Worldcrunch
TEL AVIV — Over the past few weeks, we have heard many members of Parliament calling on the government to block the sale of Israeli dairy company Tnuva to China’s Bright Food. Such a ban would be very bad news for Israel. We must first remember the basic principal that business decisions should be taken […]
PARIS – On March 12, Mustafa Dzhemilev, a leading figure among the ethnic Crimean Tatars, had a long conversation over the phone with Vladimir Putin. No doubt, they talked about the referendum that was set to take place four days later. According to what Dzhemilev reported to the Ukrainian media, the Russian president asserted that […]
PARIS — Will Syrians pay for the Ukrainians? Will the millions of victims of a protracted and bloody conflict in Syria suffer the backlashes of the situation playing out in Ukraine? Sadly, the answer is yes. Posed in these simplistic terms, the question might seem odd. But in reality, the growing hostility between Moscow and […]
Driven by a nationalist vision and contempt of the West, the Russian president knows Europe’s fear of armed conflict is his ace in the hole in Crimea. But what does he lose by winning?
A former soldier accuses the Colombian Army and aides to former President Álvaro Uribe of ordering the killings of innocent civilians amid a “dirty war” against FARC rebels.
PARIS — Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela, on the verge of collapse, has ruined the hopes carried by the policies of the far left. Vladimir Putin’s Russia will make a similar demonstration of inanity with those across the political spectrum — those of the far-right, or if you prefer, of extreme nationalism. The two elected dictators have […]
A year after the death of President Hugo Chávez, food and consumer shortages are spreading through Caracas along with protests. Blame over-regulation or capitalistic hoarding?
The crisis in Crimea says more about Russian ambitions and European foot-dragging than it does about indecisiveness in Washington.
The competing sides, both globally and regionally, will never see Ukraine’s reality the same way, so deep are the historical and cultural divides. Analysis from Kiev.
NAFTA has brought about practically everything that is positive about the Mexican economy. Unfortunately, good governance and stability remain elusive.
Europe and the U.S. must respond to Russian President Vladimir Putin with neither war nor capitulation. There is a third option: total isolation.
The West has woken up to the gravity of the situation. But what real options are on the table?
Though reports say Peru has surpassed Colombia as world’s top source of cocaine, it has not faced the same kind of violence. Is Lima turning a blind eye toward drug trafficking?
-Opinion- ISTANBUL — On one hand, there is an investigation of an imaginary terrorist organization and the claim of a wiretapping list that includes some 7,000 people. On the other, there is the recording of a telephone conversation that has been spreading on YouTube, allegedly between Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his son. The […]
From Poland to Western Europe and beyond, Ukrainian democracy needs cash to flourish. There may not be a third chance.
BEIJING — There is a career crisis in China’s judiciary, and it’s especially acute here in the capital. First the numbers. According to statistics obtained by Li Yuanfang, a National People’s Congress member, of the 2,053 judges recruited in Beijing between 2008 and 2012, 348 have since resigned. That’s 16.9% of new recruits leaving their […]
-Commentary- OSLO — In Oslo, where snow falls abundantly, visibility is virtually nil. But what this white desert suggests is not melancholy à la Ibsen or a metaphysical Munch Scream. On the contrary, deep satisfaction and hope dominate here. In other words, unlike the French, Norwegians are happy people. They claim to feel no remorse, […]
CAIRO — He might as well already be president. His photo is on every wall in Cairo. His constant television appearances, broadcasts of his speeches and video clips glorifying the army eclipse the presence of interim leader Adly Mansour. Even Field Marshall Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s mention of his night visions from 35 years ago, in […]
The media criticism heaped on Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has prevented an objective assessment of the protesters, who may not be quite as democratic as they’re portrayed.
-OpEd- MUNICH — When the Winter Olympics ended Sunday evening, the second part of the Ukrainian revolution began. Now the country’s cohesion and its chances of economic survival will be decided. After a dramatic week in Kiev, a civil war was avoided when the Ukraine Parliament removed the president from power. And now even Ukrainians […]
-OpEd- BERLIN — Among the rituals that North Korea’s young dictator Kim Jong-un has embraced is saber rattling. And in the run-up to annual military maneuvers between South Korea and the U.S., he was at it again. He threatened an “unimaginable holocaust” or “catastrophe” that would destroy inter-Korean relations if the traditional army operations went […]
The average man spends a year of his life waiting on women — outside bathrooms, in cars, beyond changing-room curtains. It may be the truest modern measure of gender politics.
The world was surprised, and very likely pleased, by this past weekend’s capture of Joaquín Guzmán Loera, head of the Sinaloa drug cartel and one of the world’s richest and most powerful drug traffickers. Pleased for good reason, because “Shorty” Guzmán, who was on the run for 13 years after a prison escape, is believed […]
-Analysis- PARIS — Is this 1989 all over again? One generation after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the protests in Ukraine instinctively bring to mind the revolutions that swept away the dying communist regimes in Central and Eastern Europe. The images of crowds, initially peaceful and festive in Kiev’s Independence Square, are similar to […]
Polls show most Americans want U.S. ties with Cuba normalized, even as the forces still hold strong among those who prefer the status quo. Time may have come for change.
For the Greek philosopher Diogenes, self-control and self-sufficiency were the essential values. He lived a life with no possessions, except for a cloak, a purse and a barrel made out of clay in which he would sleep. Intrigued, the emperor Alexander The Great went to visit him. “I’m the most powerful man in the world. […]
The battle at hand on the streets of Caracas and beyond may be more fractured than it first appears.
-OpEd- The Western world felt safe in the illusion that nothing would happen in Ukraine until the end of the Sochi Olympic Games. But it woke up on Wednesday to terrifying images of the bloody battlefield of central Kiev, literally ablaze. After a three-month-long face-off between a pro-European opposition, which hasn’t weakened despite the cold […]
Demographically and economically, Africa is well poised for success. But it needs to find new forms of growth and governance – and an end to bloody conflict – to realize its potential.
The English chose to build their towns next to rivers. The French instead built on the ruins of Roman cities. A look at how these centuries-old decisions have impacted today’s economy.
NEW YORK — There is no German-style “works council” for employees at Volkswagen USA. Then, last week, 1,500 workers of the Volkswagen Chattanooga Assembly Plant, in Tennessee, voted by secret ballot against being represented by the United Auto Workers (UAW). Without membership of that union, setting up a works council is not possible under American […]
The Chavez-Maduro regime has corrupted democracy and impoverished the nation in a perfect storm of political strong-arming, cheap oil, and public apathy. The time is now to react.
To understand the Maidan protesters in Kiev, just go to Prague, Warsaw and beyond. While other post-Soviet bloc economies have emerged, Ukrainians know too well that their leaders have failed them.
(And why that’s a good thing)
Natural reproduction and the adaptability of genes will always outperform the machinations of multinationals like Monsanto, accused of wanting world domination with GMO crop production.
Syria’s longtime foreign minister has shown no sign of opening during the Geneva peace talks, which resumed this week. But Walid Muallem may be the world’s last best hope.
French President Francois Hollande is as popular in official circles in Washington as he is unpopular with the citizens of the country that elected him. Story of a unique alliance.
A national referendum to limit new immigrants shows Swiss society split along political, geographic and linguistic lines. It also leaves the nation isolated from its EU neighbors.
False visions of political concepts thrive in Argentina, where dictatorships past and spin doctors present employ their own forms of double speak.
With rumblings that young people are disenchanted with the social network, a reporter visits the Harvard University campus where Mark Zuckerberg founded Facebook 10 years ago.