Agrégateur de flux

Pourquoi la France était-elle le seul autre pays au monde où Jeffrey Epstein possédait une propriété immobilière en dehors des États-Unis ? Était-ce par amour du pays… Ou parce qu'il y trouvait de quoi servir ses intérêts ? Dans les années 90, Paris est la capitale de la mode, et celle des agences de mannequins. Elles recrutent de très jeunes filles venues du monde entier, parfois mineures, souvent isolées… Des proies faciles pour le criminel sexuel américain.

A constitutional revision solves the wrong problem – and creates new complications.

Dans un précédent article, j'examinais comment le régime d'Aleksandar Vučić avait fait du droit pénal un instrument de pression politique, en visant l'avocat Čedomir Stojković. Ce cas constituait déjà un signal préoccupant pour les défenseurs des droits humains. Pourtant, les événements du printemps 2026 révèlent une évolution plus profonde — et, dans un sens presque kafkaïen, plus subtile — du dispositif répressif serbe.
Ce que les médias proches du pouvoir présentent comme une « mesure (…)

- Notes et racines. Le blog de Valentin Smoliak / Serbie, Blogs - Diaporama

India has turned the corner in its battle against Naxalism – and effectively governing its own margins is an essential step toward global power status.

Les 22 et 23 mars 2026, les électeurs italiens ont rejeté, par 54 % des voix pour le non contre 46 % pour le oui, le projet de réforme constitutionnelle de la magistrature porté par la présidente du Conseil, Giorgia Meloni. Avec une participation proche de 60 %, un taux exceptionnellement élevé (…) / Fascisme, Droit, Italie, Justice

Selon le chef de la défense de l'UE, un pacte de type Schengen pourrait être ouvert au Royaume-Uni, à la Norvège et à l'Ukraine

The post Kubilius propose un nouveau traité visant à créer une union européenne de la défense appeared first on Euractiv FR.

Despite being one of the oldest aircraft still flying in U.S. service, the U-2 remains relevant enough for Skunk Works to seek a qualified pilot in Palmdale.

Skunk Works, the legendary Lockheed Martin’s secretive advanced projects division, is hiring a U-2 pilot in Palmdale, California.

The job posting, that you can find here, calls for an onsite, full-time, first-shift position in Test Engineering for an experienced professional pilot, with a 4x10h schedule and possible relocation, and it is clearly framed as a test-oriented role rather than routine operational flying: according to the listing, the pilot would conduct engineering flight tests, production-acceptance flights, and flight-test support, help verify aircraft compliance and operational suitability, coordinate flight-operations efforts, approve cockpit configuration, and, if needed, perform demonstration flights for customers and government officials.

The ad, published on Apr. 6, 2026, says applicants must be no more than two years outside qualification on the U-2S Dragon Lady, hold a current FAA Class I or II medical, and possess either a suitable FAA Commercial Pilot certificate for multi-engine land and instrument airplane or an ATP (Airline Transport Pilot), while also being willing to travel, holding a valid U.S. passport, and arriving with an active Top Secret clearance.

Among the desired qualifications are 1,000 flight hours, graduation from a formal Test Pilot School, background in flight-test disciplines such as weapons, avionics and flight sciences, as well as instructor/training, communication, organizational and leadership or program-integration experience.

The posted compensation is a California salary range of $156,400 to $275,655 outside most major metro areas and $179,800 to $311,650 in most major metro areas, although the final offer depends on factors such as experience, training, skills, scope and business considerations; listed benefits include medical, dental, vision, life insurance, short- and long-term disability, flexible spending accounts, parental leave, paid time off, holidays, education assistance, and incentive-plan eligibility.

U-2 pilot. | Source: USAF

The emergence of the job posting is quite interesting, considering the iconic Dragon Lady was slated for retirement from U.S. Air Force service this year. However, while some U-2s have already been withdrawn from active service, the aircraft’s retirement date is far from settled, and the sundown of the type remains under intense congressional scrutiny.

