Xinhua Report French President Francois Hollande on Wednesday morning voiced his intention to increase defense budget with an additional fund of 3.8 billion euros available for the next years.     “France is facing threats, serious threats,” said the French president after a Defense council in his presidential office, the …

DPA: German intelligence services spied on top French officials and the European Commission on behalf of the American spy agency NSA, according to the Süddeutsche Zeitung. Germany’s BND foreign intelligence agency helped the National Security Agency (NSA) carry out “political espionage” by surveilling “top officials at the French …

By J.T. and Petra News Agency His Majesty King Abdullah and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper discussed on Wednesday the latest regional and international developments and means to strengthen relations. At a meeting in Ottawa, discussions also covered economic and development cooperation and ways to build on agreements …

By: JUDY DEMPSEY  Strategic Europe European leaders hardly needed a summit to agree on how to cope with the thousands of refugees who are trying desperately to reach the shores of Europe. After a brief lull during the winter months, refugees from North Africa have begun again risking …

By Ahmad Morsey and  Casper Wuite Carnegie On April 15, the Egyptian Cabinet approved amendments to Egypt’s electoral law, articles of which had been deemed unconstitutional last month. After a year of continued unrest, the parliamentary elections, originally slated for March 21, were expected to restore Egypt’s body politic …

George Perkovich Carnegie As negotiations and debate proceed over a comprehensive nuclear agreement with Iran, comparisons will inevitably be made with the 1994 Agreed Framework that sought to end North Korea’s (the DPRK’s) nuclear weapons program. That earlier agreement failed due to a combination of factors. Many observers …

James L. Schoff U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT As Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe prepares to visit the United States next week, attention is focused on the historic nature of the trip. Abe will be the first Japanese leader to speak before a joint session of Congress, an …

 Egor Popov, Yelizaveta Kuznetsova, Kommersant Russia’s civil aviation industry, whose main project is the regional aircraft Sukhoi Superjet-100 (SSJ-100), is to receive record state support, with the government promising anti-crisis funding of more than 127 billion rubles ($2.5 billion). According to observers, the financing will help to support …

Interview Conducted By Christian Neef Der Spiegel Alexander Zakharchenko is the leader of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic, which is not recognized by the international community. In a rare interview, he says his greatest hope is that Moscow will annex his territory just as it did Crimea. The meeting …