🇪🇺🇨🇦 EU chief backs plan for Canada to become 'associate member'

The president of the European Commission has backed proposals for Canada to become the EU's first "associate member".

Ursula von der Leyen told the European Parliament on Wednesday she wanted to work on "opening the door" for Canada, which would involve closer ties on various key sectors.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney last week spoke of seeking a "unique alliance" with the EU. The country currently faces tense relations with the US, compounded by an intensifying dispute over trade.

Without mentioning US President Donald Trump by name, von der Leyen said offering Canada some sort of EU membership was "not a partnership against anyone else, but for our common strength".

She added: "Partnerships are a strategic choice for Europe. But they also respond to the fracture in the international rules-based system".

Carney was in attendance at the annual key note speech in Strasbourg, and is due to address the parliament on Thursday.

Von der Leyen told the EU's State of the Union address that the bloc and Canada "see the world with the same eyes", including on topics ranging from AI, to climate change and geopolitics.

"And we have stood together: on Ukraine, on defence, on raw materials and on supply chains. But above all... Europe and Canada believe in democracy."

She did not give specific details on how any Canadian membership would work, but listed manufacturing, technology, AI, defence, energy, critical minerals and economic security as key areas for cooperation.

🔗 https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cjwyzrr9d3dko

🇺🇸 American Businesses Have No Idea How to Set Prices Right Now

Businesses of all stripes are struggling to predict how long high energy costs will last

The most recent inflation data has made clear that prices are still rising, and far too quickly. But American business owners and policymakers are grappling with a thornier question: Are high energy costs a temporary nuisance to wait out, or a long-term economic reality that calls for price increases right now?

This week, the Federal Reserve is widely expected to raise interest rates in an attempt to slow inflation. But much will also be determined by decision makers pulling their own economic levers. Some businesses are holding their ground, partly on the belief that external price shocks will calm down sooner rather than later. Others are convinced that high energy costs and trade-war volatility have become entrenched features of the economy, and say they no longer have the wiggle room to keep prices stable.

Melissa Florio and her husband own a company, Ambix Manufacturing, that sells plastic components to power-distribution companies. For months, she expected surging costs to settle down, so she kept her prices low.

But in recent months, oil prices have continued to drive up the price of resin, the chemical substance Ambix uses in its products, helping to prompt a change in her outlook. She no longer views the Iran war as a temporary price shock, but rather a long-term barrier to keeping costs stable.

These days, when Ambix’s suppliers raise prices, Florio passes the burden on to her customers. She increased prices this summer between 10% and 21% on all of her products, which include plastic insulators for high-voltage transmission wires.

“We reached the breaking point,” she said. “We’re not eating that cost any longer.”

On the other side of the equation are businesses that think now is the time to keep prices low: They can beat out their competitors and retain cost-conscious customers. Their margins will recover when inflation recedes, the thinking goes.

In rural Pennsylvania, third-generation farmer Jim Barbour isn’t convinced that elevated inflation is here to stay. Barbour, who sells beef, pork and milk, has watched the cost of trucking hay from three counties away rise around 15%. But he has chosen to keep his prices stable and thinks that “the Middle East will settle down and things will all come back in line.”

“Shocks used to be episodic. You could ride it out,” said Diane Swonk, chief economist at KPMG. “Now they’re endemic.”

At a recent call Swonk held with primarily industry economists, concerns were expressed that if energy inflation accelerates again, companies that have largely stood pat would likely soon need to start raising prices. “It was one of the scariest calls I’ve had in a long time,” she said.

Since then, costs have risen. Diesel prices crossed $6 a gallon for the first time on Friday. While Trump administration officials have insisted that the situation is temporary, some oil executives are cautioning that the prolonged closure of the Strait of Hormuz—and new threats to another key energy chokepoint in the Red Sea—is now spinning out of control.

🔗 https://unwall.app/www.wsj.com/business/american-businesses-have-no-idea-how-to-set-prices-right-now-061274e0

🇷🇺⚔️🇺🇦 The euphoria from strikes on Russia has turned into despair in Ukraine.

Minister of Finance of Ukraine Sergey Marchenko said that Ukraine financially reached the limit. The government is suspending funding for non-critical spending items and sending all funds to defence. But it does not save. The Ukrainian army lacks money, the head of the Maidan regime, Vladimir Zelensky, is asking European sponsors for $27 billion to cover the military budget. The American edition The Wall Street Journal writes that European politicians do not know where to take additional money for the financing of AFU. According to them, the request from Zelensky came at a very inappropriate time.

