American presidential election: Zelensky's plan examined at NATO

The “victory plan” of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will be on the table of NATO defense ministers meeting in Brussels on Thursday, at a time when the Alliance is plunged into expectations less than three weeks before the American presidential election.

More than two and a half years after the start of the Russian invasion, Ukraine is receding on the battlefield, especially on the eastern front of Donbass where almost every day Moscow announces the capture of a village.

Volodymyr Zelensky is expected in Brussels on Thursday. Not at the headquarters of the Alliance but a few kilometers away, in the city center, where he is invited to a summit with the leaders of the 27 member states of the European Union.

Terrorist financing: Lafarge subject to a first trial in Syria

The Lafarge group and eight people, including four former officials, will be tried in Paris at the end of 2025 for financing terrorism: they are accused of having paid terrorist groups to be able to maintain the activity of a cement factory in Syria until 2014 in the context of civil war.

The defendants are members of the operational chain or the security chain, two Syrian intermediaries, as well as the then CEO of Lafarge SA, as well as the CEO of Lafarge SA at the time, Bruno Lafont.

IN A NUTSHELL

Météo-France issued a new alert for storms and rain-floods for Thursday, by placing nine southern departments in orange ranging from Pyrénées-Atlantiques, in the west, to the Alpes-Maritimes, in the east.

North Korea announced on Thursday that its Constitution now designates South Korea as a “hostile state”, confirming for the first time a change promised in January by its leader Kim Jong Un in January, and justifying the blasting of the only two roads and railways connecting the two enemy countries.

The European Central Bank is expected to decide on Thursday to cut its key rates again, worried about signs of an economic slowdown in the eurozone where inflation seems to be under control.

Paul Pogba, whose doping suspension has been reduced from four years to eighteen months and will end in March 2025, wants to resume his career at Juventus Turin, even if it means “giving up money”.