she said. “Why should we not receive it with open arms? This is friendship. All kinds of ships have entered here.” 

“It shows how other countries do support us and takes away a little of the world’s mentality about our country,” said her husband, 71-year-old retiree Rolando Perez. 
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BUDAPEST, HUNGARY — Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said on Saturday that Russia’s leadership was “hyper rational” and that Ukraine would never be able to fulfill its hopes of becoming a member of the European Union or NATO.

Orban, a nationalist in power since 2010, made the comments during a speech in which he forecast a shift in global power away from the “irrational” West toward Asia and Russia.

“In the next long decades, maybe centuries, Asia will be the dominant center of the world,” Orban said, mentioning China, India, Pakistan and Indonesia as the world’s future big powers.

“And we Westerners pushed the Russians into this bloc as well,” he said in the televised speech before ethnic Hungarians at a festival in the town of Baile Tusnad in neighboring Romania.

Orban, whose country currently holds the rotating EU presidency, has sharply differed from the rest of the bloc by seeking warmer ties with Beijing and Moscow, and he angered some EU leaders when he went on surprise visits to Kyiv, Moscow and Beijing this month for talks on the war in Ukraine.

He said that in contrast to the “weakness” of the West, Russia’s position in world affairs was rational and predictable, saying the country had shown economic flexibility in adapting to Western sanctions since it invaded Crimea in 2014.

Orban, whose own government has passed several anti-LGBT measures, said Russia had gained clout in many parts of the world by severely restricting LGBTQ+ rights.

“The strongest international appeal of Russian soft power is its opposition to LGBTQ,” he said.

He added that Ukraine would never become a member of the EU or NATO because “we Europeans do not have enough money for that.”

“The EU needs to give up its identity as a political project and become an economic and defense project,” Orban said.

The EU opened membership talks with Ukraine late last month, although a long and tough road lies ahead of the country before it can join the bloc.

A declaration at the end of the NATO summit this month said the alliance will support Ukraine on “its irreversible path” toward membership.
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paris — They’re often thought to have practically cornered the market on romance, yet they also can bicker and squabble as though they were Olympic sports.

They practically wrote the book on fraternity, liberty and equality — words inscribed on their schools and town halls — but also recognize that those ideals aren’t always applied to citizens of color.

Les Français — the French, as the people of France call themselves — simply don’t fit neatly into any one box.

Now that they’re hosting the Olympics, here’s a look at some of the particularities that make the French, well, French: 

The basics 

France has one of Europe’s most diverse populations, thanks to centuries of conquest and, in the last 200 years, immigration from Italy, Spain, eastern Europe and France’s former colonies overseas.

Although comic-strip hero Asterix the Gaul is something of a national icon, loved by generations of French readers for his feisty ingenuity and pluck, the ancient Gauls who populated much of what is now France more than two millennia ago — and whom some in France still call “our ancestors” — were followed by waves of others.

Romans, Franks (from whom France got its name), Normans (who lent their name to what is now Normandy ) and more fought for the rich lands boxed in by the Mediterranean’s waters and mountains of the Alps and Pyrenees in the south, the mighty Rhine river in the east, and seas to the west and north.

Those natural barriers still largely delineate the borders of what is the largest territory in the European Union and its roughly six-sided shape — the reason the French often refer to their country as “the Hexagon.”

The national statistics agency, Insee, says France’s population at the start of this Olympic year numbered 68.4 million. That includes the 2.2 million inhabitants of five formerly colonized territories in the Caribbean, South America and Indian Ocean that are administered as overseas regions of France — considered as French as Paris, the Olympic host city.

By Insee’s count, France has 2 million more women than men. But France has never had a female president and counts dozens of women killed in domestic violence each year. Of the 78 luminaries honored by being inducted in the Panthéon, the centuries-old Paris resting place for the good and great of France, just five are women. The first, scientist Marie Curie, wasn’t added until 1995. 

A colorblind rainbow nation 

Officially, France is blind to the many colors of its inhabitants. Intending to treat all equally, the republic doesn’t count citizens by race or religion. Some French people, especially those who are white, consider it racist to even discuss skin color.

But people of color and human-rights watchdogs say France’s ideal of colorblind universalism results in discrimination that goes unmeasured and unsolved. The problem has repeatedly boiled over into violent unrest, often in underprivileged parts of France with immigrant populations. Race bias and religious intolerance have contributed to a deep polarization of French politics.

The anti-immigration, far-right National Rally party surged this year in elections marked by unusual violence. Its leaders have long targeted immigrants and their France-born children for supposedly failing to integrate. 

