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OpenAI’s Altman and Anthropic’s Amodei address UN security council

Sam Altman of OpenAI and Dario Amodei of Anthropic, heads of two of the world’s largest artificial intelligence companies, addressed the United Nations security council on Wednesday in separate briefings on AI safety. “We have a choice in front of us,” Altman told the council. “AI can either be more like a new renaissance of creativity and discovery, or more like a new industrial revolution of upheaval and disarray.” Altman and Amodei spoke as their companies face increasing scrutiny over the safety of their products. Public alarm over AI has grown in response to warnings from Anthropic researchers earlier this month that the technology could destroy humanity within the decade. Leaders of AI companies, including Altman and Amodei, have since called for a slowdown on advancing AI and more international cooperation on the technology’s safety standards. Altman, who sat at the corner of the security council’s horseshoe-shaped table and spoke for about 10 minutes, touted AI’s benefits to productivity while also warning of its potential abuses. He advocated for governments to come together to build a future where AI is guided by democratic institutions, rather than one where people feel like the technology is “something being done to them”. “If AI is to be democratic, the most important decisions cannot be made by labs in San Francisco alone. They must be shaped through democratic processes and by governments accountable to the people that they serve,” Altman said. The OpenAI CEO’s speech contrasted with some of his company’s lobbying efforts and the political action committee of its president, Greg Brockman. The pro-AI Leading the Future PAC has accrued more than $100m and spent millions targeting candidates who support stronger regulation on the AI industry. Altman’s speech also nodded to some of the concerns from Anthropic researchers about AI’s existential risk, warning the council against falling into “doomerism”. Altman argued there was instead a “middle path” through the safety debate that should be based on three principles: AI systems must remain under human control; AI must benefit people, from helping doctors treat patients to boosting entrepreneurs; and the technology must “empower people individually”. Amodei, who addressed the council via video call, repeated many of the points that he made in a 12 September blog post that called for increased global cooperation and oversight of AI. He advocated for several forms of international agreements, including a ban on using AI to develop biological weapons and global standards for testing new AI models. While Altman steered his address away from engaging with the warnings of existential risk that have made headlines this month, Amodei reiterated his concerns about developers losing control of AI while also framing his company as an industry leader on safety. “If managed poorly, I even believe that AI could be a risk to humanity as a whole,” Amodei said. “At Anthropic, we believe we have the best track record in the industry for preventing these risks”. AI regulation has shot up the political agenda after researchers at OpenAI’s arch-rival Anthropic warned the technology could wipe out humanity within years. These concerns are a regular refrain within sections of the AI community, who fear the technology could trigger devastation for a variety of reasons ranging from aiding development of bioweapons to triggering a financial catastrophe. Earlier, Amodei called for a slowdown in AI development, which was supported by OpenAI, Google and Elon Musk. Both Amodei and Altman have long cast themselves as stewards of AI and sought to shape how the technology is publicly received. Their companies are also jockeying for the lead in the AI race, with both eyeing potentially record-setting initial public offerings that would value each at more than $1.5tn.