In fact, U-2s are still flying active intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) missions on a daily basis from forward operating locations, and there is little sign of that activity slowing down at least for now. USAF U-2s are home based at the 9th Reconnaissance Wing, Beale Air Force Base, California, but are rotated to operational detachments worldwide, including RAF Fairford, UK; Osan Air Base, South Korea, and RAF Akrotiri, Cyprus. The latter sustained damage from an Iranian kamikaze drone launched in retaliation for the U.S. and Israeli air strikes, last month.

In line with such continuous postponement of its retirement, in 2023 Lockheed Martin announced the first flight of the U-2 Avionics Tech Refresh (ATR), carried out by Skunk Works in partnership with the U.S. Air Force. The company said the flight tested an updated avionics suite, new cockpit displays and a mission computer designed to the Air Force’s open mission systems standard, with further testing planned to mature the software baseline before more mission systems were added. 

More recently, BAE Systems was awarded a contract to support and sustain the U-2’s AN/ALQ-221 Advanced Defensive System (ADS), another sign that the aircraft is still receiving updates and meaningful attention rather than simply being allowed to age out quietly. 

As for Palmdale, Plant 42 remains a hub for major activity involving the type, and the job posting seems to suggest Lockheed Martin expects the Dragon Lady to continue generating the kind of work that may require highly specialized pilot support for quite some time.

A U-2 Dragon Lady takes off for the first flight of the Avionics Tech Refresh program in Palmdale, California. | Source: Lockheed Martin

Eventually, it should not be forgotten that, beyond its operational role, the U-2 is still valued as a high-altitude testbed. Testing campaigns conducted over the last five years have leveraged the aircraft’s open architecture and its ability to integrate new technology quickly. The U-2 has been involved in containers and AI/ML experimentation, open-mission-systems integration, and gateway or data-sharing roles between different platforms. A Skunk Works pilot current on the U-2 would be useful if Lockheed is using the aircraft to trial payloads, communications systems, sensors, or battle-management concepts that may feed current and future programs.

Another (even more speculative) possibility is that Lockheed could employ a U-2 pilot as part of work on or around future classified ISR aircraft, using the Dragon Lady as a surrogate, a risk-reduction platform, or a bridge capability. With the RQ-180 spy drone slowly beginning to emerge from the shadows of black programs, there is a chance Skunk Works is maturing new manned or unmanned ISR concepts. In that context, having a U-2 pilot with a test background could make sense for comparative flying, sensor work, or manned-ISR experimentation. 

Whatever, if you are interested and your profile fits the requirements, you’d better hurry: you have less than a month to apply, as the deadline is May 15, 2026.

Le procès en appel de l'affaire du financement libyen de la campagne présidentielle de Nicolas Sarkozy de 2007 se tient à Paris depuis le 16 mars. Condamné en première instance à 5 ans de prison, il avait été détenu 20 jours à l'automne. Résumé de la cinquième semaine d'audience, au cours de laquelle Claude Guéant, représenté par son avocat, a mis en difficulté la défense de l'ancien président.

The Indian Ocean has no shortage of distressed strategic assets: financially stressed yards, ports, and logistics infrastructure in small states that cannot sustain them independently.

With Viktor Orban’s election loss, Pedro Sanchez is now Beijing’s most useful European leader.

L’IA devient l’un des principaux terrains de rivalité stratégique entre grandes puissances. Les États Unis et la Chine cherchent à s’assurer une maîtrise complète de la chaîne de valeur, des semi conducteurs au développement des modèles de fondation, en passant par le contrôle des infrastructures de calcul. D’autres puissances cherchent également à se distinguer dans ce nouvel espace de compétition géopolitique à la croisée des enjeux de souveraineté, de sécurité et de compétitivité.

Philippe Barbet, professeur émérite d’économie à l’Université Sorbonne Paris Nord et chercheur associé à l’IRIS, répond à nos questions :

• Les États-Unis et la Chine ont-ils définitivement distancé leurs concurrents en matière d’IA et de sa chaîne de valeur ?

