Every morning, around thirty French- and English-language news feeds are reviewed, grouped by event and summarized into three parts: what affects the world with no state actor involved, what falls under geopolitics, and what concerns markets and the economy. Headlines always link back to the newsroom that did the work — this summary is not meant to replace it.
Each part receives a level — calm, tension or crisis — set by written criteria, identical from one day to the next, so that comparing two days is meaningful. The markets level is never judged: it is calculated from closing prices, against fixed thresholds. The "daily divergence" compares this markets level with the pressure of the news, i.e. today's risk index without its financial domains; it is shown as-is, without interpretation.
The briefing is published once a day, around 8:30 AM Paris time. Between two updates, the content does not change.
Summaries are written automatically by an artificial intelligence model (Claude, by Anthropic) from the cited articles, following written instructions, and published without article-by-article human review. Horizon is free, with no ads and no account, published from France, and also available as an RSS feed. Not to be confused with other apps named Horizon.
The risk index
The world index is a weighted average of the colours published each day (green 0, orange 50, red 100). Weights since 25 October 2026 (13 domains): Geopolitics 17, World 13, Disasters 11, Health 10, Markets 8, Supply 7, Cyber 7, World economy 6, Climate 6, Connectivity 6, Sanctions 4, Currencies and rates 3, Space weather 2. Until 24 October (12 domains): Geopolitics 18, World 14, Disasters 12, Health 10, Markets 8, Supply 8, Cyber 7, Climate 7, Connectivity 6, Sanctions 4, Currencies and rates 3, Space weather 3. A domain unavailable that day is left out and the other weights are scaled back to 100.
A country's index adds a structural part, up to 70 points (average of the travel advisories of Canada, levels 0 to 3, and the United States, levels 1 to 4, brought onto the same scale), and a current part, up to 30 points: GDACS disaster alert red 15 or orange 8, WHO bulletin over 30 days 10 (severe disease) or 6, internet outage 8 (major) or 5, country in today's Geopolitics 4 or today's World news 2. Sanctions and cyber attacks do not count towards a country's score.
Levels: calm below 30, tension from 30 to 59, crisis from 60. Travel advisories are written by foreign governments for their own citizens: the score does not describe everyday life there. Sources: Global Affairs Canada, US Department of State, GDACS, WHO, IODA, ECB, US Treasury, Copernicus ERA5. The homepage "Signal of the day" shows the domain that weighs most in the index that day (score × weight), with no other editorial choice.
Economy and society score, overall score
Since 23 October 2026, every country also receives an "economy and society" score from 0 to 100, kept separate from the risk index above (which measures danger for a traveller and keeps its history). It measures how fragile a country is, with a fixed formula, the same for every country. Public finances and jobs, up to 60 points, from the IMF World Economic Outlook for the current year (projections): public debt (0 points up to 60% of GDP, 15 from 150%), budget balance (0 from −3% of GDP, 10 at −8% or below), real growth (0 from 2%, 10 at −2% or below), inflation (0 up to 3%, 15 from 30%), unemployment (0 up to 5%, 10 from 15%). Markets, up to 20 points: the gap between the country's 10-year borrowing rate and Germany's, euro area only (ECB monthly series; 0 points up to 0.5 point, 20 from 3 points). Streets, up to 20 points: protests and strikes, the average of two measures that correct each other: events about protests or strikes in Horizon briefings over the last seven days (1 event = 6 points, then 10, 14, 18, and 20 for 5 or more), and the share of "protest" events (CAMEO code 14) among all events located in the country in the GDELT database over seven days (0 points up to 2%, 20 from 10%; not measured under 300 events). Points are linear between thresholds. A criterion without data for a country is dropped and the score is scaled to 100 on the remaining criteria; no score below half of the points, or with fewer than three IMF criteria.
The overall score is the rounded average of the risk index and the economy and society score. Same levels as the index: calm under 30, tension from 30 to 59, crisis from 60. Neither score is a forecast, travel advice or financial advice. Sources: IMF World Economic Outlook database; ECB long-term interest rates; GDELT Project; Horizon briefings.
World economy domain (since 25 October 2026)
Since 25 October 2026, the global risk index has a 13th domain, "World economy", weighted 6 out of 100. Its colour comes from the economy and society scores of the 19 G20 countries (the European Union, a full member, is not a country): crisis when at least 8 of them are in tension or crisis (score of 30 or more) or at least 3 in crisis (60 or more); tension when at least 4 are in tension or crisis, or at least 1 in crisis; calm otherwise. At least 12 of the 19 countries must be scored that day, otherwise the domain is left out like any source that is down. To keep a total of 100, six weights went down by one point (see above). Days up to 24 October remain computed with the previous method (12 domains): the curve is not recalculated, and the change is marked on the risk page. The "markets calm, news under tension" comparison still leaves out the financial domains, now including the world economy.
The world in figures
Below the indicators, the "World in figures" block gives the background to the news from public data. It is not part of the colours or the risk index. Armed conflict: estimated deaths in organised violence by country, monthly provisional data from the Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP Candidate Events Dataset, CC BY 4.0). Earthquakes: earthquakes of magnitude 4.5 and above over the previous seven days, with PAGER alert levels, from the US Geological Survey (public domain). Commodities: monthly world price indices (energy, food, fertilizers, base and precious metals, 2010 = 100) and main prices from the World Bank Pink Sheet (CC BY 4.0). Coming up: Federal Reserve and ECB rate decisions (official calendars) and upcoming national elections (Wikipedia electoral calendar).
Links between sources
"The week in brief" and country pages point out what connects in the last seven briefings, using fixed rules and no AI model. A country is listed when at least two independent families of signals light up: briefing news, WHO bulletins, GDACS alerts, IODA internet outages (traffic under 50% of normal), new OFAC and UN sanctions listings, USGS earthquakes (magnitude 6+ or orange/red alert), and a rise of at least 8 points in the Horizon risk score. Travel advisories and UCDP conflict data are shown as background, not counted. A "thread" groups stories that share uncommon proper names and countries over at least three days. A link points to something worth watching; it does not explain its cause.
"The week in brief" (/en/semaine) sums up the last seven briefings: daily colours, risk index, domains on alert, most-mentioned countries and weekly market changes, all taken from published briefings.
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