A young boy was stabbed to death apparently at random on Sunday morning on a football pitch in the small Spanish town of Mocejón. The suspect, reportedly a mentally unstable 20-year-old local man, was immediately taken into custody. Spanish commentators are shocked both by the killing and by the violent racist reactions on social media.
In view of their proximity to Russia, the Baltic states are seeking to boost their defence capabilities. Estonia is investing in the modernisation of its armed forces, Latvia is expanding its military infrastructure and debating compulsory military service for women. while Lithuania wants to increase defence spending to more than three percent of its gross domestic product. Mixed reactions in the press.
Kamala Harris presented her economic policy programme on Friday. In addition to supporting families and tax incentives for housing construction, she is focusing her campaign on combating inflation. She intends to legislate against excessive price increases for food and medicines. According to opinion polls, such interventions are popular with voters, but European media regard them as controversial.
As the budget belt is cinched in Germany, a debate has flared up in the country over military aid to Ukraine. According to a newspaper report, only previously approved aid for Kyiv will be made available and no new funding will be authorised. Funds from frozen Russian assets will be used instead. Commentators are sceptical.
In Serbia, there are once again demonstrations against the resumption of a major lithium extraction project in the Jadar Valley. In July, the Vučić government and the EU signed an agreement aimed at making Europe less dependent on Chinese battery production. However, there are fears of severe environmental damage in the region.
Three years after the withdrawal of the US and Nato and the Taliban takeover, women and girls in particular are suffering most from the situation in Afghanistan. They are barred from higher education and severely restricted in their everyday lives. Commentators ask what stance the West should adopt.
Germany's Prosecutor General forwarded an arrest warrant for one of three Ukrainians suspected of blowing up the Nord Stream gas pipeline to the Polish authorities in June. According to the Wall Street Journal, President Zelensky authorised the attack. August Hanning, former chief of Germany's Federal Intelligence Service, suspects that Warsaw was also involved in planning the blasts. Time for a reassessment?
The World Health Organisation (WHO) has declared mpox a public health emergency of international concern. The virus, also known as monkeypox, is far less infectious than Covid-19, but a new variant is spreading increasingly around the world from Central Africa. Is the WHO's response too radical or too weak?
After reaching a high in 2022, the birth rate in Hungary has dropped significantly: it was 11 percent lower in May 2023 than in May 2022 and currently stands at 1.5 births per woman. The national press asks whether Orbán's family policy has failed. At the same time other European countries are also wondering how to counter population decline.
For many European countries, summer poses a growing number of threats, including wildfires, droughts and record heatwaves. In Greece, Athens' suburbs are facing wildfires for the first time, while in Spain some regions are on red alert for extreme heat. The EU has announced it is investing an additional 600 million euros in its Civil Protection Pool fund. Commentators discuss what action should be taken.