On Tuesday Barack Obama called President Francois Hollande of France to explain the National Security Agency’s massive surveillance of French government offices, businesses and private citizens. Obama stated that this was a well-meaning attempt to protect both countries from Islamic terrorism. He offered to “reexamine” the program so as to determine whether the right balance was struck between public safety and privacy rights.

Do the peace talks between Japan and Russia, reopened in March 2013 by Shinzo Abe and Vladimir Putin, have any chance of success? A window of opportunity has indeed opened for an historic rapprochement between Russia and Japan. 

Until the adoption of the Lisbon treaty in December 2007, there was no explicit reference to space in the EU’s constitutive documents. While the European Space Agency has been active in space since the mid-1970s, the Union’s policy remained without a legal basis for space activities. Parallel to the treaties’ evolution however, the EU’s competences never stopped expanding to new fields, bringing it ever closer to space and its various applications. Creativity and dynamic uses of these existing competences have allowed the EU to progressively interfere with the space sector and to get closer to ESA.

Defending and renewing the global order is a priority for the United States and Europe. An important part of this effort will be accomplished if transatlantic partners can successfully engage four “global swing states” — Brazil, India, Indonesia and Turkey — in the management of global issues, because of their geopolitical and economic status, as well as their desire to have a stronger voice in the various international forums. Successful engagement of these nations will be key to preserving the international order and U.S. leadership.