In today’s issue of the Monday Briefing we take a moment to reflect on the safety of our own city, after last week’s terrible news. In the US, Epstein files are still under discussion, while in Brazil COP30 unfolds without much progress. In Europe, proposed peace settlement sparks discussion over the fate of Ukraine.
Spotlight: Are Milano’s Streets Safe for Students?
In the last week the public debate on the safety of Milano’s street was reignited once again by a terrible tragedy that was made public by the authorities of the city. The facts, involving a Bocconi student on a night out, have been widely discussed by media, politicians, student associations and simply by us all. As fellow students, we are directly affected, and I truly believe that we all feel the same emotional vicinity to this story. What happened to one of us could have happened to any of us.
Three weeks ago, a 22-year-old Bocconi student was stabbed by a group of attackers near Corso Como. The five criminals, two 18-year-old and three minors, had approached our colleague to rob him, but ended up stabbing him and leaving him on the street bleeding. He was finally found at 3 am in critical condition by the police and transported to a hospital, where after long and complex procedures he was stabilized. Unfortunately, the prognosis is still far from positive for the victim of this tragedy: according to the doctors following his case it is unlikely that he will recover his mobility. Hopefully this prediction will be proved to be wrong with time. On November 18th the group of offenders was arrested after being recognized thanks to some CCTV footage, and they were accused of robbery and attempted murder.
These events sparked once more the debate on street safety in Milan. Political commentaries have jumped on the issue with the clear intent of gaining the support of the many that understandably want to tackle the problem. Right-wing MPs are accusing the city mayor, while the left points to the government itself, creating a useless cycle of blame which doesn’t help to solve the underlying lack of safety. Data and personal experience can both tell us all that Milan is not as safe as we would like it to be. The causes are many and profound, the solutions are debatable and complex to manage, but the necessity of action is evermore clear in the mind of any person who dares to walk in the city streets after 9 pm.
Before concluding and leaving you to wider news from the world, I would like to take a moment to express my sincere sorrow and solidarity for our colleague that was brutally attacked. He is probably living through the most difficult moment of his life, and certainly these words won’t change anything. I’m also sure that being at the center of public attention doesn’t help at all. But when the cameras and journalists will turn away, looking for the next event that sparks public outrage, his pain will remain, and his life will be forever different. This is where the university community must come in, showing that we are not just a group of people studying economics in the same room, but instead a united body of students, bound together by our common journey and our experience. Every single one of us, every association and society, should come together in this difficult moment: we cannot let one of us fall behind, we must not allow this tragedy to win. Bocconi can make the difference, and we must.
World News
Marjorie Taylor Greene plans to leave Congress
By Veronika Lizier-Zmudzinski
Marjorie Taylor Greene, a once staunch and outspoken supporter of President Trump, has decided to leave Congress in January after continuing disagreements with the president.
During President Trump’s first term Greene believed deeply in his mission and goals. Now, she has increasingly distanced herself from Trump’s policies, voicing frustration over his approach to tariffs on imports, which she argues have hurt American consumers and small businesses.
But perhaps the most significant point of contention has been Green’s fierce criticism of the administration’s continued refusal to release the Epstein files. The files have been on the forefront of many citizens’ mind, with the consensus being that all Americans deserve to know what is contained in those files.
Her departure marks yet another sign of the growing divisions within the Republican Party and the broader American political landscape. The tension rising between others in government and President Trump, threatens to deepen the polarization already gripping the nation.
Infrastructure, Protests, and Diplomatic Gridlock Mark COP30 in Belém, Brazil
By Diego de Carvalho
Over the past two weeks, thousands of delegates met in Brazil for climate talks in the United Nation’s thirtieth annual COP meeting. The event was realized in Belém, a city of over 1 million inhabitants on the Amazon River’s estuary. The city was chosen for its location in the world’s largest rainforest, but infrastructure concerns were the main subject for the conference, as the price for hospitality in the city rose by 25%. Symbolically, a fire also broke out at the conference venue on Thursday (20).
Along with infrastructure, the event was marked by protests from environmental and indigenous movements from Brazil and other South American countries. Claiming they were being ignored in climate talks, indigenous activists clashed with guards at the event, a stark contrast to the previous three COPs, which were held in Azerbaijan, Dubai, and Egypt and repressed social mobilization.
Despite the hectic environment around the talks, COP30 was yet another to falter in making meaningful diplomatic advances. The world’s two leading economies took a backstage in the conference: China was reluctant to position itself firmly and the American government sent no meaningful representative – the US was mostly represented by individual state delegations, headlined by California’s Gavin Newsom. Strong lobbying from oil-producing countries like Russia and Saudi Arabia impeded the advance of impactful propositions from the European Union and the hosts Brazil, including a road map away from fossil fuels. Despite this, COP30 was not a total stalemate: its most relevant product was a fund to protect rainforests, a symbolically potent resolution considering the conference’s location.
European News
The U.S. to propose a unilaterally advantageous peace: can Europe achieve self-reliance?
U.S. Defense Officials have traveled to Kyiv on Thursday, November 20th, 2025, to advocate for the enforcement of a formally recognized peace, whose transparency of intentions and legitimacy in crafting are being the easy targets of political contestation, as accounted for by the little to no leeway conceded by U.S. President D.J. Trump to his Ukrainian counterpart, V. Zelensky. Should peace agreements honor non-written rules steering towards compliance with high-morals-policy and adherence to mutually beneficial dialogue, as supposedly dictated by their own definition? Or does economic constraint fall within the math of peaceful negotiations and bilateral settlement? These could, perhaps, become contentious interrogatives when more analytically scrutinizing the ongoing U.S.-Ukrainian dynamics.
While the proposal designates Ukraine as its on-paper recipient, the agreement concretely comes across as an apology for both Trump and Putin’s ideals, thus rendering the Eastern European State a target more than an interlocutor. The advanced document is indeed offering Russia, among the others, a renewal of its place among G8 economies, as well as a formalized control of Ukraine’s Donbas region; coming now to Ukraine’s contractual perspectives, the latter shed a quite disillusioned light on the favorable understanding of Zelensky’s viewpoint matter, as his army will be reduced in size and his country is expected to achieve neutrality rather than NATO membership.
The Russian ghost, underlying major U.S. strategic influence, is hunting any short-term chance of Ukrainian independence, which now relies on a Europe which quivers in the bitter awareness of their global subordination, and may not leave to imagination any undercover capability to subvert the current world order. Hope needs to be taken over by mutual solidarity which, in turn, must pave the way for coordinated and resolutive action: only by achieving self-reliance will Europe be able to act sensibly, and to effectively sort out Ukraine’s destiny.
Every week, your TiL Monday Briefing 🗞: you better read it with a cup of coffee! ☕️
Head of the Monday Briefing column: Diego de Carvalho. Current writing staff: Alice di Terlizzi, Andreas Manolopoulos, Anouk Lainé, Daniel Dishdishyan, Derinsu Polat, Riccardo de Ambroggi, Ruben Gianzini. Cartoons by Polina Mednikova. The Monday Briefing column was established in its current form in 2021 by Bojan Zeric.
I’m Veronika. I grew up in the US but am half-Italian, half-Polish. I’m a first-year BIEM student and am interested in not only economics, but fashion, politics, books, and getting to know the community around me.
My name is Diego, and I am currently in my 3rd year of BESS. I was born and raised in Brasília, Brazil and although I have lived also in Switzerland, the United States, and now Italy, I consider myself Brazilian and Latin-American by heart. My heart and time are often split by many different interests, including football, history, geopolitics, philosophy, music, and cinema.