How the ‘poisonous tide’ of disinformation spreads division and despair

Russian disinformation campaigns are varied in their falsehoods and strategies. The narratives range from a deepfake Tom Cruise criticising the Paris Olympics to portraying a recent Russian attack on a train near the Ukraine-Poland border as a false-flag operation. Some efforts are blatant deepfakes, such as stamping the BBC logo on a video wrongly blaming Ukraine for a deadly missile salvo on its own citizens in Kramatorsk four years ago. The tactics evolve too, from disseminating deceitful narratives through the Telegram messaging platform to “poisoning” AI systems by littering the internet with false stories in the hope they will be regurgitated by chatbots. It is systematic and Andy Burnham has seen enough, announcing a new anti-disinformation agency, the National Centre for Information Defence. “We’re talking about an insidious campaign that reaches into people’s homes and twists what they feel about their own country and community – creating a narrative of decline, stoking division and sowing despair,” he said. Experts say picking off individual examples is the wrong approach and Burnham is right to tackle what he describes as a “poisonous tide”. Going after isolated examples of disinformation is a “losers’ game”, says Ned Mendez, head of research at Alliance4Europe, a nonprofit that analyses these destabilising threats. “You can spend all your time looking for a TikTok or a post on X but it’s not an effective use of your day. It’s the infrastructure that is the problem, so this is a step in the right direction, going after the networks,” he says. Sophie Williams-Dunning, a cyber analyst at the Royal United Services Institute (Rusi) thinktank, says there is now a “sophisticated ecosystem which exists to exacerbate provokable users for one reason or another”. Although Burnham is targeting “hostile state information attacks”, this ecosystem does not just include Russia, which likes to amplify “divisive content”, says Williams-Dunning. It also includes far-right influencers who immediately jump on social flashpoints like the Southport and Belfast riots and individuals simply looking to make money by producing highly engaging content riffing on disruption. The Burnham announcement is “welcome, if overdue”, says Williams-Dunning, who adds that there will be an accompanying debate about free speech and the right level of government intervention. Inevitably, malign networks will amplify those free-speech concerns, she says. It is not just Russia deploying information attacks. China and Iran have both used deepfake newscasters to advance their goals. One recent study, conducted mostly in February by the Social Market Foundation, a British thinktank, found that more than a quarter of posts on X that relate to news were misinformation, a third of which were anti-immigration or Islamophobic. The UK government defines misinformation as the inadvertent spread of false information, while disinformation is the deliberate creation and spread of falsehoods to create harm or disruption. The two can intertwine to highly disruptive effect. Labour has become increasingly concerned about Russian disinformation affecting the UK. The Starmer government in May cited information warfare from Moscow when it warned Britain was “confronting an industrial-scale attack on the UK’s and our allies’ information environment, aimed at undermining our security and democratic systems”. Earlier this year MPs on the foreign affairs select committee called for the creation of a national counter-disinformation centre, in a similar vein to Sweden’s Psychological Defence Agency and France’s Vigilance and Protection against Foreign Digital Interference service. Experts said Burnham’s announcement at least shows the UK government catching up, although Keir Starmer’s administration showed an awareness of social media’s contribution to unrest by launching the National Internet Intelligence Investigations unit after the Southport disturbances in 2024. Operated by the police, it monitors social media to help local forces “manage public safety threats and risks”. The UK government has been taking action prior to Burnham’s announcement, however. In May it sanctioned employees of the Social Design Agency and ANO Dialog, Russian entities which it said the Kremlin uses for large-scale interference campaigns. One example is the Doppelgänger network, so-called due to its technique of imitating the appearance of established media organisations including Le Monde, the Guardian, Der Spiegel and Fox News. Other examples include the 2023 surge in reports of bedbug infestations in France, falsely blaming Ukrainian refugees. The disinformation leaked into the British press and the French government concluded the stories were being artificially amplified by Russian-linked social media accounts One of the most longstanding misinformation campaigns has centred on the idea that London is “dangerous” and “lawless”. Analysis of Reddit accounts by King’s College London found the number of such posts rose from 874 in 2008 to 258,444 in 2024. Robert Topinka, reader in digital media and rhetoric at Birkbeck, University of London, said Russia did not necessarily start such storylines, but enthusiastically amplified them. He cautioned that counter-disinformation efforts should not assume “people are just being fooled by some sort of outside actor”. Rather, he said, Russia tends to find a point of tension and then create more content around it. “What really is happening is people are feeling like Britain is run-down – that’s the real source of it,” said Topinka. AI is adding a new dimension. Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta says AI-generated content is now a “near-standard” part of disinformation campaigns. The UK thinktank Demos recently highlighted a chatbot “poisoning” campaign where falsehoods published online by a discredited Russian organisation, including the bodies of deceased Ukrainian soldiers being processed into meat products, were repeated by chatbot models. The National Centre for Information Defence will have a lot of work to do.