• Quel est le rôle de l’UE sur ce marché de l’IA ? Quelle carte a-t-elle à jouer ?

• Certains parlent d’un futur éclatement de la bulle IA. Ce scénario vous semble-t-il plausible ? Cette fébrilité ne représente-t-elle pas une faiblesse pour les États-Unis par exemple dont l’économie est dopée à l’IA ?

Cette vidéo a été réalisée à l’occasion de la 3e édition des Rencontres géoéconomiques et géopolitiques organisées par l’IRIS et NEOMA Business School, en partenariat avec Diplomatie Magazine et Courrier international, le 2 avril 2026.

L’article Géopolitique de l’IA , quels nouveaux rapports de force mondiaux ? est apparu en premier sur IRIS.

Des inquiétudes ont également été exprimées concernant les suspects européens de terrorisme passibles de la peine de mort en Irak

The post L’UE craint une nouvelle recrudescence du terrorisme lié à l’État islamique appeared first on Euractiv FR.

In an era defined by geopolitical fragmentation, the Australia-Japan partnership shows how middle powers can cooperate to mitigate risk and enhance resilience. 

« L'Espagne a abandonné le peuple sahraoui », a déclaré une députée sahraouie-espagnole à Euractiv

The post Les réfugiés apatrides exclus de l’amnistie migratoire espagnole appeared first on Euractiv FR.

La Commission européenne a appelé la Turquie à revenir sur sa décision « inacceptable » de ne pas inviter la République de Chypre à une réunion préparatoire en amont d’une conférence des Nations unies sur le climat. La Conférence des Nations unies sur les changements climatiques de 2026 (COP31) se tiendra en novembre à Antalya, […]

The post L’UE fulmine alors que la Turquie empêche Chypre de participer à une réunion de l’ONU sur le climat appeared first on Euractiv FR.

If you are reading commodity price movements as evidence that the closure of the Strait of Hormuz has been absorbed without consequence, you are reading the right data for the wrong time horizon. Credit: Mauricio Ramos/IPS

By Máximo Torero
ROME, Apr 17 2026 (IPS)

The headlines are wrong about food prices — but right to be afraid, very afraid. Walk into a supermarket in Chicago, Berlin, or Mumbai today, and you will not find the shelves stripped bare or the prices dramatically higher than last month. Despite weeks of alarming headlines about commodity markets, food inflation in most major economies has risen only marginally — a tenth or two-tenths of a percentage point between February and March of this year. In the United States, food inflation moved from roughly 2.9 percent to 3.1 percent. In Germany, from 0.8 to 0.9. In India, from 7.8 to 8.0.

This is not a crisis at the checkout counter. Not yet.

But here is what the headlines are getting wrong, and what they are getting terrifyingly right at the same time: the stability you see today is real, and it is also beside the point. What is coming — if the world does not act quickly and the cease fire does not continue— is a food price shock of a different order, arriving not in March but in the harvests of late 2026 and the markets of 2027.

To understand why, you first have to understand what commodity price indexes actually measure, and what they do not. The FAO Food Price Index — which did rise slightly in March, driven largely by vegetable oils and sugar amid higher crude oil costs — tracks the international price of raw agricultural commodities: wheat, maize, rice, oilseeds, dairy.

It does not track what you pay for a baguette or a box of pasta. By the time wheat becomes bread, the grain itself represents only 10 to 15 percent of the final retail price. The rest is energy, labor, processing, packaging, logistics, and retail margins.

This cost structure is precisely why grocery bills do not lurch upward the moment commodity markets move. It is also why the current calm is not a reliable indicator of future stability specially because of the significant share of energy costs.

Short-term stability is not medium or long-term security. The time between a fertilizer shock and a harvest failure is measured in months. The time between a harvest failure and a food price surge is measured in months more. We are already inside that window

The markets for major cereals are, for now, sending reassuring signals. Wheat and maize prices have held steady. Rice prices actually declined. Global cereal stocks remain high, and the market is correctly reflecting sufficient near-term availability. If you are reading commodity price movements as evidence that the closure of the Strait of Hormuz has been absorbed without consequence, you are reading the right data for the wrong time horizon.

