Russia closes German consulate and Goethe Institutes, alpine insurance providers exposed to Radiant World fallout and AfD wins in Saxony-Anhalt

It is twenty-five years since that famous clear blue sky day over Washington and New York. The initial panopticon of reactions came first in hours, then days, then weeks, then months and eventually the years and now two and a half decades that have followed.

Jihadi chic is back big time, as are terror and sabotage. Irregular forces became so regular Ukraine calls Russia "a terrorist state" rather than a regime of state terror, though at present it seems to be both. Terrorism as we came to understand it in the years after 9/11 is no longer a multi-casualty incident affair in the realm of hundreds of dead in various locations and cities at once. Now it has been reduced in scale, scope and ambition and more often these days we find it operates in the realm of rebel groups and lone wolves. In a sense, the fundamentalists have gone back to the fundamentals of their craft. Nowhere and no one continues perhaps to pay the price of all this barbarism and great power competition than Afghan women.

Everyone knows where they were "on 9/11" or more often, the 17 minutes between when the first tower was struck and the second tower was hit. The information super highway, as the internet was once known, had delivered the information age and with it, The Age of Sacred Terror, as former National Security Council staffers David Benjamin and Steve Simon framed it in their best-seller in the year that followed.

Over time, we forget the smell and feel of a moment or an era. The Authorization of the Use of Military Force (AUMF) signed into law one week after 9/11 remains valid to this day. The Global War on Terror is its louder wayward offspring. The openendedness of the AUMF remains; the phrase "war on terror" has gone out of vogue. The global left is once again enamored with the guerrilla while conservatives pine for an authoritarian to provide order. We seem stuck on a rotation through the last century, in the times before ideologically, even as we remain on the edge of tremendous technological breakthroughs.

Every American president who came after George W. Bush took the White House on the promise of ending America's wars. Obama called curtain on Iraq, Trump in his first term and Biden bowed to the reality of the endurance of the Taliban and the US and NATO forces exited Afghanistan. Now we have Trump 2.0 and an open ended conflagration with Iran involving Israel and US bases as far away as Bahrain as part of a greater tussle between the US and Russia. While not quite a sideshow, it is far more than a mere proxy war.

More likely than not, though, it has placed us well on the road to "the next 9/11".

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ST. PETERSBURG, RUSSIA – Russia orders German consulate, Goethe Institute closures

Deutsche Welle reports Monday that "the Russian Foreign Ministry announced on Monday that it is closing Germany's consulate in St. Petersburg".
The move is a "direct response to Germany's decision to close the Russian consulate in Bonn and Russia's cultural center in Berlin". In addition to the closure of the consulate in St. Petersburg, authorities also "ordered the closure of all Goethe-Institut branches on Russian territory". The Goethe Institute are Germany's state-funded language and cultural centers.
Russia announced these measures after the country said Russia was responsible for an incident involving explosive-laden drones at the Leipzig/Halle Airport in early August. Afterwards, the Russian Foreign Ministry had responded that rather "it was the German authorities who, once again, provoked a new round of escalation in bilateral relations".

SINGAPORE – Zurich, Allianz insurers exposed to Radiant World credit fallout

The Financial Times reports Friday that insurers Zurich and Allianz "wrote policies covering losses on transactions linked to embattled iron ore trader Radiant World, potentially exposing trade credit insurers to yet another alleged fraud in the booming market for protection".
Radiant is currently "battling court claims from creditors in the UK and Singapore around allegedly fraudulent documentation underpinning its trading". Zurich had apparently "insured Radiant against non-payment from multiple counterparties". The Swiss commodity trading heavyweight Glencore was one of these counterparties, "according to people familiar with the agreements, with a policy providing cover in the double-digit millions of dollars".
Lately, "insuring invoices underpinning global trade has become one of the most lucrative niches in the insurance market". In recent years, "the trade credit insurance market has dealt with the fallout of several high-profile collapses amid fraud allegations, leading to messy contract disputes".