No signs Chagos deal can be adapted to suit Trump, say UK officials

The Chagos Islands deal is on hold for as long as Donald Trump objects to it, UK officials believe, with no immediate signs it can be adapted to suit the US president. After Trump savaged the three-way plan as “a terrible deal” during a meeting with Andy Burnham at the UN general assembly, the prime minister said he was “confident” the UK would be able to find a solution to revive the idea. But while efforts are still taking place to do this, there is an acceptance in the government that it is extremely unlikely unless Trump has another change of heart. “Until the president changes his mind there will not be any progress,” one official said. “We are where we are. We were waiting for the president to present a view, which he has.” The UK signed a treaty last year to transfer sovereignty over the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, while retaining control of the joint UK-US military base on Diego Garcia, part of the Indian Ocean archipelago, under a 99-year lease. Mauritius was set to receive £165m for three years and £120m a year from the fourth year. Wes Streeting, the UK defence secretary, said on Wednesday morning that payments worth at least £120m to Mauritius were on hold given the deal could not go ahead without US support. “This deal as it is currently constituted can’t go ahead without American support,” Streeting told BBC Radio 4’s Today’s programme. “So we have to get a deal to a place where it commands American support as well as the agreement of the government of Mauritius and our government.” The US had supported the plan, but Trump changed his mind amid a wider deterioration of relations with Keir Starmer over the lack of UK support for the US attacks on Iran. Speaking after their first in-person meeting at the UN in New York on Tuesday, Trump praised Burnham but gave no ground on his scepticism about the Chagos deal. “I don’t support it. I think it’s terrible,” Trump told reporters. “It was a terrible deal. [Mauritius] all of a sudden say they have ownership. Somebody has ownership that never showed up before, after decades and centuries. I think it’s ridiculous.” Burnham later said he had “inherited the situation” and had told Trump “that we will work to find that resolution between the different sides”. He added: “It was clear that we need to come to that agreement, but I’m confident we can find it working with our US partners.” Given Trump’s objections appear based on the core element of the deal – the transfer of sovereignty to Mauritius – there appears to be no immediate way forward. The UK government has previously made clear that Washington’s approval is a prerequisite for the plan. UK officials stress, however, that while Burnham inherited the impasse from Starmer, there is no intention to deprioritise a plan, begun under Rishi Sunak, that the government says is vital to ensure the future of the strategically vital Diego Garcia base, given Mauritian claims to sovereignty of the archipelago. “It’s not back to the drawing board, as we do need to find a diplomatic solution to this,” another UK official said. “Everyone agrees something has to be done, which is why several prime ministers and even more foreign secretaries have tried to get it over the line.” Streeting stressed the same point to the BBC, saying: “The ostrich strategy of sticking our heads in the sand … I would caution is not a wise strategy when it concerns one of the most sensitive national security assets we have anywhere in the world.”

Iran’s president hits out at ‘bully’ Trump in UN speech but signals willingness to talk

Iran’s president, Masoud Pezeshkian, turned the tables on Donald Trump, describing the US as the true bully and terrorist in the Middle East while insisting that Iran had always shown a commitment to the negotiating table. In a defiant speech to the UN general assembly in New York, his first since the US and Israel launched an all-out war on Iran, Pezeshkian repeatedly vowed that Tehran would never bend the knee to the US. But he balanced defiance with a willingness to talk, saying: “It must be understood by President Trump and those who seek to bully us that we are ready for dialogue and diplomacy and negotiations but without the language of force.” On Tuesday, the US president had told the UN he was weighing whether to “annihilate” Iran, but went on to hail renewed talks between Tehran and Washington’s negotiators. A surprise three-hour meeting between Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, and the US special envoy Steve Witkoff on the sidelines of the assembly the same day was regarded as constructive by both sides. It was the first such meeting since June, but did not stop the US delegation from walking out at the start of Pezeshkian’s speech. The Iranian president did not go into any details about the talks, but conveyed the impression that he was focused on winning the support of Iran’s Arab neighbours for the proposals Tehran has drawn up for the future of the strait of Hormuz, the vital waterway that has been intermittently blockaded since the start of the war, causing global energy prices to soar. He made it clear Iran could not tolerate the strait being used to transport arms that could then be used against it, a statement that suggests the Islamic republic will demand the right to inspect ships travelling through the strait in the future. Iran’s goal, he said, was to live independently. Pezeshkian accused Washington of “terrorism” for assassinating the supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei at the start of the war. He held up photographs of the dead leader and more than 150 schoolchildren killed in the opening days of the conflict, before insisting Tehran had never started a war. “We have only defended ourselves. We are not terrorists,” he said. “Our innocent people have been the targets of cowardly attacks and aggressions imposed upon our country.” He said Iran had the right to pursue a peaceful civil nuclear programme and it did not want to build nuclear weapons. He repeatedly argued that the answer to regional security lay in agreement within the region and not with outsiders such as the US. Iran did not see its neighbours as security rivals, he said, but as partners in security. “In today’s world, those that are unable to defend themselves will be trampled upon,” he added. Iran has repeatedly targeted US allies in the region since the start of the war. Insisting Iran was the true victim of terrorism, Pezeshkian questioned why “Israel kills, yet Iran is subject to sanction”. He added: “They kill, we are sanctioned. Iran did not seek special treatment but wanted equal rights.” Pezeshkian’s speech received domestic praise, but the hardline secretary of the supreme national security council, Mohsen Rezaei, refused to describe the talks with the Americans as negotiations. He said: “Mr Araghchi [Iran’s foreign minister] has announced Iran’s conditions, and until Iran’s conditions are implemented, the strait of Hormuz will not be opened nor will there be any negotiation.” He warned Iran’s neighbours implementing a US-induced ban on Iranian travel: “If you stand alongside the United States, we will not stand by and watch.” He cautioned that should Iranian flights face bans through regional cooperation with Washington, “their airports will have no flights either”. Pezeshkian’s attendance at the UN’s signature diplomatic event, in the heart of Manhattan, had been in doubt as it was unclear whether the US would issue a visa. Ultimately, Washington granted the permit but denied visas to several members of Pezeshkian’s entourage. In Tehran, the foreign ministry spokesperson, Esmail Baghaei, confirmed talks had taken place between the two sides but appeared not to confirm any shift in the Iranian negotiating position. He said: “The interaction that took place with the American side was through Qatari mediation. This interaction was aimed at conveying Iran’s conditions, including the end of the war in all its dimensions, the cessation of American aggressive actions, the naval siege, and the economic war, the release of Iranian assets and so on.” Aware of the potential domestic backlash, he added that Iran’s conditions had been conveyed. Iran set seven preconditions before returning to talks, and in a new development over the past 48 hours it said the strait of Hormuz could be reopened within seven days if those conditions were met. It is likely that the US and the Gulf states would have to accept a navigational route for shipping in the strait of Hormuz that requires commercial shipping to enter through a sea lane mainly in Iranian waters and under Iranian rather than Omani control. The fact that the talks lasted three hours suggests some progress was made. The US side is under pressure to leverage down oil prices and increase the availability of refined oil before the midterm elections in November. The latest published figures suggest the number of identifiable tankers making it through the strait is fewer than five a day. The blockage in the strait is made worse by uncertainty surrounding the control by the Houthis – the Iran-backed Yemeni paramilitaries – of a second energy transport choke point, the Bab al-Mandab strait that leads from the Red Sea into the Indian Ocean. There is little sign that Trump wants to relaunch a full-scale war with Iran, or indeed with the Houthis, as Republicans battle to turn the domestic political agenda away from a hugely unpopular conflict that Americans think they are losing. Iran is under ever more intense pressure from sanctions, and a US naval blockade is making it nearly impossible for it to export oil, depriving the country of badly needed foreign currency. Iran’s civilian aircraft on Wednesday faced a potential worldwide grounding owing to the threat of US secondary sanctions on any entity that engaged with Iran’s civilian fleet. Iranian officials negotiated frantically with neighbouring countries to try to maintain an air bridge, but it appears that Oman and Iraq have been forced to close their airspace to Iranian civilian planes.

