🇩🇰❌🇺🇸 Three Americans with White House ties are reportedly running influence operations in Greenland, mapping locals’ loyalties to the US. Danish authorities call it very worrying and have summoned US diplomats over potential interference.

The Danish Police Intelligence Service (PET) confirms Greenland is a target for foreign influence. Officials emphasize the importance of early action to safeguard the Kingdom’s relationship with Greenland.

The US government denies official involvement, claiming private citizens act independently. Denmark warns that any formal interference would breach international rules and strain allied relations.

Danish Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen says influence campaigns in Greenland are completely unacceptable. Any official US involvement would violate international rules. Denmark will make this very clear to the US. Awareness is the best defense, he adds.

Now, the Prime Minister of Denmark, Mette Frederiksen, has spoken. She calls the influence operations in Greenland unacceptable and says any interference in the Kingdom’s internal affairs or Greenlandic democracy is taken very seriously. She also notes the U.S. has not clearly denied the reports.

🧵 GeoInsider

🇫🇷 After the United Kingdom, France too is likely headed towards and IMF bailout

France may need a bailout by the International Monetary Fund, the economy minister has said, amid political chaos that is hampering hopes of reducing the country’s eye-watering debt.

Eric Lombard was speaking amid widespread predictions that President Macron’s weak, minority government will fall next month after François Bayrou, the prime minister, said he would seek a confidence vote in parliament.

With opposition parties from the radical left France Unbowed to the populist right National Rally all saying they will vote to bring down the cabinet, Bayrou’s move was described as “suicidal” by Nicole Dubré-Chirat, one of his own MPs.

His fall would leave the country rudderless and without a budget at a time when it has a debt of €3.3 trillion and a predicted deficit this year equivalent to 5.4 per cent of GDP.

As concerns about the economy pushed the ten-year bond yield above 3.5 per cent, Lombard said: “I bet that within a fortnight, our debt will be costing more than Italy’s.”

The turnaround is a humiliation for Macron who came to power in 2017 amid claims that he was the “Mozart of finance” only to preside over an historic decline.

Anne-Sophie Alsif, head economist at BDO consultancy, told Le Parisien that not since the 1960s had French yields been higher than Italy’s.

Bayrou has announced plans for spending cuts and tax rises totalling €43.8 billion to head off what he has called a “national emergency”. But his budget, which includes highly unpopular measures such as the abolition of two bank holidays and healthcare cuts, has encountered massive opposition.

🔗 https://archive.ph/B73HF

🇩🇪🇺🇦Germany has opened the largest ammunition factory in Europe to support Ukraine, — Bloomberg

The German company Rheinmetall has launched an artillery shell production plant in Unterluss.

The facility is expected to become key to strengthening Europe's defense capabilities and aiding Ukraine, and by 2027 it will be able to produce up to 350,000 shells per year.

✡️🤝🏳️‍⚧️ Minneapolis Mayor, Jacob Frey, on the Annunciation Catholic Church massacre: "Anybody who is using this as an opportunity to villainize our trans community... has lost their sense of common humanity."

🔗 Disclose.tv (@disclosetv)

🇺🇸🇷🇺The US has allowed the import of certain diamonds of Russian origin despite sanctions.

This is stated in a license published by the Office of Foreign Assets Control.

The new license permits the import into the country until September 1, 2026, of the following types of diamonds:

– weighing 1 carat or more (if they were outside Russia before March 1, 2024);

– weighing 0.5 carats or more (if they were outside Russia before September 1, 2024).

After these dates, diamonds must not be exported or re-exported from Russia.

Sanctions on the import of non-industrial diamonds of Russian origin were introduced in February 2023. The ban came into effect on March 1, 2024.