Has Nobel peace prize winner Obama’s foreign-policy agenda failed? Not entirely, as the big-think naiveté of his early presidency has given way to a practical search for individual victories.
Category: Eyes on the U.S.
Analysis: It’s morning again in America — for now. Obama’s odds on a second term have gotten a boost by good economic news. But the U.S. recovery is linked to the situation elsewhere, notably in downtrodden Europe, still the top consume
Slavery and states’ rights are what most say sparked the Civil War. Now a German scholar cites “youth bulge” demographic theory, which ascribes outbreaks of violence to the preponderance of young men in society.
On the stump, the Republican candidate says what America needs is tax reform, spending cuts and fewer bureaucratic regulations. When talking to a European reporter he says one thing it doesn’t need to do is bail out the struggling euro zone.
La Stampa’s election correspondent catches up with the Italian-American senator from Pennsylvania, the breakthrough Republican candidate, whose standard stump speech includes an immigrant’s tale of the American dream.
German billionaire Nicolas Berggruen has a plan to make America’s “Golden State” sparkle again: cut income and sales taxes, but broaden the revenue base by taxing services at 5%. Now he just has to convince California’s voters and political leade
Op-Ed: This week marked a bad end to a bad war, which European critics of US policy had long predicted. The 2003 invasion left vast destruction, undermined America’s standing and deprived Iraqis of a role in their own history. Reverberations are still aro
Essay: Are we witnessing the U.S. empire head into its final decline? Obama is drifting. Republican candidates inspire little confidence. But viewed from Europe, which is more skeptical than ever, it’s worth taking a closer look at a nation with the Peter
Op-Ed: As the US officially declares its military engagement over in Iraq, the toll can be measured in human lives, but also in a geopolitical chessboard ever more shaped by energy security.
Op-ed: America’s two major political parties have become monolithic combat units with no sense of measure and little interest in compromise. One foreign observer says the only way to grease the frozen gears of the U.S. political machine is with a clear th
One of the many unusual chapters of the Republican candidate’s biography was a four-year stint in France as a teenager. But will the brainy but flawed presidential candidate, now surging in the polls, wind up more of a de Gaulle or DSK?
Under cover of darkness, Chaim Lazaros works the streets of New York City disguised as “Life,” a real life superhero with a mission to help the homeless. He’s not alone. The U.S. is now home to some 300 wannabe urban vigilantes determined to help their fe
Op-Ed: Thanks to the climate in Washington, the United States is beginning to resemble Latin America’s “Banana Republics,” where for years, ideological fanaticism trumped common sense – all to the detriment of the general population. A view from those who
The so-called Super Committee was supposed to rescue the United States from sinking in a sea of debt. The Congressional group is now being written off as a flop – mainly because Republicans want to save the super-rich from having to pay more taxes.
On a Saturday night in ‘Sin City,’ spectators gather from far and wide to watch two men wrestle, box and karate-chop each other in a metal cage. It’s called Mixed Martial Arts, and a French reporter finds it taking Las Vegas – and the rest of America – by
A French reporter travels to the Tennessee location of a once and maybe future auto plant, as GM looks ready to bet on a regional workforce that is better trained than foreign rivals – and cheaper than Detroit.
A cross-border controversy is bubbling up over plans by TransCanada, an energy infrastructure firm, to build an oil pipeline across six U.S. states. Environmentalists don’t want it. The Canadian government does. And President Barack Obama is so far sittin
In Arbus’ first major retrospective in France, Galerie Nationale du Jeu de Paume in Paris presents a selection of 200 works of the American artist who quite literally changed the “face” of photography.
A leading Republican presidential candidate, Perry boasts about a “Texas miracle” with the economy. A trip to the state finds some strident Democratic critics of his education policy, which they say is victim of his presidential campaign’s boasts
Over the past few weeks, the Occupy Wall Street movement has moved to center stage in the United States, where media outlets are now swarming to the story and dissecting its every detail. But France’s Le Monde wonders whether it’s all an
Op-Ed: The demonstrations are chaotic and their messages tangled, but the Occupy Wall Street protesters are anything but crazy. In drawing attention to the gaping chasm between America’s haves and have-nots, they have correctly identified a situa
Op-Ed: President Obama has been wagging his finger at Europe, and Germany in particular, to do more to stimulate the world economy. It reveals a major transatlantic gulf on both philosophical and practical solutions to the global economic crisis.
After this weekend’s arrest of some 700 activists in New York, the so-called Occupy Wall Street squatters appear to be gaining strength – and media interest. France’s Le Monde notes the parallels with Spain’s ‘Indignados’ movement.
Countries like Chile and Brazil fared far better than expected during the 2008-2009 global financial crisis. It may still be too soon, however, to celebrate the region’s “independence” from its historic reliance on the United States.
In a sombre and emotional ceremony at Ground Zero, the American people and their leaders remember the nearly 3,000 people killed by Al Qaeda 10 years ago this day.
The attacks of 10 years ago have fundamentally changed the ways that U.S. companies function, with security at the center of business operations from Wall Street to the Mall of America.
Op-Ed: A prominent French intellectual’s j’accuse against a nation that accepts lies to justify war, while extra-marital sex is the equivalent of “national betrayal.” Pascal Bruckner on America’s obsession with
Brooklyn’s Brownsville, one of the toughest neighborhoods in New York, is also home to one of the city’s three juvenile detention centers. There, a social worker and a choreographer are using yoga and meditation to help rehabilitate the center’s troubled
Some 40,000 Hondurans are deported each year from the United States back to their homeland, one of the poorest in Latin America. Many arrive only to once again brave the perilous journey north.
Op-Ed: In view of the global consequences of even a temporary U.S. default, American politicians are being astonishingly irresponsible. That they have lectured Europe on economics is laughable.
Just a month after 20 people were killed in northern Italy when a low-flying American military jet clipped a gondola line, the U.S. had already concluded that the crew and their supervisors were at fault. The pilot was later acquitted of manslaugher charg
In France, where accusers enjoy something akin to a “right to lie,” the latest twists in the DSK investigation follow questions about Strauss-Kahn’s treatment as a common criminal.
Op-Ed: Barack Obama wants to end a “decade of war” by withdrawing troops from Afghanistan. But as the United States increasingly focuses on its own problems at home, its allies will be vulnerable to an ever more uncertain world.
After European campuses open in China and India, a top French business school has set up shop on the North Carolina State University campus to give its students a shot at American jobs. Other European institutions hope to follow.
The alleged victim is an immigrant from northern Guinea, and her ethnicity is Fulani, who are known as pious, hardworking Muslims
Editorial: Americans used to like France’s Dominique Strauss-Kahn. From today onwards, they are going to hate him.
Opinion: The killing of Osama bin Laden marks a unique melding of American hard and soft power, and a boost (with legs) for President Obama
A new survey asks U.S. students about the high-profile case of the American convicted of murder in Perugia. A surprisingly high number say they consider Amanda Knox’s fate when weighing whether to study abroad in Italy.
French writer Bruno Fay argues that lies regularly told by the authorities and a general mistrust of official speech are to be blamed for the spread of conspiracy theories for everything from 9/11 to Nicolas Sarkozy’s biography.
Barack Obama’s discourse on military intervention in Libya has been seen as a blueprint for his new approach to U.S. decisions on war and peace. Le Figaro dissects the so-called “Obama doctrine,” and what it means for United States — and the res