Seven Days that Shook Europe

Since the February 12 phone conversation between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, much more than US policy on Ukraine has been upend­ed. Ever low on facts, the US president has called Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky a dictator, blamed Ukraine for starting the war, and begun talks with Moscow on ending the war without its victim, taking the vic­timiser at his word. In the midst of such storm and stress, Vice President JD Vance lectured Europe at the Munich Security Con­ference, showing scarcely more understanding of Germany’s far-right AfD than Elon Musk. Trump has turned his personal dislike of Zelensky and the latter’s refusal to “sell the state”, aka Ukraine’s minerals, in exchange for aid into policy, forgetting the UK too didn’t hold elec­tions during World War II. Or that Putin isn’t exactly the lamb of democracy.

For all that, if what began in Riyadh between US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov does lead to a peace of sorts, a justifiably angry Europe might forgive Trump, provided Kyiv doesn’t pay too high a price. Which would still leave out China, not happy at all about the Trump-Putin bromance.

A Pharaoh’s Original Resting Place

He was laid under a painted blue sky with yellow stars because he was a Pharaoh, an ancestor of Tutankhamun and husband of Hatshepsut, a rare female Pharaoh and one of Egypt’s greatest. A century after the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb in 1922, a British-Egyp­tian team led by archaeologist Piers Litherland has found the original burial site of King Thutmose II in the Theban Necropolis near Luxor. It’s the first tomb of a Pharaoh discovered since Tutankha­mun’s and the last hitherto undiscovered royal tomb of the 18th Dynasty. It came as a surprise because it wasn’t expected.

Thutmose II’s mummi­fied remains had been found about 200 years ago and now lie at the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization in Cai­ro. But the site of his original burial had remained a mys­tery. Litherland’s team found evidence of flooding and massive debris inside after clearing its way through, indi­cating that the mummy (and its accompanying treasures) had been removed to another site soon after the burial. The culmination of more than a decade’s work, this discovery should not, however, take away from Litherland & Co’s painstaking excavation of dozens of tombs earlier and the knowledge unearthed in the process.

Chinese Chico

It’s the highest-grossing animated film of all time. It features a mythical boy hero. It has fanned Chinese nationalism to hysteria. Ne Zha 2 has made $1.7 billion to date in the box office and eclipsed Captain America: Brave New World, the fourth film of the franchise. But the debate has been mo­nopolised by patriotic fans damning even technical and aesthetic criticism— about Ne Zha 2’s report­edly inconsistent plot, bad humour, and anti-feminist tones—as foreign con­spiracy. The commercial story is Hollywood’s declin­ing popularity in its biggest market abroad. And the fans don’t care if the world doesn’t care about their wonder boy.

Donald TrumpEgyptElon MuskgeopoliticspharaohRussia-Ukraine conflictUS PolicyVladimir PutinVolodymyr Zelensky