Complaints about Ankara’s inaction have come from the West and Kurds. But Turkey’s regional ambitions may very well push it into Syria to crush ISIS. The risk could be huge.
Author: Jeff Israely
Categories
In Mexico, The Horrors We Have Seen
New revelations point to collusion between authorities and a drug cartel that may have led to the killing of 40 Mexican teenagers. Like Colombia a generation ago, a nation faces its deepest evils.
Categories
The Ebola Risk In Europe Is Very Real
BERLIN – Ebola has reached Europe. No, it is not just here via patients brought to isolation wards under strict security conditions to be saved from an otherwise relatively certain death by high-tech Western medicine. Now the virus has arrived in a Spanish hospital, having managed to pass from a priest infected in West Africa […]
If you want milk or Berlin-made vodka, bring your own bottles. At Original Unpackaged, there’s no cardboard or shrink wrap, nothing jarred or canned. Is this the smart consumer of the future?
Latin Americans who find the gym tedious are discovering that their own homegrown dances are a way to stay fit with a smile on your face.
For the Argentine daily Clarin, the proposal backed by President Kirchner to move the capital to a much smaller city is not just wrong for practical reasons, but a sign of something more sinister.
What do a Pretty Woman, Charlie’s Angel And Smurfette have in common? They all have the voice of actress Celine Monsarrat, who finally drops the mask on a 30-year career of finding the perfect pitch for incarnating other people’s roles. PARIS — I started in this field a bit by accident thanks to an aunt […]
Categories
Iran, ISIS And Ambitions Of Empires
There has been much recent speculation about Iran working with its longtime nemesis, the United States, to confront a new, common enemy: the radical Islamist organization ISIS. Indeed, the Sunni zealots of ISIS have focused some of their rhetoric directly at Tehran, the center of Shia Islam, vowing to fight what it says are Iran’s […]
From Golda Meir to Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli leaders have too often put off decisions on key questions for the country’s future. The cost of “conflict management” is no longer sustainable.
WUPPERTAL — The god you’ll discover if you become a Salafist is not a god who will coddle you. That’s a message zealot Pierre Vogel sends out loud and clear over the microphone when he’s doing his village tours to promote the “perfect sharia.” Germany’s best-known convert to Islam used to be a professional boxer […]
President Enrique Pena Nieto has pulled off the political feat of pushing through unprecedented reforms. But they are based on a promise that economic growth will inevitably follow.
RAFAH — When the wound eases, the real pain begins … This Arab proverb expresses well the profound disillusionment of the inhabitants of Gaza, a week since an open-ended ceasefire came into force. The end of fighting presented by Hamas as a “victory” after 51 days of conflict with Israel has up to now brought […]
BEIJING — Han Han, China’s most famous online star, is back in the spotlight. The young race car driver turned blogger/author accepted a public challenge from Guo Jingming, another former teen idol and best-selling young adult literature author and filmmaker, who said it was time for Han Han to direct his first movie. Not surprisingly, […]
Chinese have looked skeptically at charitable organizations, for cultural reasons and a series of scandals. But as China’s rich and famous join the ALS challenge, something may be changing.
When a journalist visits an old horse stable converted into a sado-masochist club, he finds surprisingly normal people who just have a different idea of foreplay.
A view from afar on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, where the Jewish-American lobby looks all too much like the Cuban-American lobby.
The decision comes in response to Snowden’s NSA revelations, and follows two recent cases of German officials accused of spying for the U.S.
The Malaysian airliner wasn’t the only one following the route over Ukraine, as detours can bring major time and fuel costs. When is it time to close air space?
The beverage company’s Christmas 2012 advertisement features a gigantic Santa Claus that was inspired by famous French giant characters. The theater company says it’s fighting for its soul.
There was much coverage of the announcement earlier this month of Bashar al-Assad’s amnesty to commute or reduce sentences for thousands of prisoners in Syria, including some with connections to the ongoing uprising against the regime. But there was one untold case of a freed prisoner who has no connections to current events — and […]
MOSCOW — According to a recent poll, the number of Russian citizens who would be prepared to vote for President Vladimir Putin if he were up for reelection now has been increasing every month since Russia annexed Crimea. In April, his approval rating was 62%, in May it increased to 73%. At the beginning of […]
Abandoning Iraq and failing to act in Syria have left a vacuum that ISIS and other terrorist groups are filling. Obama’s criticism of his predecessor is no substitute for a real foreign policy.
