The Dutch military is deepening its commitment to Lebanon's army with funding for a brand-new military base and counter-terrorism training — a concrete European bet that a stronger Lebanese Armed Forces can fill the vacuum Hezbollah has occupied in the south.

• Dutch Armed Forces Commander General Onno Eichelsheim visited Beirut this⁠ week for high-level talks with Lebanese Army Commander General Rodolphe Haikal on expanding defense cooperation between the two countries.
• Dutch support will cover border security management training, demining operations, and assistance to Lebanese special forces, alongside technical exchanges in artificial intelligence and communication networks.
• Eichelsheim told Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf that "subordinating Hezbollah to state control remains a prerequisite for any long-term and viable peace agreement with Israel."
• The Netherlands also intends to fund construction of an entirely new military site — the most tangible physical commitment any European country has made to Lebanon's army in this phase.

What to watch: Whether this Dutch investment accelerates parallel pressure on Lebanon's political class to give the army the clear sovereign mandate — and internal cover — it needs to act.

Lebanon's cabinet just rubber-stamped a national school curriculum overhaul that was already being printed, secretly amended, and partially handed to private publishers — before any decree authorizing it had been issued.

• Education Minister Rima Karami pushed the curricula decree through cabinet without presenting it to the Supreme Curricula Committee or publishing any financial or educational assessment of the $204 million World Bank-funded S2R2 project that financed the work.
• The ministry had already begun printing sample books and awarding side contracts to specific publishing houses for mathematics, science, and English textbooks — all before the decree was issued.
• A secret evaluation committee formed by Karami amended key curriculum documents without informing the Supreme Curricula Committee, which had previously approved only 3 of the 10 supporting documents.
• By comparison, Lebanon's last curriculum overhaul in 1997 followed a four-year legal process: a government plan in 1993, ministerial review, decrees for the educational structure in 1995, and the curriculum decree in 1997 before books were printed in 1999.

Why it matters: Half of the S2R2 project — roughly $102 million — is a World Bank loan, meaning Lebanese taxpayers are on the hook for a curriculum whose costs, content direction, and legal basis were never publicly debated.

Seven years after fleeing Japan in a box, the Lebanese-Brazilian former auto titan is telling anyone who'll listen that Nissan — now down roughly 80% in share price and hemorrhaging factories — needs him back.

• During a recent Nissan shareholders' meeting, frustrated investors openly called for Ghosn's return as chairman, reflecting the company's deterioration: annual sales have fallen from roughly 5.5 million vehicles to around 3 million, and 7 factories have been closed with 20,000 workers laid off.
• Ghosn, speaking to An-Nahar, said there is "no real legal obstacle" to his return since no Japanese court verdict was ever issued against him — he left before trial — and he described the case as "more political than legal."
• He is scheduled to stand trial in France in Sep⁠tember 2026 on charges including corruption, influence peddling, and breach of trust — charges he continues to deny.

Zooming out: The Renault–Nissan–Mitsubishi Alliance was the world's number one automotive group in 2018; Ghosn says it is now a "zombie" that no longer ranks among the top five or six globally.

In a pair of 6-3 rulings, the US Supreme Court cleared the way for the Trump administration to block asylum seekers at the border and strip Temporary Protected Status from nearly 350,000 Haitian and Syrian immigrants living legally in the country.

• Both decisions were written by conservative Justice Samuel Alito; the court ruled that an immigrant only legally "arrives" in the US after physically crossing the border, allowing officials to turn back asylum seekers at ports of entry if they deem them overwhelmed.
• The TPS ruling could fuel further action against roughly 1.3 million immigrants from about a dozen other countries who hold similar protections — far beyond Haiti and Syria.
• A 2010 earthquake in Haiti killed more than 200,000 people; TPS for Haitian nationals was first granted then and renewed multiple times in the years since.

The bigger picture: The rulings rewrite the practical reach of US asylum law in ways that advocates say conflict with international refugee conventions — a shift with implications for how other countries approach border policy.

Researchers at Cambridge University say they've cracked a fundamental problem with vaccines: instead of chasing individual virus strains, their AI-aided technique targets shared features across entire virus families — potentially covering threats that don't exist yet.

• Professor Jonathan Heeney, who led the project, began the work after the 2013–16 Ebola outbreak in West Africa, which killed around 11,300 people and took three to four months to even identify before a vaccine effort could begin.
• A trial of 39 volunteers for a universal Sarbeco coronavirus vaccine — developed with biotechnology firm DIOSynVax — found no significant safety concerns, and the vaccine will now move to larger tests.
• Heeney described his greatest current concern as a potential influenza pandemic, calling it one of the "trickier" viruses the new platform would need to address.

What to watch: Larger trials will determine whether the platform's real-world efficacy matches its laboratory promise — and how quickly it could be scaled for a fast-moving outbreak.

Ukraine's Finance Ministry confirmed receipt of the first installment of a massive €90 billion EU loan as world leaders gathered in Gdansk — while President Zelenskyy stayed away to avoid escalating a separate diplomatic row with Poland over World War II history.

• Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko said the country expects to sign more than 160 defense, business, and regional development agreements worth over €10 billion at the conference.
• European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said a second tranche of €6 billion, dedicated to drone production, would follow "in the coming days."
• Rebuilding Ukraine's economy is estimated to cost $588 billion over the next decade, according to a Feb⁠ruary assessment by the World Bank, the UN, the European Commission, and the Ukrainian government.

Zooming out: The conference lands as Ukraine formally began EU membership negotiations on Jun⁠e 15 — meaning the reconstruction funding and the accession track are now running in parallel for the first time.