MAGDEBURG, GERMANY – Far-right AfD win big in Saxony-Anhalt

Politico reports Sunday that "Germany's far right claimed its biggest electoral success since World War II in Sunday's regional vote in Saxony-Anhalt, with the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party advancing to the cusp of genuine power for the first time".
The "anti-immigrant, Russia-friendly" AfD won 44 percent of the vote, which gives it 39 seats in the regional parliament — just shy of the 42 seats needed to rule outright. To wield power, the AfD has two options: it can try to "come to an arrangement with the BSW, a populist-left party founded by a former member of East Germany's communist party", Sahra Wagenknecht, or it can "persuade lawmakers from other parties to defect".
The regional election "is a catastrophe for the Christian Democratic Union of Chancellor Friedrich Merz", which only received 18 percent of the vote, "a devastating implosion from the 37.1 percent it scored in 2021".

BERLIN, GERMANY – Merz cancels call after Trump posts congratulatory message to AfD

The Guardian reports Wednesday that German Chancellor Friedrich Merz canceled a planned phone call with US President Donald Trump after Trump "hailed the AfD's 'really big night' in Saxony-Anhalt" in a post on Truth Social.
Trump reacted to the AfD's regional election victory writing, "they finally got tired of the absolutely horrible Immigration rules and regulations which have hurt Germany so badly". When Merz canceled Wednesday's planned call, a spokesperson "noted that Merz had always objected 'in general terms' to 'interfering in or commenting on the domestic political situation, particularly regarding elections'".
Domestically, Merz faces mounting pressure after the AfD's huge victory. He "has acknowledged his unpopularity played a role in the halving of support for his party in the state". On a national level, "polls show Merz's fractious coalition would not have a majority in a general election, though the next national vote is not due until 2029". In the meantime, the AfD "is polling in first place at 28% to 29%".

COLOGNE, GERMANY – Sabotage suspect held after several attacks on power grid

The BBC reports Tuesday that "a 48-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of carrying out a spate of sabotage attacks on Germany's electricity grid after spending several days on the run".
According to police in Cologne, "the suspect was carrying explosives when he was detained near the Weisweiler power plant in western Germany", while in "a tent in nearby undergrowth" authorities located "further explosives".
Prosecutors believe the suspect wrote "letters claiming responsibility for the attacks, which have taken place in Brandenburg and Saxony in the east as well as North Rhine-Westphalia in the west". Police "did not provide further details on the suspect, or on the number and whereabouts of incidents he has been linked to".

BERLIN, GERMANY – Germany urges EU to cut Russians' visas after sabotage attacks

The Guardian reports last Friday that "Germany is urging its European partners to introduce tighter limitations on Russian citizens entering the EU on tourist visas, after recent sabotage attacks which Berlin has blamed on Moscow".
German prosecutors "are investigating a Belarusian national, who also holds a Russian passport, over the alleged attempt to attack Leipzig airport using drones and explosives" who "entered the Schengen area on a tourist visa issued by the Italian embassy in Minsk, the capital of Belarus". Since the start of Russia's full-scale invasion against Ukraine in 2022, the number of tourist visas to the Schengen zone that Italy has issued to Russian nationals every year has nearly tripled, "from 63,894 in 2021 to more than 165,000 in 2025". Italy issued 50,709 visas to Belarusian nationals last year, compared with just 2,968 in 2021.
Antonio Tajani, Italy's foreign minister, "has ordered checks on the visa issued to the Belarusian suspect in the Leipzig case". While Italy still hands out visas to Russian nationals, "Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and the Czech Republic have all but stopped issuing visas to Russian citizens, adopting national restrictions that go beyond EU measures".

PARIS, FRANCE – France joins 11 countries in sanctioning Israeli settlements

Le Monde reports Tuesday that France joined 11 other nations in announcing plans to "sanction trade with Israeli settlements in the West Bank, after increasing attacks by settlers against Palestinians in the occupied territory".
The announcement follows "weeks of increasing attacks by Israeli settlers against Palestinian villages" in the West Bank which the dozen foreign ministers argue is "'undermining the possibility of a two-state solution'". The French government has "for weeks been pushing for a similar decision from the European Union, Israel's leading trading partner, but has been blocked by some members".
In the meantime, Israeli Prime Minister "Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to continue establishing the illegal settlements despite mounting international pressure, promising a major wave of settler immigration into the West Bank" though he has criticized "some of the violence by settlers in recent weeks".

