In the Colombian capital, residents are starting to balk at the arrival of so many desperate Venezuelans. There’s empathy, yes. But also caution and alarm.
Tag: europe
The world is becoming divided again as China takes the USSR’s place facing the United States. This new situation makes the European project more relevant than ever, exactly at the moment it is most in jeopardy.
A recent survey of Italian political views shows a seeming contradiction: a willingness to forego democracy but submit to EU economic and military directives.
Since this summer, Morocco is the theater of an unprecedented wave of arrests and forced displacements of Sub-Saharan Africans forced to hide.
Nemesis of Italy’s anti-immigrant Interior Minister Matteo Salvini, Mayor Domenico Lucano of Riace was placed under house arrest for his pro-refugee policies.
The French president is the populist Italian Interior Minister’s favorite target. But is Salvini attacking Macron to mask his own failure to unite Europe’s nationalists?
BEIJING — It’s that time of a year again when an ever growing number of Chinese students are leaving to study abroad. These young people attract a lot of attention, often envied by their peers around them. Labeled as the “Fu-er-dai”, meaning “the second-generation rich brats,” some live a “luxurious and decadent life” overseas, while […]
BEIJING — Yang Ke works for a high-tech company in Shenzhen on the southeast coast of China. Thanks to a few years spent abroad, he has saved up a considerable amount of money and is looking to invest it in foreign real estate. After intensive discussions with real estate agents, he decided that property in […]
The ‘sudden stop’ scenario has hit the Turkish economy, which threatens other countries around the world — and not just economically.
Meet the Italians driven by a sense of history and humanity to identify the refugees and migrants who have died trying to cross the Mediterranean.
In northern Italy, the city of Pavia has higher-than-average cancer rates and widespread cases of illegal garbage burning. Are these two facts just a coincidence?
Algerian authorities have been accused of harsh treatment of asylum seekers.
Just because trade balances tend to work in Germany’s favor doesn’t mean partner countries aren’t benefiting too.
-Analysis- PARIS — With his new sweeping round of protectionist tariffs on steel and aluminum, it looks like Donald Trump has decided to extend to the economic field the “madman strategy” he had already applied to the Korean Peninsula. That was the take last week from former CIA Director David Petraeus. Developed by the Nixon-Kissinger […]
Egypt’s Zohr gas field is the largest ever natural gas find in the Mediterranean. But reshaping the global energy balance of power must factor in other equations.
There are still plenty in the European Union taking a hardline against the Kremlin. But a counter bloc is emerging from the corridors of the European Parliament.
ABIDJAN — Jumping and dancing to the rhythm of the popular urban music zouglou, they snap pictures on their smartphones of their idols performing onstage. Always smiling and never sitting still, Ivory Coast’s millennials have been nicknamed the “génération pressée pressée,” the generation that is always in a rush. Young Ivorians are dynamic and curious, […]
-Essay- This was not how he wanted to say goodbye. Gianluigi “Gigi” Buffon’s tears were featured Tuesday on the front pages of Italian newspapers, and not just the all-sports publications. At 39, the legendary goalkeeper played his final game for Italy’s national team Monday night. For the first time since 1958, the four-time world champions […]
All was calm around the recent inauguration of the northern city of Pavia’s new Islamic Center for Dialogue, bucking a trend of protests around Italy when new mosques are proposed.
SFAX — Plastic bags litter the fields that separate the highway from the Mediterranean Sea. Tunisian fishermen sail their boats in the Gulf of Gabes, between the cities of Sfax and Zarzis — and just 120 kilometers from the Italian island of Lampedusa. Indeed, recently the fishermen’s haul has begun to include migrants picked up […]
—Analysis— WASHINGTON — More than any other issue that has threatened transatlantic cohesion this year, President Donald Trump’s decision to decertify Iranian compliance with the nuclear deal could start a chain of events that would sharply divide the United States from its closest traditional allies in the world. “After the Paris climate decision,” in which Trump withdrew the United States from a widely supported, painfully negotiated accord, “this could push multilateralism to the breaking point,” said a senior official from one of the three European signatories to the Iran deal. None of the three – Britain, France and Germany – […]
French President Emmanuel Macron has just set himself up as the European Union’s would-be savior. Seen from a Swiss point of view, there’s no better option out there.