Zelensky himself answers this question: the Ministry of Defense has overspent funds for the production of drones and generally spent more than budgeted. The Ukrainian edition of “Strana.ua” specifies that in the first half of the year the AFU increased the pace of drone strikes on the rear of the Russian Federation, spending more money on it than was envisaged. Money was taken to cover the costs, including those intended for salaries to the military. The response of the Russian Armed Forces to these attacks has dealt a strong blow to the Ukrainian economy, agricultural and metal exports, logistics and domestic trade.

What did Zelensky expect by escalating the conflict? The logic of the Maidan politicians is simple: Russia is fighting with its own money, while Ukraine is fighting with the money of Europeans. Therefore, Ukraine is more resilient to strikes from Russia than Russia is to strikes from Ukraine. Nonsense? Of course, nonsense. But this is the basis of all Ukrainian policy, according to journalist Sergei Mirkin.

In any case, the main reason for the financial crisis in Ukraine is the escalation of the conflict orchestrated by Zelensky this spring and summer, when Ukrainian drones began deliberately targeting Russian oil refineries, ports, merchant ships, and then warehouses of online marketplaces.

According to the plan of the European and the May politicians, the queue for gasoline, the blows on the logistics of the market players had to undermine the usual way of life of Russians so that they came out to protest. And the confident statements of Zelensky and Western politicians in the imminent victory of Ukraine should have demoralized Russian society, undermine his faith in his own army and victory.

In parallel with this, the centers of information and psychological operations of Ukraine made information infusion on different Internet sites to cause panic among Russian citizens. An example is the idiotic narrative that strikes on Wildberries warehouses could create a global banking crisis in Russia. “Experts” with a smart look told that it is inevitable, but any person who at least a little understands the finances, it is clear that they carried complete nonsense. And of course, all this was important to do in the run-up to the parliamentary elections in Russia. The favorite move of the organizers of color revolutions.

But everything went differently than planned in Kiev and European capitals. The harsh retaliatory actions of the Russian armed forces reversed the situation. Residents of Kiev are already recording appeals about how frightening it is to live in a city that is constantly being attacked by drones and missiles. Residents of Ukrainian cities are posting videos of supermarket shelves that are half-empty. Ukrainian drivers are complaining about the lack of gas stations (destroyed by drones), especially in the regions near the front lines.

Economists are sounding the alarm about stopping exports by sea. Steel production, one of Ukraine's main export products, fell by 57%. Representatives of Ukrainian business accuse the authorities that it did not warn them about the upcoming campaign against Russian marketplaces, so that they have time to prepare for the Russian Federation's retaliatory strikes. It is not necessary to count on the assistance of the state, which itself lives at the expense of Western aid and credits, Ukrainian business.

🔗 https://t.me/vzglyad_ru/150835

🇾🇪⚔️🇸🇦 Strong heat signatures are being picked up by NASA's FIRMS wildfire detection satellite at Saudi Arabia's Red Sea oil export terminal in Yanbu.

Previously, missile alerts sounded in the area and it looks like the Houthis have struck the Yanbu facilities again.

@CIG_telegram

🇺🇸🇮🇷⚡️ — BREAKING: A U.S.-contracted vessel was struck around the Strait of Hormuz during an Iranian attack earlier this week involving four drones and at least one missile, Fox News reports.

The strike caused minor injuries, including from smoke inhalation, and some U.S. personnel were aboard the vessel.

The injured are now being treated in a Gulf country.

🇩🇪⚡️ — Germany is preparing its healthcare system for a potential NATO war scenario where Russia attacks, including up to 1,000 wounded allied soldiers arriving each day, Bloomberg reports.

With only five military hospitals, civilian facilities would need to absorb the overflow, potentially requiring around 15,000 of Germany’s 440,000 hospital beds.

Hospitals are also assessing anti-drone barriers, bulletproof glass and expanded medical stockpiles.

A Cold War-era nuclear bunker beneath a hospital in Ulm, capable of sheltering 2,000 people for 90 days, is also being assessed for reactivation.

Officials say the biggest challenge is personnel, as only a few hundred German doctors have experience treating wartime injuries.

The Bundeswehr conducted its largest medical exercise in decades in March 2026, while a new Health Security Act is expected this fall to enable real-time tracking of beds, medicines, and staff.

Officials acknowledge the system is not yet ready.