PARIS, FRANCE – Three arrested over suspected ISIS plot targeting Jews

Ynetnews reports Sunday that "three men have been arrested in France on suspicion of advancing a jihadist plot in which they considered joining the Islamic State in Africa and carrying out an attack against the Jewish community in France".
Prosecutors said "the three were investigated on suspicion of 'criminal association with a terrorist organization for the purpose of preparing acts of terrorism' and were then placed in custody overnight between Friday and Saturday". One "sensitivity" connected to the case involves "a possible connection between one of the suspects in France and a woman arrested in the United States in August on suspicion of planning, on behalf of ISIS, to carry out a bombing at the New York State Capitol."
France's National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor's Office on Friday "opened a formal judicial investigation and asked that the three be charged on suspicion of terrorist conspiracy and held in custody pending further proceedings".

PARIS, FRANCE – Eiffel Tower bars women for conservative Hindu sect causing outrage

France 24 reports Wednesday that an Eiffel Tower visit by members of the Bochasanwasi Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Sanstha (BAPS), a Hindu sect, which saw female employees barred from doing their jobs and replaced with men for the duration of the delegation's visit, resulted in a staff walk out Monday. This was followed by commentary from across France's political spectrum regarding the limits of tolerance in a free society.
For a private visit, female staff were removed and replaced by men, resulting in Monday's strike, which forced the landmark's closure Monday. The private Eiffel Tower tour "was part of the events from September 3-14 marking the opening" of a BAPS temple near Paris, "billed as a 13-day 'festival of culture' that included a procession of boats gliding down the Seine River last week". BAPS is "practicing a 'very conservative form of Hinduism' with 'close links'" to the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who himself hailed the temple "as a symbol of bilateral cooperation".
Joy Banerjee, secretary of the progressive Indian Alliance Paris (IAP), said they had tried to tell authorities beforehand that members of the group "are very misogynistic", yet it was not until after workers went on strike that "every French politician worth their salt – and with an eye on the 2027 election" put themselves forward and"commented on the fracas". Emmanuel Grégoire, the Paris Mayor, promised an investigation while far-right leader Marine Le Pen said, "in France, we will never accept that the presence of women be limited". In the meantime, diaspora Indians in France "were worried about a French far-right, anti-immigrant backlash".

CAGNES-SUR-MER, FRANCE – Thieves steal art from Renoir museum

The New York Times reports Tuesday that "thieves targeted a museum that was formerly" the home of the Impressionist artist Pierre-Auguste Renoir in Cagnes-sur-Mer, a town in southern France, and made off with two paintings.
According to police, "the thieves fled the museum with four paintings," though "as they scrambled to escape through the garden, they left two of the works behind".
Prosecutors said the four artworks targeted by the thieves "are the most valuable pieces of the museum's collection", and that they have opened " an investigation into 'organized theft' and 'criminal conspiracy to commit a crime as part of an organized group'". The incident constitutes "the latest high-profile art theft in Europe as the continent’s cultural sites struggle to keep their precious objects safe".

ROME, ITALY – Italy orders two additional General Atomics' Reaper drones

Breaking Defense reports Wednesday that "Italy has ordered two additional MQ-9A Reaper Block 5 drones from General Atomics, to be delivered at the end of 2027, despite concerns from the US Air Force over recent losses of the drone type in Iran".
Italy decided to purchase new drones against the backdrop of mounting US drone losses in its war with Iran. Air Force Chief Modernization Officer Lt. Gen. Christopher Niemi recently told the media that "we are going through them at a rate that is concerning to us". According to The Washington Post, the US have lost at least 45 Reapers since the start of the war.
In the past, Rome "had ordered four Block 1 Reapers in 2008 and two more in 2009; however, it lost one of the drones in Libya in 2019, and another one was destroyed in March during an Iranian drone strike in Kuwait".

