business

Soon, Irene Mekel will need to pick the day she dies. She’s not in any hurry: She quite likes her life, in a trim, airy house in Castricum, a Dutch village by the sea. She has flowers growing in her back garden, and there is a street market nearby where vendors greet villagers by name. … Read more

Western allies of the United States gathered in Munich this past week, anxious, adrift and despairing in the face of President Trump’s brute display of muscle-flexing on the global stage. But it was people not at the table at the Munich Security Conference who have become most marginalized in Mr. Trump’s world. Palestinians and Afghans, … Read more

Hostile to Russia ever since Soviet tanks appeared near her childhood home in 1968 in what was then Czechoslovakia, the now grandmother was delighted to have her photograph taken with a soldier who was fighting Russian invaders in Ukraine. “He was a hero to me,” Lucia Stasselova, 66, said of the soldier, whom she met … Read more

President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia shocked the audience at the annual security conference in Munich in 2007 by demanding the rollback of domineering American influence and a new balance of power in Europe more suitable to Moscow. He didn’t get what he wanted — then. Nearly two decades later, during the very same conference, … Read more

President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, during a closed-door meeting on Wednesday, rejected an offer by the Trump administration to relinquish half of the country’s mineral resources in exchange for U.S. support, according to five people briefed on the proposal or with direct knowledge of the talks. The unusual deal would have granted the United States … Read more

new video loaded: German Chancellor Accuses JD Vance of Election Interference transcript Back transcript German Chancellor Accuses JD Vance of Election Interference At the Munich Security Conference, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz rebuked U.S. Vice President JD Vance’s call for German leaders to allow the hard-right Alternative for Germany, or AfD, to enter their government. Well, … Read more

A British couple who had been on a motorcycle tour around the world were detained in Iran, Britain’s foreign office said on Saturday. The couple, Craig and Lindsay Foreman, were last heard from on social media in early January. But this week, Iranian state media reported that two British nationals had been detained on suspicion … Read more

The American vice president visited a concentration camp on Thursday afternoon. He laid a wreath at the foot of a statue, made the sign of the cross and paused before a memorial wall where in multiple tongues, including German and English, the words “Never Again” were written. JD Vance told reporters he had read about … Read more

Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany on Saturday accused Vice President JD Vance of unacceptably interfering in his country’s imminent elections on behalf of a party that has played down the atrocities committed by the Nazis 80 years ago. A day after Mr. Vance stunned the Munich Security Conference by telling German leaders to drop their … Read more