111MHz: ‘Sorry.’ From her album Space Is an Instrument, the French composer Félicia Atkinson is back with a mix of piano, field recordings, and electronics. This track has a majesty to it, textured by a layer of howling wind recorded on her phone—at once complex and peaceful.

—Brendan Hasenstab

A fall in Berlin. On November 6, Germany’s government collapsed. Olaf Scholz, the Social Democratic chancellor, threw the Free Democratic Party out of his governing coalition, leaving his party with only the Greens in a minority government. Scholz also called for a confidence vote in the Bundestag in January, which his unpopular cabinet is certain to lose. And that will mean early elections within 60 days.

Since the end of World War II, it’s been very unusual for a German government to fail serving out a full term. What happened?

In October, Matthias Matthijs pointed out that the Greens and Free Democrats had long been a bad fit as coalition partners: They hold opposing positions on many of the country’s most important policies.

Still, Matthijs says, mismatched coalitions like this are becoming increasingly common across Europe as a result of political fragmentation—specifically, of the formerly dominant parties of center-right and center-left losing voter support to the far right and far left, as well as to new parties. Which is making it harder to form governing majorities—and also harder to govern.

—Michael Bluhm

Outmanned and outgunned. For decades, Europe has relied on the United States for security. The Americans have some 80,000 troops in Europe, and Washington has long said it would respond in kind to any nuclear attack on the continent.

But Russia’s invasion of Ukraine changed everything. Suddenly, European countries saw a real security threat along the borders of half a dozen NATO member states. They’ve raised defense spending, re-energized relationships with NATO, and moved troops closer to Russia. Still, many countries haven’t hit their spending targets, and a lot of military analysts have expressed their doubts about whether Europe’s equipment is good enough or whether its troops are prepared for combat. Is it?—and are they?

Today, John R. Deni looks at how European countries see the threat from Moscow specifically, the continent’s security generally, and the financial challenges complicating their efforts to turn a vision for collective security into a reality …

—Michael Bluhm

111MHz: ‘Top.’ Klara Lewis, the experimental composer is just out with Thankful, an album dedicated to the memory of Peter Rehberg—the head of her label, Editions Mego—who died in 2021. That memory accounts for the beat. Lewis is also the daughter of Wire’s Graham Lewis, which may account for the static and noise over it.

—Brendan Hasenstab

Magliabechi’s: Righteous Victims. Over the last month, the Israeli Defense Force has been ordering Palestinian residents of northern Gaza—in Biet Hanoun, Beit Lahiya, and Jabalya—to move southward. The UN estimates that the IDF has expelled some 60,000 from these neighborhoods, while some tens of thousands still remain. Meanwhile, in the last few weeks, Israel has tightly restricted the number of food trucks entering Gaza—with virtually none now reaching the North.

The IDF has a straightforward explanation: It’s fighting Hamas in and around these neighborhoods. Others are implying more complex motives: Human-rights groups focused on the situation of Palestinians in northern Gaza are alleging that Israel might now be starting to carry out some version of the so-called “Generals’ Plan”—published in September by the Israeli NGO Forum of Commanders and Soldiers in the Reserves—which calls for the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who live north of the Netzarim Corridor to move south; for those who remain to be treated as combatants; and, in the words of the plan’s principal author, the retired IDF major general Giora Eiland, for forcing them to “surrender or to starve.”

We can’t yet know the extent to which this vision informs the IDF’s strategy in northern Gaza, but it’s not obscure. This January, 11 Israeli cabinet members participated in a conference in support of resettling Gaza, where Israel’s minister of communications, Shlomo Karhi, endorsed “encouraging voluntary emigration” of Palestinians in Gaza. As one banner at the conference expressed the view, “Only a transfer will bring peace.” And last month, the minister of national security, Itamar Ben Gvir, echoed the same language rather precisely: “We will encourage the voluntary transfer of all Gazan citizens.”

The history of the idea of “transferring” Palestinians is one of the subjects of the Israeli historian Benny Morris’s classic 2001 book, Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict, 1881-2001. Morris chronicles the development of the idiom of “transfer” in the context of Israeli forces’ expulsion of Palestinians from their homes in 1948—and other expulsions since—largely as the implementation of policies formulated by Israeli leaders, not on the far right but on the liberal left. It’s a history Morris himself belongs to: He’s not a partisan of the Israeli right; he’s been opposed to it throughout his life; but he takes the view now that it would’ve been for the best if Israel had fully expelled the Palestinians when it had the chance.

—Gustav Jönsson

How to steal an election in America. This week, someone incinerated hundreds of ballots in Washington and Oregon. It’s not the sort of thing likely to reassure those who worry that next week’s U.S. presidential election risks being manipulated, or undermined, or ultimately stolen by partisan actors.

Already, the former president and current Republican candidate Donald Trump is intimating that the Democrats might somehow commit election fraud next week. Many of Trump’s supporters believe him, as they do his assertions about the Democrats having cheated their way to victory in 2020.

There’s widespread concern among Democrats, meanwhile, that Republicans will try to overturn the election in an even more determined way than did the “stop the steal” movement that led to the January 2021 Capitol Hill riot. So there’s plenty of worry on both sides.

How vulnerable is the U.S. election system, then? Today, Richard H. Pildes explores the threat of election fraud, the safeguards against it, and why so many Americans no longer trust their election process or election outcomes.

—Gustav Jönsson

111MHz: ‘Another Kind of Forever.’ The NYC-based saxophonist Darius Jones leads an ensemble on his new album, Legend of e’Boi (The Hypervigilant Eye). It all owes something to the Art Ensemble of Chicago and other free-jazz pioneers. Here, they swoop and dive and howl in a groove that constantly evolves through the running time.

—Brendan Hasenstab

The day the lights went out in Cuba. The Republic of Cuba’s power grid finally collapsed on October 18. The state had sent all nonessential workers home the day before, trying to cut the island’s electricity usage, but it didn’t help. Around 11:00 a.m., the entire country lost electricity; it was restored for a while the following day, but there have been repeated, total blackouts across the country since then—and even on the best days, there are rolling blackouts to conserve energy. In many parts of the country, there’s electricity for only a few hours a day. The blackouts have caused problems for the country’s water systems, as well—on account of which hundreds of thousands of Cubans now don’t have running water. What’s behind all these problems?

The government blames the ongoing U.S. embargo; tourism hasn’t recovered since the pandemic; and more than 10 percent of the island’s population has emigrated in the past few years. And yet, as Javier Corrales explained in July 2021, Cuba’s economy has been falling apart for years—above all, because its main patron, Venezuela, is undergoing its own economic collapse. Meaning Venezuela can’t afford to send as much money—or oil to power the electricity grid—as it has been for the past 20 years. It’s one of the Americas’ more existential questions, Corrales says, of political and economic sustainability.

—Michael Bluhm

111MHz: ‘Rain & Snow.’ L.A. bassist Sam Wilkes from iiyo iiyo iiyo, a live record cut in 2022 but just released. Here, Wilkes is joined by the keyboardist Chris Fishman, the keyboardist-guitarist Thom Gill, the drummer Craig Weinrib, and the guitarist Dylan Day. It’s a journey, this tune.

—Brendan Hasenstab