BERN, SWITZERLAND – Government report reveals source of procurement scandal

Swissinfo reports Tuesday that "the failure to adhere to the fixed price agreed for the procurement of the new F-35 fighter jets is linked to administrative failings", in that specifically no one appears to have read the contract to procure 36 F35 fighter jets.
In its report, the House of Representatives' Committee on the Examination of Public Accounts concluded that "no flat-rate fixed price has been agreed with the US" and therefore the Committee could "not understand the defence ministry's categorical statements to parliament and the public". The report further says, "the defence ministry did not manage the negotiations closely enough", and that "the flow of information was insufficient".
The turmoil around the price of the fighter jets erupted a year ago, when "the government announced that the fixed price for the 36 fighter jets originally ordered could not be met." Subsequently, it had to request "a supplementary credit of just under CHF400 million ($495 million) to cover the additional costs claimed by the US" and reduce its order to "only around 30" F-35s.

BERN, SWITZERLAND – Patriot missile deal with Germany falls through

Swissinfo reports last Friday that "attempts by the Swiss army to order Patriot air missile systems via Germany have broken down".
The suggested deal with Germany "was set up to mitigate mounting delays and costs of ordering the systems directly from the United States". Initially, "the first Patriot air defence systems were supposed to arrive in Switzerland this year", though this changed after "the US abruptly allocated the delivery to Germany" which had handed over its Patriot systems to Ukraine "and wanted to quickly fill the gap". Then, in June, the Swiss Federal Department of Defense "entered into talks with Germany and the US", because it "saw indications that Germany might at least cede parts of the delivery to Switzerland which alas did not occur.
As a result, "the Patriot air defense system will become even more expensive and will be delivered later", which is bad news for Swiss who believe more than feelings about neutrality are needed to protect the country as currently Swiss air space "is virtually unprotected".

BERN, SWITZERLAND – Switzerland joins EU sanctions barring trade of Sudanese gold

Swissinfo reports Thursday that "the Swiss government has joined the European Union in banning the purchase and import of Sudanese gold".
The restrictions apply "to the purchase, import and transit of gold of Sudanese origin, as well as to the provision of services and the granting of financial resources in connection with such gold". Additionally, "the sale and supply to Sudan of certain chemicals used in gold mining and gold extraction are also prohibited." The EU previously enacted the exact same sanctions in July.
The Swiss government noted that "it is 'extremely concerned' about the dramatic humanitarian situation in Sudan" and added that "gold mining and trade" would "constitute a key resource fuelling the conflict in Sudan".

ST. GALLEN, SWITZERLAND – Defense ministry must pay journalist over transparency

Blue News reports Monday that a journalist with Swiss public broadcaster SRF "won a case against the Swiss Department of Defense in the Federal Administrative Court" over classified archival documents concerning the Grüebli oxygen production plant.
The Swiss public media journalist was "denied access to archival documents" from 1959 which concerned the plant. The request was rejected on the grounds "that granting access would jeopardize the security of the Swiss Confederation". The Federal Administrative Court overturned the ruling on appeal and questioned the classification procedure, stating that it had "no valid legal basis whatsoever" in part because the maximum time limit available for classification is 50 years.
The Swiss Defense Ministry now has to reconsider the request and, "pay any court costs" associated with the journalist's legal fight.

BERN, SWITZERLAND – Intelligence Service releases file on Josef Mengele

The Jerusalem Post reports Thursday that "Switzerland's Federal Intelligence Service (NDB) published the Josef Mengele file" compiled on "the Angel of Death of Auschwitz".
Authorities suspected Mengele of passing through Switzerland in 1961 after "West Germany issued an arrest warrant against him". In the version now online, "the names of current and former government employees connected to the service and its predecessors, protected information about sources, and personal details of private individuals" remain redacted. Mengele eventually fled to South America, where he died in Brazil in 1979 without ever facing justice.
While historians have demanded the release of the file for years, Switzerland's intelligence service long argued that "the file remains subject to a strict confidentiality period". Historians have nonetheless continued to press for the release of the file in its entirety because as historian Gérard Wettstein points out, "as long as parts remain classified, the public will continue to believe there is something to hide".

SCHAFFHAUSEN, SWITZERLAND – Teens charged with supporting terrorism

Swissinfo reports Tuesday that "the Schaffhausen Youth Prosecution Service has brought charges against two 18-year-olds for supporting terrorism".
According to prosecutors, the two men, one of Swiss nationality and the other Italian, "are to stand trial on charges of repeatedly supporting a terrorist organisation".
The duo allegedly "have supported the banned terrorist organisation Islamic State (IS)" and " are alleged to have helped plan bomb attacks in Switzerland".