ISIS (the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham), the jihadist group wreaking havoc in Syria for more than a year, has gained control of the Nineveh province in its country of birth – post-US invasion Iraq. Reports late Wednesday said the extremists had taken control of the city of Tikrit. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki […]
A visit in southern China to a movement afoot to openly challenge the regime. It remains, 25 years after the Tiananmen Square protest was crushed, a risky affair.
Geraldine Chaplin once recalled her famous father’s resilient humor, which persisted even onto his death bed. At 88, Charlie Chaplin’s health was failing, and as doctors and relatives observed him, his eyes closed and barely breathing, Geraldine’s mother audibly declared that the “final moment” had come. “I’m just playing dead,” Chaplin muttered back. He remained […]
BUENOS AIRES — Twelve Argentine policemen were being questioned for their suspected role in beating and “crucifying” a detainee, who was found strapped to a street pole in the district of San Francisco – Frontera, northwest of Buenos Aires. A witness called police early after spotting the victim on Saturday; his head and face were […]
With more than 300 dead, survivors of last week’s Soma mine disaster in Turkey say their gas masks were useless. Turns out they were 20-year-old dirt cheap models. All apparently legal.
Taking a sizable stake in Deutsche Bank, Qatari investors are once again showing a strategy that is single-minded by definition.
It was about noon on a Friday last August, and Jawdat Ghorab was fishing some 100 meters away from the shore. “I was throwing out my net, and pulling it up slowly, just like I always do,” he said. All of a sudden, the net became very heavy, so heavy that he couldn’t pull it […]
It may be a new weapon to strike fear in store clerks around the world: a grocer in Colombia has died days after two individuals injected him with an unknown poison outside his store, in the district of Facatativá west of Bogotá. The Colombian daily El Espectador reported this past weekend that authorities had not […]
An Argentine couple is accused of keeping their adopted daughter locked up in a garage for seven years, feeding her bread and water, and occasionally food left over by a dog and a monkey that were kept with her. Buenos Aires daily Clarín reports that the couple is expected in court next week to face […]
Categories
Dolphins Stabbed To Death In Colombia
ATLANTICO — Authorities in this northern Colombia beach community were investigating the suspicious deaths of two dolphins, whose corpses were washed ashore and appeared to have been stabbed repeatedly, Bogota daily El Espectador reports. The mammals’ remains were found in the district of Playa Mendoza in the Atlántico department. They may have been killed after […]
After striking it big in the U.S., Jurgen Hermann battled financial powers back in Liechtenstein. A reporter recalls the unraveling of a man now accused of murdering a top banker.
Argentina and Venezuela are again trying to wiggle their way out of spending deficits by devaluating their currencies. It’s a short-term fix with long-term consequences.
BEIJING – There was an interesting Chinese twist to last week’s ruling by an Egyptian court to sentence 529 members of the Muslim Brotherhood to death. While the decision was widely condemned in the West, it has also drawn criticism from an unusual source: China’s state-backed media. Xinhua News English edition featured a story entitled […]
Even if General Al-Sisi is elected president because people want a return to the past, he can’t pick up where Mubarak left off. The revolution has changed things forever. For better or worse.
Categories
Egypt Targets Both Islamists And Atheists
This week’s Egyptian court ruling imposing death sentences for 529 Muslim Brotherhood members was widely condemned abroad as a troubling sign for the health of the nation’s democracy. But Cairo’s continued escalation against the Islamist organization might also give outsiders the false impression that religion in general is under attack in Egypt. In fact, another […]
Images that made news, the news in images … around the world.
Categories
Death Sentence For Fake Doctor
A 64-year-old man was sentenced to be hanged in Tehran after a court found him guilty of sexually abusing female applicants for the post of lab assistant in what turned out to be a fake medical practice, Jomhuri-e Eslami daily, reported Tuesday. Iran’s Mehr news agency reported that at least four female witnesses accused the […]