Event: Alexander Stubb

During North Korea’s latest military parade, images of its leader Kim Jong-un and his daughter wearing near-identical leather coats have prompted Pyongyang observers to speculate whether the stage is set for the next chapter in the ruling family’s history.For them, the “twin look” is another instance of carefully directed political theatre to burnish the standing of the Kims in the reclusive country for the long term.At the close of the ruling Workers’ Party’s ninth congress on Wednesday night, Kim Jong-un arrived at Kim Il-sung Square in a limousine with his daughter, Ju-ae, and stepped out beside her in full view of a large assembly of troops.The visual symmetry suggests a deliberate effort to merge the younger Kim’s image with the authority of the supreme commander, reinforcing the message that the family is a guarantor of North Korea’s future, with nuclear weapons forming the spearhead of its deterrence against external adversaries, according to analysts.After a week largely out of public view during the party gathering, Ju-ae re-emerged at the parade, occupying a central position beside her parents on the viewing stand.Pyongyang has portrayed North Korea for decades as a nation whose fate is intertwined with that of the Kims, with the leader as the father, the party as the mother and the people as their children.

Paul KirbyEurope digital editorTT/ReutersSweden's Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson joined French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot on board the Charles de Gaulle on FridayA drone jammed by the Swedish military after it was spotted near a French aircraft carrier docked in Malmo has been confirmed to be Russian, Sweden's armed forces say.The French military said the drone was spotted seven nautical miles (13km) from the Charles de Gaulle carrier, which has never visited Sweden before and is due to take part in Nato exercises in the region.In a statement, the Swedish Armed Forces said the drone was seen taking off from a nearby Russian spy ship, the Zhigulevsk."The incident occurred in connection with Charles de Gaulle's visit to Malmö, and the Navy acted swiftly to jam the drone," it added.A Kremlin spokesman previously rejected the Swedish claims as "absurd".Nato allies have for months reported drone sightings close to military sites and airports, including a number of incidents in Denmark and the Baltic states. An investigation was launched in December after drones flew over the Île Longue naval base, which is home to France's nuclear ballistic submarines off the Breton town of Brest.Earlier, Swedish Defence Minister Pal Jonson told public broadcaster SVT there was probably a "strong link" between the drone and a Russian naval vessel in Sweden's territorial waters in the Oresund Strait, between Sweden and Denmark.It is not clear what happened to the drone after it had been jammed but Jonson said the Russian ship had sailed on to the Baltic Sea.Speaking on board the carrier earlier, Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said the incident was serious but not unexpected. It was very difficult to see as a coincidence, he said, adding that "it is a Russian way of acting that we recognise from other places".French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot, who…

AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTYou have a preview view of this article while we are checking your access. When we have confirmed access, the full article content will load.News AnalysisPresident Trump’s approach is a revival of the mission of empire — acquiring the territories and resources of sovereign peoples.Secretary of State Marco Rubio, right, has been leading the Trump administration’s foreign policy.Credit...Tierney L. Cross/The New York TimesEdward WongEdward Wong has reported on the Iraq War, the rise of China and U.S. foreign policy. He covered Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s trip to Europe this month.Feb. 27, 2026Updated 9:55 a.m. ETPresident Trump’s foreign policy has veered wildly across the globe, but has remained consistent in its aggressive nature and reliance on the use of force.He has seized the leader of Venezuela while claiming the country’s oil and attacking nearby civilian boats. He has pushed Cuba into a humanitarian crisis through a blockade, and asserted a right to control Canada, Greenland and the Panama Canal. And he has amassed the largest U.S. military force in the Middle East since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, threatening a new war against Iran after attacks last June.Mr. Trump calls his policy “America First” — a stated focus on U.S. interests as he defines them. But it is not isolationism or a retreat from the world, as some analysts have argued. Nor has it manifested yet in a push to create “spheres of influence,” where the administration would be content to dominate only the Western Hemisphere and leave other regions to rival powers.From one perspective, it is a resurrection of the mission of empire — acquiring the territories and resources of sovereign peoples — that animated European and other well-armed powers up to the 20th century. It is also an embrace, and even a celebration, of Western imperial histories.In…

AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTYou have a preview view of this article while we are checking your access. When we have confirmed access, the full article content will load.“We don’t need a bulldozer,” says Alexander Stubb, Finland’s president and a golf partner of President Trump. “Reform doesn’t mean destruction.”President Alexander Stubb of Finland, last year. Mr. Stubb says he recognizes that the world has changed, perhaps forever, and that Europe is not Washington’s priority.Credit...Saara Mansikkamaki for The New York TimesSteven ErlangerSteven Erlanger writes about European security. He reported from the Munich Security Conference, where he interviewed Alexander Stubb.Feb. 27, 2026Updated 7:14 a.m. ETAlexander Stubb, fitness buff and decent golfer, looks younger than his 57 years. President of Finland since March 2024, he has tried to be an interlocutor between President Trump and Europe. As a new member of NATO, Finland is still figuring out its place in the alliance. But as a golfer, Mr. Stubb has built an odd but important relationship with a president who spends an enormous amount of time on his own links.Mr. Stubb urges calm even as rhetoric has grown high among European and NATO leaders about the failings of the trans-Atlantic relationship under Mr. Trump.The mood became even more fraught after Mr. Trump’s speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos in January, which again pressed his intention to seize Greenland whether Denmark, a NATO ally, liked it or not.After that speech, Prime Minister Mark Carney of Canada won plaudits when he spoke of “a rupture” in traditional Western relations. For Mr. Stubb, rupture means complete disorder, he said in an interview in February at the Munich Security Conference — and that is a dangerous prospect as the West faces a militarized Russia, a war in Europe and a rising China.“We don’t need to use the bulldozer here,”…

AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTSouth Korea approved Google’s request to export detailed map data, reversing a longstanding restriction that made the tool largely nonfunctional.Unlike in most countries, Google Maps has not provided real-time driving or walking directions in South Korea.Credit...Kim Hong-Ji/ReutersFeb. 27, 2026Updated 5:32 a.m. ETSouth Korea said on Friday that it had approved Google’s request to export detailed geographic data out of the country, reversing a longstanding policy that had made Google Maps largely nonfunctional in the country.Unlike in most countries, Google Maps in South Korea has not provided users with real-time driving or walking directions or detailed listings for shops, restaurants and other businesses. Instead, most people rely on domestic mapping apps to navigate.South Korea’s decision, announced by its Transport Ministry, is expected to give Google what it needs to offer its full mapping features, with conditions. The country has cited national security concerns in restricting the export of map data.Such technological restrictions have been a contentious issue in trade talks between Seoul and Washington. The Trump administration has pressured South Korea not to discriminate against U.S. technology companies through regulation, including of location data.“We welcome today’s decision and look forward to our ongoing collaboration with local officials to bring a fully functioning Google Maps to Korea,” Cris Turner, a senior executive at Google, said in a statement.Google declined to comment on when the full navigation features would be released.It has been a long fight for Google, which first introduced its map service to South Korea in 2008 and made its first public request for map data in 2016. Google has also said that its maps had limited capabilities in China, which imposes broader restrictions on Google, and North Korea, which maintains a near-total restriction on internet access.The Transport Ministry said that Google would be able to export map data that…