BADEN, SWITZERLAND – Fresh evidence found in ex-politician date rape case

Swissinfo reports last Friday that "more data has been seized from another property connected to a former Swiss local politician accused of committing a string of serious sexual offences against women and children".
In July, "the public prosecutor's office brought charges against the former Swiss People's Party parliamentarian of canton Aargau, for attempted murder and serious sexual offences". Now, prosecutors have extended their criminal investigation and searched a "previously unknown premises also used by the accused" where they "seized further data storage devices".
Prosecutors said "an initial review suggests there is a substantial amount of material", which "is likely to be linked to similar offences". The public prosecutor's office is "seeking a life sentence".

GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Report finds gay conversion therapy still present in two cantons

Swissinfo reports Wednesday that "a report published by the Intercantonal Centre for Information on Beliefs (CIC) confirms that conversion therapy is being practised in religious and spiritual settings in the cantons of Geneva and Vaud".
The authors carried out their investigation between 2023 and 2026, and based their report on "41 interviews, observations and an analysis of numerous documents". The CIC’s research director Manéli Farahmand said the study "clearly shows that practices aimed at changing or suppressing emotional and sexual orientation or gender identity do exist in the cantons of Vaud and Geneva".
While most cantons have already banned conversion therapy, according to the report, "these practices are most prevalent in certain Christian groups, including Evangelicals, traditionalist Catholics and Charismatic Christians".

LJUBLJANA, SLOVENIA – Israel opens embassy in Slovenia amid pro-Palestinian protests

The Associated Press reports Thursday that "Israel opened its first embassy in Slovenia, boosting relations with the small European Union nation".
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar, who travelled to Ljubljana for the occasion, spoke of a "historic day" after he met with his Slovenian counterpart Tone Kajzer. At the same time "hundreds of pro-Palestinian protesters gathered outside the new embassy building to protest the visit". The inauguration of the new Israeli embassy in Ljubljana comes after years of tension between the two countries under the previous prime minister Robert Golob.
Earlier in the week on Tuesday, The Jerusalem Post reports that "the pro-Palestinian Hind Rajab Foundation (HRF) announced that it had filed a criminal complaint against Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar with authorities in Slovenia". The foundation, named for a young girl whose death during Israel's recent siege of Gaza garnered international attention, accused the Israeli Foreign Minister "of responsibility for war crimes, genocide, and torture during the war in Gaza".

VIENNA, AUSTRIA – New school year brings headscarf ban for girls under 14

Reuters reports Monday that "Austria's ban on headscarves" for girls under 14 years of age comes "as schools reopen in Vienna and other states, with groups including the country's main Muslim organisation denouncing it as discriminatory ‌ and legal challenges likely".
The legislation to ban headscarfs "passed in parliament in December with the support of the far-right Freedom Party" (FPÖ) and supporters of the ban articulating their desire " to protect girls' freedom". The left-wing Greens were the only party in parliament opposing the ban while The Islamic Religious Community in Austria, the group which formally represents Austrian Muslims, said, "the move was an infringement of fundamental rights, pledging to fight it before the Constitutional Court".
The law "stipulates a school must hold discussions with any pupil defying the ban, after which a fine of between €150 and €800 can be imposed". In 2020, the court ruled "that a previous ban," which applied to girls under 10 years of age, "was illegal because it discriminated against Muslims and the state had a duty to be religiously neutral".

And finally…

TURIN, ITALY – Crocodile head found in luggage at Turin airport

The Guardian reports Tuesday that "an Italian man is facing a hefty fine or possible prison term after the dried head of a critically endangered crocodile was found in his luggage at Turin's Caselle airport".
According to customs authorities, "the man had arrived on a flight from Miami via Istanbul," and "the reptile's head had been wrapped in brown paper packaging in an effort to conceal it from security checks and customs". Authorities placed the man "under investigation on allegations of smuggling a specimen belonging to a protected species".
If found guilty, "the man faces a fine of between €20,000 and €200,000, or a prison term of six months to a year".

Stay safe and don't lose your head!

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