Janet Davies obituary

My sister, Janet Davies, who has died aged 89, dedicated most of her adult life to international development, ecumenical partnership and social justice. From 1968 to 1986 she worked for Christian Aid in Merseyside and the north-west, and later became regional organiser. Based in Liverpool, and supported by Edward Patey, then dean of the city, Janet used her formidable communicating, networking and nurturing skills to forge grassroots alliances across denominations to deliver and celebrate the practical demonstration of ecumenism that was Christian Aid Week. Her work in the establishment of the Merseyside Churches Ecumenical Council also helped to lay the foundation for the “Better Together” partnership of Bishop David Sheppard and Archbishop Derek Worlock. Born and raised in Formby, Lancashire, to Margot (nee Rose) and Philip Crisall, a civil engineer, Janet went to Streatham House school, Crosby, and later trained and worked as a secretary. Janet was a gifted pianist and choral singer. At the Southport Gramophone Society in 1968, she met and later married Alan Davies, an occupational therapist at Moss Side high security hospital in Maghull, Merseyside. He was a great supporter of her Christian Aid work. His death from cancer 11 years later was a great loss. In her overseas work on behalf of Christian Aid, Janet became transformed by encountering and standing with those in dire poverty. She told of being up to her knees in filth and excrement in the shantytowns of Calcutta (now Kolkata) in 1975, of the horrors of racial segregation in apartheid South Africa in the late 1970s and early 80s, and how deeply this had affected her spiritually. A great motivational speaker, never using notes, Janet was undaunted by addressing an audience of 1,500 at the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Hall where, in 1985, she publicly received a cheque for Christian Aid’s appeal for the Ethiopian famine, the proceeds of a concert featuring Paul Tortelier playing the Elgar cello concerto. A classic late developer, Janet studied for and gained a certificate in theology from Birmingham University in 1994. Returning from the first of many visits to Lebanon and the occupied Palestinian Territories in 1982, she wrote movingly about her “alternative pilgrimage” in They Came and They Saw: Western Christian Experiences of the Holy Land (2000), edited by Michael Prior, in which she catalogued the need for peace and justice in those tormented lands. Becoming a driving force in Middle East peace advocacy, she led related programmes for USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel) from the mid-80s to the early 90s and the United Reformed Church (1992-95), and in retirement established Sabeel-Kairos UK (formerly Friends of Sabeel-UK), a charity committed to solidarity with the Palestinian Christian community. She is survived by me, and nine nieces and nephews. Our older brother, Chris, predeceased her.