The Strait carries roughly 35% of crude oil exports — but its disruption reaches agrifood systems through a less obvious channel, logistics and energy costs for food processing. In addition, the Strait carries 20% of natural gas which can’t be replaced by any other source, and which is essential for nitrogen fertilizer ( specifically urea), 20-30% of fertilizers export depending on the specific type and about 50% of Sulfur exports a key input to produce phosphate fertilizer. All this is still  not showing up in this month’s price indexes. 

According to FAO analysis, the Strait of Hormuz closure has choked off 30 to 35 percent of global urea trade. Urea prices have already jumped between 40 and 60 percent. The feedstock that makes nitrogen fertilizer possible — natural gas — has risen 70 to 90 percent in price. Brent crude is up 60 percent just before the cease of fire.

These are not abstract figures. They are the inputs that farmers in the United States, Europe, South Asia, and across the Northern Hemisphere are confronting right now, as planting season either begins or approaches.

The decision they face is not a comfortable one: pay double for fertilizer when commodity prices are already low, and hope prices recover, or cut application rates and accept lower yields. Some will shift toward nitrogen-fixing crops like soybeans. Others will pivot toward crops destined for biofuel production, reducing the food supply further still.

The consequences of those decisions will not appear on store shelves until the harvest comes in, or the markets decides to incorporate them in future prices. When they do, the combination of constrained yields, elevated energy costs running through every link of the supply chain, and ongoing trade disruptions will drive commodity prices higher, and food prices even higher because of the additional energy cost increases — not by a tenth of a point per month, but meaningfully, in ways that will be felt most acutely by the households that can least afford it.

Short-term stability is not medium or long-term security. The time between a fertilizer shock and a harvest failure is measured in months. The time between a harvest failure and a food price surge is measured in months more. We are already inside that window.

The world’s response cannot wait for the price indexes to confirm what the agronomic and economic data already make clear.

Governments, development institutions, and the private sector must act now on three fronts: ensuring fertilizer access for smallholder farmers and input and food import-dependent nations before their planting decisions become irreversible; protecting and diversifying trade routes so that disruption in one chokepoint does not become a global supply crisis; avoid export restrictions of fertilizers and energy products and pursuing with urgency the diplomatic solutions that remain, for now, within reach.

The supermarket and retail store shelves are stocked. The silos are full. And the window to keep them that way is closing. 

Keeping the Strait of Hormuz open is therefore not just about preventing food inflation — it is about averting a broader surge in overall inflation that would directly undermine economic growth, while also shielding every other sector dependent on the energy and input prices that flow through this strategic chokepoint.

 

Excerpt:

Máximo Torero Cullen is Chief Economist of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations

Accusé d'avoir agressé sexuellement l'actrice française Adèle Haenel lorsqu'elle était âgée de 12 à 14 ans, le cinéaste Christophe Ruggia, qui avait fait appel de sa condamnation en première instance, a été condamné, vendredi, à cinq ans de prison, dont deux sous bracelet électronique.

Il y a plus de 10 ans, nous pensons que nous avons un tel préjudice ou notre son. Mais la lumière émise par le téléphone portable est loin d’être une véritable raison qui nous amène à mal dormir.

Une perquisition a été menée jeudi dans les locaux du groupe énergétique Engie, dans le cadre d’une enquête visant Rachida Dati, a indiqué vendredi le Parquet national financier. Cette information judiciaire porte sur des soupçons de rémunération perçue par l’ex-eurodéputée. L’enquête s’intéresse également à d’éventuels liens d’intérêts avec l’Azerbaïdjan et le Qatar.

Les députés européens souhaitent que la plateforme dédiée aux autorisations de transit soit opérationnelle d'ici 2028, et non 2030

The post Les députés européens veulent accélérer la mobilité militaire de l’UE malgré les désaccords avec le Conseil appeared first on Euractiv FR.