Yahoo News US drones, Inflation bites, Macron's pension reform, 2024 Paris Olympics
Accidents can happen, as the song goes. But for the Pentagon, the Russians tempted fate when they first dumped fuel on a US reaper drone and then clipped the unmanned surveillance craft. While the US tries to carefully manage its nuclear-armed rivalry with Moscow, NATO allies harbour no such qualms about showing support for Ukraine. Slovakia is pledging a fleet of 13 MiG-29 Soviet-era warplanes to Ukraine, the second former Warsaw Pact nation in as many days to answer Kyiv's long-running request after Poland pledged four of them.
Elsewhere, it's been a brutal week for banks. Credit Suisse shares fell sharply again on Friday despite a respite when Switzerland's central bank stepped in on Thursday. Flashbacks to the 2008 financial crisis started last week when two midsized US banks failed. Silicon Valley Bank's tech startup investors got a bailout so they could pay their staff on time.
Inflation has been around for months and so have strikes. The British government is now offering the healthcare sector a 5 percent wage increase for nurses, paramedics and midwives but not junior doctors.
Another issue that has Parisians grumbling is the ticket prices for the Olympic Games. A first lottery-drawn sale of online tickets proved pricey, sometimes exorbitantly so, far from the promise of one million tickets at €24 each and more than 4 million for less than €50. The digital age is proving cruel for more than just sports fans.
Produced by Alessandro Xenos, Daphné Leprince-Ringuet, Juliette Laurain and Guillaume Gougeon.
