World

Both sides blamed the other for the breakdown of peace talks in Islamabad, Pakistan on Sunday after a marathon session failed to deliver a deal to end the war sparked six weeks ago by US-Israeli attacks on Iran. US officials said the negotiations fell apart because Iran would not commit to abandoning its nuclear program. Iranian leaders, however, blamed Washington for the breakdown, without detailing the specific disputes. "We need to see an affirmative commitment that they will not seek a nuclear weapon, and they will not seek the tools that would enable them to quickly achieve a nuclear weapon," Vice President JD Vance said after the discussions. Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, Iran's parliamentary speaker and head of its delegation, said the responsibility now lies with Washington. "It is t...

First it was cars and electronics, then pop music and films, and now the beauty industry: skincare and cosmetics "made in Korea" are in demand all over the world. More and more Westerners are raving about South Korean beauty products. This success is no coincidence, nor is it a purely aesthetic phenomenon. The east Asian country has made its cultural exports an important source of soft power. What is known as "K-beauty" relies on a combination of cultural dynamics, economic strategy and geopolitical positioning.  "Soft power means using attractiveness, not force, to influence others," explains political scientist and Korea expert Hannes Mosler from the University of Duisburg-Essen. This is crucial for a country like South Korea, he says. "South Korea finds itself in a geopolitically pr...

The Hungarian election campaign has been in a frenzy for weeks, but this latest scandal has shocked even the most cool-headed observers. Many have described it as a "return to dictatorship and Communist times." Last week, it emerged that Hungary's Constitution Protection Office (Alkotmanyvedelmi Hivatal), one of the country's five intelligence services, is believed to have tried to infiltrate the opposition Tisza Party with the aim of obstructing its participation in the elections or at least minimizing its chances of success. The intelligence service is said to have tried to recruit technicians in charge of maintaining the party's IT system to access internal party information and use it to rig the election. The operation is said to have started in July 2025. It was already apparent by ...

There is little doubt that the nuclear threat in the Middle East has risen during the current conflict. During the war, which started in late February when the US and Israel attacked Iran,  nuclear sites in both Iran and Israel have been targeted. US President Donald Trump has said that thewar on Iran was launched in order to prevent Iran getting a nuclear weapon. But, experts suggest, this may well backfire. Possessing nuclear arms is supposed to be a deterrent. The theory is that they prevent your enemies from acting against you. Observers often cite the case of North Korea. It has developed nuclear weapons which, some argue, make the dictatorship untouchable. Ukraine provides an example of the opposite. In 1994, Ukraine agreed to give up what was then the third-largest nuclear ar...