WORLD ROUNDUP‘Elites’ Are Protecting Liberal Democracy in Romania | Germany Designates Rising Far-Right AfD Party as ‘Extremist’ Group | Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro: Facing Prison and Pining for Trump, and more

First Canada, Now Australia: The Trump Factor Boosts Another World Leader in an Election  (Mike Cherney, Wall Street Journal)
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese returned to power as voters sought stability

What Caused the European Power Outage?  (Fernanda González, Wired)
There’s still no official explanation for the blackout in Spain, Portugal, and parts of southern France—but experts point to the makeup of the Iberian peninsula’s power grid.

Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro: Facing Prison and Pining for Trump  (Terrence McCoy and Marina Dias, Washington Post)
Barred from running for office until 2030 and facing the possibility of decades in prison, the former president sketches out a comeback.

Germany Designates Rising Far-Right AfD Party as ‘Extremist’ Group  (Kate Brady, Washington Post)
The reclassification — AfD was previously designated a “suspected” extremist group — is likely to reignite debate over a political ban on the party.

Six Deadly Minutes: How Israeli Soldiers Killed 15 Rescue Workers in Gaza  (New York Times)
Israel’s military said it was reacting to an immediate threat when it killed 15 medics and first responders in Gaza in March. But eyewitness accounts and an analysis of videos, audio and autopsy reports show that multiple soldiers fired over the course of six minutes at unarmed emergency workers who never posed a threat.

Why Emmanuel Macron is Meddling in Lebanon  (Olivier Guitta, National Interest)
Macron’s lame-duck position on the domestic political scene has pushed him exerting a baleful influence in the Middle East.

Is the EU Beating the U.S. in Central Asia?  (Mamuka Tsereteli, National Interest)
The recent EU-Central Asia Summit demonstrated how Brussels is paying more attention to the region than Washington.

‘Elites’ Are Protecting Liberal Democracy in Romania  (Dan Perry and Mihai Razvan Ungureanu, Foreign Policy)
When elections are weaponized, guardrails are necessary to prevent corruption.
Romania’s so-called elites—including constitutional scholars, anti-corruption prosecutors, liberal politicians, and journalists, many of whom were educated in Western institutions and remain committed to democratic norms—did not impose authoritarian rule. Indeed, some of them can be credited for correcting the outcome of an election desperately corrupted by foreign interference. They enforced the law. They exercised judgment. In short, the system moved to protect itself from manipulation.