When North Korea’s ruling party held a top-level meeting this month there were predictable boasts of unstoppable nuclear development and, more unexpectedly, a suggestion by Kim Jong-un that his country and the US “could get along” – provided that Washington recognised North Korea as a legitimate nuclear power.But for many North Korea watchers, the Workers’ party congress – held over several days just once every five years – was a rare opportunity to speculate over the identity of the country’s future leader.The received wisdom is that Kim has already decided that his daughter, Kim Ju-ae, will succeed him to become the fourth-generation leader of the dynasty that has ruled the country with an iron fist since it was founded in 1948.But dissenting voices have emerged in recent weeks among experts who say that North Korea’s immutable gender politics could yet block Kim Ju-ae’s path to power.The North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, and his daughter, Kim Ju-ae, touring a new housing district dedicated to the families of fallen soldiers in Pyongyang in February. Photograph: KCNA/EPA“The most immediate and insurmountable barricade for Kim Ju-ae is the deeply ingrained patriarchal nature of North Korea,” Mitch Shin, who covers the Korean peninsula for the Diplomat, wrote this month, adding that North Korea functioned “more as a Neo-Confucian monarchy” than as a socialist state.There is little to suggest that the country’s ranks of ageing generals would accept a woman as “supreme leader”, Shin said. “For these men, many in their 60s and 70s, the concept of swearing absolute and life-and-death loyalty to a young woman is more than a cultural shift. It is a structural anomaly that threatens the internal logic of the regime.”Instead, Kim may be using his daughter as a “human shield” for the actual successor, Kim Jong-un’s long-rumoured oldest child. “In this…

AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTYou have a preview view of this article while we are checking your access. When we have confirmed access, the full article content will load.Denmark’s Leader Calls Snap Elections After a Surge in Support Over GreenlandExperts say Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen is trying to capitalize on her success standing up to President Trump.VideoDenmark’s Prime Minister Calls For a Snap Parliamentary ElectionPrime Minister Mette Frederiksen’s announcement came just weeks after she surged in public opinion polls for standing up to President Trump’s threats to take over Greenland.CreditCredit...Thomas Traasdahl/Ritzau Scanpix Foto, via Associated PressFeb. 26, 2026Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen of Denmark said on Thursday that snap parliamentary elections would be held next month. The announcement came just weeks after she surged in public opinion polls for standing up to President Trump’s threats to take over Greenland, a semiautonomous Danish territory.Ms. Frederiksen, who became prime minister in 2019 after her party, the Social Democrats, struck a deal to form a minority government with other left-leaning parties in Parliament, said the next poll would be held on March 24, more than half a year before her deadline to call such elections.“As everyone knows, the conflict about Greenland isn’t over yet,” she said in a speech on Thursday to Parliament that amounted to the opening of what is likely to be a quick campaign to keep her job.Mr. Trump has backed down from his original threat to seize Greenland and ruled out the use of force. Ms. Frederiksen, nonetheless, suggested in her speech that the United States, at least during Mr. Trump’s presidency, could become a threat to Denmark’s security and stability.“Denmark has to continue rearming itself,” she said, pointing to “the Russian war machine from the east, threats from the west and the risk of terror from the south.”It’s a test of whether…

AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTYou have a preview view of this article while we are checking your access. When we have confirmed access, the full article content will load.​ The North Korean leader said that his country can get along well with the United States as long as Washington accepts it as a nuclear weapons state.A news broadcast in Seoul on Thursday showing footage of Kim Jong-un, North Korea’s leader, speaking at the ruling Workers’ Party congress.Credit...Jung Yeon-Je/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesFeb. 26, 2026North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, said he could improve ties with the United States if Washington recognized his country as a nuclear weapons state, state media reported on Thursday, as Pyongyang concluded its biggest political event in five years.Mr. Kim made the remarks at the ruling Workers’ Party congress, a seven-day meeting that ended on Wednesday. The gathering, which happens once every five years, was closely watched by officials and analysts in the region as Mr. Kim used it to unveil his foreign policy outlines for the next five years.Mr. Kim’s diplomatic heft has increased in recent years. He has sent North Korean troops and weapons to aid Russia’s war against Ukraine and reinvigorated ties with Moscow. He has also aligned his country more closely with Beijing while President Trump wooed him for a possible resumption of high-level negotiations.In speeches delivered during the congress, Mr. Kim reaffirmed his intention of expanding North Korea’s nuclear force and consolidating its “status as a nuclear-armed state,” the North’s official Korean Central News Agency said on Thursday. In a message apparently ​directed at Mr. Trump, Mr. Kim also said his country ​could engage in either “peaceful coexistence​” or a “permanent standoff,” depending on Washington’s attitude.“I don’t see any reason not to get along well with the United States if it withdraws its hostile policy…