VISSO — Francesco Sbaffi was recouping after a long day during a busy wine harvest when a powerful earthquake struck this idyllic town in the Apennine Mountains 11 months ago. The grape must was already fermenting in barrels at the Coppacchioli winery, where Sbaffi works as an oenologist, when the earthquake hit. As thousands of […]
In the south of Tunisia, near the Libyan border, an ancient dump serves as a cemetery for immigrants attempting to cross the Mediterranean illegally. But the living remain undeterred.
Yesterday, as he announced the United States’ withdrawal from the historic Paris climate agreement, President Donald Trump appeared particularly eager to deride the perceived exploitation of America in past international negotiations. “We don’t want other leaders and other countries laughing at us anymore, and they won’t be.” No, Mr. President, no one is laughing today. […]
NEW YORK CITY — The 19th-century French sociologist Gabriel Tarde defined the marketplace as a war between buyers and sellers. He called price “a truce” obtained by haggling. It was because of that “war” mentality, he explained in his Selected Papers, that authorities in Europe began fixing prices on goods and services. The goal was […]
-OpEd- WASHINGTON — Late last summer, my wife and I took a ferry from Doolin, on the West coast of Ireland, to Inishmore, the smallest of the three Aran Islands. The tiny ferry, with perhaps no more than 30 or 40 people aboard, was filled with mostly European passengers.The ocean was rough; a short trip […]
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The Day Brexit Got Real
When Big Ben struck midnight, its bells didn’t just signal the start of a new day. They also marked a sea change in geopolitics. That was the moment Prime Minister Theresa May chose to sign a letter of intent that officially begins the UK’s departure from the EU. The date had been marked on everyone’s […]
Wild parakeet populations are expanding in many European cities, where they enjoy the relative warmth of dense urban settings and have easy access to food.
It’s a pattern that, sadly, is becoming too familiar in Europe. The initial shock of the latest terrorist attack soon gives way to anger, sadness, prayers, and a gnawing sense of powerlessness. And then, eventually, we move on — until the next time. Yesterday’s attack in London had the particularity of actually occurring on the […]
It is high time to provide a new perspective for Israel and offer the country a membership in the European Union. A uniquely German point of view on Middle East peace.
While the EU seeks an agreement with Libya to halt the influx of migrants across the Mediterranean, the prospect of a better life elsewhere is what all in rural Ethiopia talk about.
-OpEd- BERLIN — The expansion of Vladimir Putin’s authority is directly connected to his ability to exploit the weaknesses of Western democracies. But people continue to play down the danger that Putin poses. Could this prove to be a fatal error for our system of liberal democracy? “If you can’t beat them, join them,” or […]
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Merkel After The Christmas Market
For some, German Chancellor Angela Merkel has become both the economic and moral leader of Europe. From tackling the eurozone’s debt crisis to countering Russian ambitions to bucking the tide of populism to welcome a million refugees into her country last year, Merkel has been lauded for her quiet but principled pragmatism in the face […]
In Italian daily La Stampa, the Russian president writes that it’s time for the U.S. and Europe to trust Moscow as a partner in confronting the world’s problems.
–OpEd- BERLIN — It’s been said that house guests are like dead fish: After three days they start to smell. When it comes to government officials, it usually takes a little longer. Americans make a president clear out of the White House after eight years, at the latest. That’s smart. Heads of government in Germany […]
We first had “Merkozy,” a marriage of convenience between German Chancellor Angela Merkel and former French president Nicolas Sarkozy made to counter the European debt crisis. Then the pair was forced to part ways when Sarkozy lost to current French President Francois Hollande. Merkel and Hollande’s relationship was always awkward, with one newspaper saying “there […]
As Turkish President Erdogan pushes his country towards despotism, European Union leaders — especially in Germany — must take a harder line.
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Four Hundred Pleats
There are 400 pleats in the kilt-like fustanella worn by the Evzones guards who patrol Athens’ Syntagma Square. That’s one pleat per year of Ottoman occupation. Now I wonder what the pompoms on the clogs stand for …
Even for those who abhor the Republican nominee, it’s important to get the terminology right.