Harvey Weinstein sentenced to 15 years after sexual assault conviction

Harvey Weinstein was sentenced to 15 years on Wednesday after being convicted of sexually assaulting former TV production assistant Miriam Haley in 2006 at his Manhattan apartment. Haley appeared in court on Wednesday morning and delivered a victim impact statement. In her statement, Haley spoke about the harassment and humiliation she has endured over the past seven years, saying she was publicly smeared by Weinstein, his defense team, and podcasters she suspects were paid to damage her image. Haley added that her experience following the assault has “already been a life sentence” for her, and asked the judge to take all of this into consideration. New York assistant district attorney Nicole Blumberg addressed the court on behalf of the prosecution. She asked the court to sentence Weinstein, 74, to 20 years with five years of post-release supervision, stating he never showed any type of remorse for his crimes. Weinstein said in his statement he has remorse for Haley. “I live with many regrets and sincerely apologize for my actions,” he said. Weinstein’s defense had also argued that their client is too sick to serve a long sentence following a diagnosis of several health conditions including blood cancer and heart disease. The defense asked for a nine-year sentence. Before sentencing, Judge Curtis Farber acknowledged that Weinstein would be remembered not just for producing films, but for being the face of the #MeToo movement. Farber said Weinstein took advantage of Haley’s dreams of working in the film industry. “You had it all,” Farber said. “Your legacy could have been cemented with greatness. But you threw it all away by assaulting Miriam Haley.” The latest sentencing comes after years of appeals and retrials in the closely watched case. Weinstein was sentenced to 23 years in prison in 2020 after a jury convicted him of sexually assaulting Haley and raping aspiring actor Jessica Mann. But in 2024, New York’s highest court overturned the convictions, saying Weinstein’s trial had been prejudiced by the judge allowing woman who alleged they were sexual assault victims of Weinstein to testify, despite not being plaintiffs in the case. Weinstein went on trial again in 2025 and was once more convicted of a criminal sexual act involving Haley. Jurors acquitted Weinstein of a separate sexual assault charge involving former model Kaja Sokola but could not reach a verdict on the rape charge involving Mann. Prosecutors retried the Mann charge earlier this year, but the jury deadlocked in May. The charge was later dropped after Mann said she could not endure another trial. Weinstein is also awaiting resentencing in a separate California rape case. In June, a California appeals court upheld Weinstein’s 2022 rape and sexual assault conviction. He was found guilty of assaulting an Italian model in her hotel room during a film festival. He could serve the California sentence before beginning the sentence imposed in New York. Farber said at Wednesday’s sentencing that California will have the final say on whether Weinstein’s sentences run consecutively or concurrently. The accusations and subsequent charges against Weinstein were one of the biggest factors in launching the #MeToo movement. More than 80 women have come forward with allegations of sexual assault or misconduct against him.

The EU’s Canada offer is more mood than reality but it could hint at a future geometry for the bloc