A godless nation of many religions 

After centuries of religious conflict, modern France is constitutionally secular, with church and state separated. Faiths are kept out of shared public spaces like schools, hospitals, courts and sports fields, where students, staff and players aren’t allowed to wear ostentatious crosses, kippahs or Islamic head coverings. France won’t allow its Olympians to wear headscarves at the Paris Games — a blanket ban that won’t apply to athletes from other nations.

But France also legally guarantees the right to believe — or to not believe — and to practice one’s faith. Its religious architecture — from Paris’ iconic Notre Dame Cathedral to modernist architect Le Corbusier’s Chapel of Notre-Dame du Haut in Ronchamp, eastern France — is stunning in its variety, beauty and history.

France has about 100,000 places of worship, including those that are no longer used, with the vast bulk of them built for the Catholic faith, according to the Observatory of Religious Patrimony, a preservation group.

Quiet churches and busy mosques speak to a changing picture of faith and worship in France. A major and rare public study published by Insee last year, which questioned more than 27,000 adults aged 18-59, found interest in religion fading. Just over half of the respondents declared that they have no faith, a growing trend particularly pronounced among people born in France and without any immigrant backgrounds.

Less than one-third identified as Catholic — still the largest single group of believers, although under 10% of them said they were regular churchgoers.

Muslims were the second-largest group of believers, accounting for 10% of respondents. 

Wine and food 

Ah, the reds, whites and rosés! The French used to guzzle their wines without moderation. It wasn’t until 1956 that the government barred children — under 14, that is — from being served alcohol in school canteens.

But since the 1960s, when French drinkers were downing a woozy 130 or so liters (35 or so gallons) of wines each per year, plus many more liters of beer and cider, they have steadily sobered up, cutting their consumption by around three-quarters and drinking higher-quality wines than the rotgut that washed down older generations’ meals, Insee data show.

Food habits are changing, too. Schools play a key role in passing from generation to generation France’s high regard for freshly cooked meals, with canteens typically offering a starter and a main course followed by a milk product (cheese, yogurt) and/or a dessert.

The Agriculture Ministry says about 60% of students eat at their school canteens at least four times a week. Schools also offer tasting classes, and school canteens are obliged to offer at least one vegetarian menu per week.

“Does your family pray before eating?” asks one joke about French eating habits. The punchline: “No, we are French, we know how to cook.” 

The French are just behind the Italians as the least overweight population in the European Union, according to the most recent figures from the EU’s statistics agency, from 2019. It found that 47% of French adults were overweight, with a body mass index of 25 or above, compared with 46% of Italian adults. 

But French people also have become fans of what they call “le fast food” — burgers, pizzas, kebabs and so forth.

In the 45 years since McDonald’s opened its first restaurant in France in 1979, the country has become one of its largest markets in Europe, with 1,560 eateries in cities and towns nationwide.
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MADRID — The global cruise industry expects to carry 10% more passengers by 2028 than the 31.7 million who took cruise holidays in 2023, when the sector surpassed pre-pandemic levels, but sees some routes exposed to protests over overtourism.

Long criticized for its impact on the environment and coastal communities, the industry has ordered 57 more cruise ships in addition to some 300 now in operation to meet the projected demand, said the European director of Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA), Marie-Caroline Laurent.

At the same time, companies are working to adapt the ships so they can switch to electricity from highly polluting marine fuel when they are moored at ports and to be ready to comply with EU maritime environment regulations by 2030.

But as travel continues to grow, cruise operators face a growing debate about excessive tourist numbers in crowded European port cities such as Spain’s Barcelona, the scene of protests this month in which a small group sprayed tourists with water pistols.

Cruise ship passengers represent just 4% of all tourists visiting Barcelona, CLIA representatives said.

Jaume Collboni, the mayor of Barcelona, which is the biggest cruise ship port in Europe, told Reuters his administration would seek a new deal with the port to reduce the number of one-day cruise calls.

CLIA’s Laurent said violent protests could have an impact on the itineraries in the future.

“There will be some consideration of adapting the itineraries if for some reason we feel that all passengers will not be well-treated,” she said.

Instead, the industry could offer more cruise holidays in Asia, in northern Europe and the Caribbean in the coming years, as well as different ports in the Mediterranean.

The World Travel & Tourism Council expects Spain’s tourism revenues to reach nearly 100 billion euros this year, 11% above pre-pandemic 2019 levels.

Meanwhile, the cruise industry forecasts a 5% increase in visitors in Spain during 2024, below the 13% increase in summer visitor arrivals projected by Spanish authorities.
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On March 17, the International Criminal Court in The Hague issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin and Children’s Rights Commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova. They are charged with responsibility for the illegal deportation of children from occupied territories of Ukraine to Russia.
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