The United Arab Emirates announced on Thursday that it will invest 40 billion euros in Germany, spread across industry, advanced technology, artificial intelligence, digital infrastructure and energy. A quarter of the money, 10 billion euros, is earmarked for Bavaria alone. The pledge landed during Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed's first state visit to Berlin, where the two countries are also preparing a memorandum on expanding data centres. It comes on top of roughly 34 billion euros the Emirates have already committed in Germany, including the 14.7 billion euro deal that put Adnoc's investment arm behind chemicals giant Covestro. The wider pattern is hard to miss. Earlier this year, France and the UAE agreed on a one gigawatt AI data centre worth up to 50 billion euros, and Abu Dhabi is negotiating a comprehensive trade agreement with the EU. In an uncertain world, Gulf capital and European industry are increasingly finding each other.

🇺🇸 The Empty Seats Are Not the Point The pictures from Dallas were unkind. Upper decks bare, organizers begging people into section 108, an L falling off the podium, and Trump insisting the place was packed. It is tempting to read this as a movement running out of steam. Resist the temptation. Several thousand people still paid, queued for two hours in Texas heat and cheered a president with approval ratings in the basement. That is not a fringe. It is a durable minority that has already swallowed the Republican Party and will outlast Trump himself. The rest of the world drew its conclusion long ago, and it was not about him. It was about everyone else. The opposition proved toothless. Congress, the courts, the press and the civil service turned out to be cute little paper tigers, gone at the touch of one small, unpleasant match. When you buy fighter jets or sign trade deals, you plan in decades. Nobody is planning around a country whose institutions burn that easily. Stay connected, follow Gandalv @Microinteracti1

Trump Attacks Bombardier as Canada Weighs Walking Away From 72 F-35s Donald Trump's threat against Bombardier has landed at the worst possible moment for Washington. Canada is in the middle of deciding whether to abandon most of its planned F-35 purchase, and the man now running its defence procurement spent years arguing against the aircraft. The numbers matter. Canada's headline order of 88 jets has long been treated as settled, but according to CBC only 16 are firmly on contract, with payments started on equipment for a further 14. Canadian Press reports that industry is already preparing for a mixed fleet in which Saab's Gripen takes a large share. Stephen Fuhr, the former CF-18 pilot who now heads the new Defence Investment Agency, says openly that many allies fly mixed fleets and that he does not accept the claim Canada cannot. Fuhr had already warned, before Trump's outburst, that the trade war made new sole-source contracts to American firms politically very difficult, and Ottawa has chosen Saab and Bombardier over US suppliers for its GlobalEye surveillance aircraft. Trump's attack therefore punishes no rival; it confirms the case for leaving. The remaining 72 jets are officially still under review, but tens of billions in American defence sales now rest with a government that has every reason to look elsewhere. Stay connected, follow Gandalv @Microinteracti1

All it takes is a few immigrants crossing a border, and suddenly large chunks of the population in the United States and half of Europe are ready to cheer on Putin’s genocide in Ukraine. How on earth are these not two entirely separate things? Think whatever you like about immigration, and then support Ukraine’s survival anyway. And for those who admire Russia as a white bastion of traditional values, a few facts are in order. Russia is a federation of nearly 200 ethnic groups, home to somewhere around twenty million Muslims. More than in Europe and the U.S. On the traditional side of the ledger, it has one of the highest divorce rates in the world, an abortion rate that would make a Texas Republican faint, church attendance in the single digits, and an alcohol and HIV problem the Kremlin prefers not to discuss. Whatever Russia is selling, it is not what these people think. Stay connected, follow Gandalv @Microinteracti1