The EU and Canada, Ursula von der Leyen said last week, “see the world with the same eyes”, with shared stances on everything from AI to the climate crisis, the Ukraine war and the unholy chaos unleashed by the current occupant of the White House (OK, she didn’t actually say that last bit. But I like to think she almost certainly thought it.) So, the European Commission president went on, Canada should become “the first associate member of the EU”. In the audience, Mark Carney beamed with delight. The next day, Canada’s prime minister enthusiastically embraced the idea of an “alliance for the future”, to build “collective resilience” through “deep cooperation”. Cue standing ovations, warm handshakes – and a great deal of head-scratching in Brussels and assorted EU capitals. Because “associate membership” of the EU is not, in fact, a thing. Nor, as a Guardian editorial pointed out, is there “any blueprint for what such a thing might involve”. The term was, the editorial argued, “a political hypothesis”, describing “a relationship of intimate strategic alignment with the EU, stopping short of actual membership, in ways that are significant but undefined”. So what exactly are the commission and Canada playing at here, and where might it lead? You can see where they’re coming from. On paper, in a world of unpredictable and increasingly aggressive great powers, it makes perfect sense. For Canada – which already has the Ceta free trade agreement with the EU – the catalyst for even closer cooperation is clearly Donald Trump: incessant tariff threats, an escalating trade war, bullying talk of Canada as the “51st state”, the renaming of Lake Ontario – all have left Ottawa eager to diversify its relations. Aligning with European industrial strategy, working together on defence and AI, and joining EU scientific research and student exchange programmes would offer Canada a reliable counterweight to its all-too-unreliable southern neighbour. (Unsurprisingly, Trump called the tie-up “laughable”, and threatened more tariffs.) For the EU, meanwhile, Canada is a dream partner: a stable, like-minded “middle power” rich in critical minerals, rare earths and – as Carney couldn’t resist noting – good manners. Plus, Canada’s unbridled EU-enthusiasm is a pleasing boost to the bloc’s bruised ego after Iceland’s recent rejection of more EU accession negotiations. There’s only one problem: “associate membership” is not a status in the EU treaties, and creating such a status would mean treaty reform, which member states won’t contemplate. There are things called “association agreements”, such as with Ukraine, Moldova or Georgia, but those are essentially stepping stones to full membership – which Canada can’t aspire to, for the very good reason that it isn’t in Europe. But if “associate member” sounds vaguely familiar, that’s because the EU has been talking about a “second circle” since the days of Jacques Delors: an outer ring of countries bound by shared values, free trade and security cooperation to an inner core of members, but without full voting rights or complete regulatory integration. Emmanuel Macron’s European Political Community is a variation on this theme, and Germany’s chancellor, Friedrich Merz, recently floated “associate member” status for Ukraine. Indeed, non-EU nations in the European Economic Area (EEA) and European Free Trade Association, such as Norway, Iceland or Switzerland, already function as quasi-associate members, enjoying single-market access while being largely “rule-takers”: adopting EU rules without having a vote in Brussels. Writing in the Guardian, Fabian Zuleeg suggested that Canada and Europe actually need more of an “integrated partnership” – a model that leaves single market access to one side, focusing instead on concrete collaboration in areas such as defence, supply chains and EU programmes like Horizon and Erasmus+. Alberto Alemanno, a professor of EU law, noted that a realistic EU-Canada landing zone would have to go further than Ceta and might more resemble the kind of tailored framework of the EU-Swiss relationship. But the real significance of any formal new status, he said, was that it could make the EU “an institutional hub around which other democracies organise strategic autonomy – but without joining the union”. What that might actually look like is anyone’s guess: visa-free work access, shared military procurement, Canadian seats on EU regulatory committees? For the moment, Canada’s hypothetical “associate membership” is more of a mood than a reality: the expressed intent of a democratic bloc and a middle power to deepen ties in the face of mounting global uncertainty. Does it, all the same, hold any hope for Brexit-regretting Britain? As Jill Rutter of the Institute for Government highlighted, the EU’s sudden willingness to display “institutional imagination” at least shows that the bloc is willing to think about adapting when geopolitical pressures demand. But a new deal for Canada won’t automatically fix the UK’s issues. As Joël Reland of UK in a Changing Europe pointed out, the vagueness of the EU offer to Canada might look promising for the UK. But Canada wants “deep cooperation” without touching single-market rules, and the UK’s main problem is that it is now shut out of that same market. Whatever Canada eventually gets, it’s unlikely to work for the UK. *** A miserable time for Merz Friedrich Merz is in trouble. A fortnight after the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) swept to a crushing victory in one state election in Saxony-Anhalt, the German chancellor’s centre-right CDU failed to clear the 5% threshold needed to enter the state parliament in another, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. It fared a little better in Berlin, where it was the incumbent, but was still beaten – by a clear five-point margin – by the far-left Die Linke. And the AfD made headway in the capital, too, surging to a double-digit result. The embattled chancellor has vowed to fight on, but faces an uncomfortable choice: revise the unpopular economic reforms he insists are essential, or risk oblivion defending them. Meanwhile, as long as he refuses to step aside and no one is actively seeking to replace him, a volatile and damaging deadlock will reign in Europe’s biggest economy. After 16 months in office, it is becoming increasingly clear – as a Guardian editorial noted – that Merz is “ill-suited for the job” of defending Germany’s democratic future against the far right. To receive the complete version of This Is Europe in your inbox every Wednesday, please subscribe here.