If President López Obrador really wants to give his country peace and security, he’ll need to tackle criminal complicity among the powers that be.
Tag: government
Inflation and recession are doing little to bridge the South American nation’s deep political divide.
With the rise of social networking, fake news and changing psychologies, political parties have little use now for traditional campaigns.
As evidenced by this year’s elections in Mexico and Brazil, people across the region are increasingly disenchanted with traditional parties and the democratic status quo.
Facing severe social competition, China’s youngsters are under increasing academic pressure. Can a new government policy help ease their load?
It’s the silent (and sullied) face of an unprecedented presidency. The partial government shutdown that Donald Trump has brought on in his battle with congressional Democrats over funding for the president’s proposed border wall with Mexico has become the longest in U.S. history.
The outgoing Mexican president consolidated Mexico’s macroeconomic foundations. His socialist successor, the wildly popular López Obrador, may turn out to be a bigger disappointment.
While Mexico lurches left and Brazil shifts right, Argentina, under Mauricio Macri, will try to stay a centrist course — at least until next year’s presidential elections.
CAIRO — The Democratic Party chalked up victories across the United States in the midterm elections on November 6, gaining control of the House of Representatives for the first time in eight years. And even if the Republicans still hold control of the Senate, the outcome of the midterms breaks up the Republican monopoly in […]
The expanding movement to denounce sexual assault is a symptom of the problem, not the cure.
Young people with little memory of the Saddam Hussein era are fed up with unemployment, public sector corruption and unfulfilled government promises.
Jair Bolsonaro’s triumph in the first round of the presidential election is worrisome, but a simple response to economic hard times and a corrupt political class.
The Chinese public wants answers, and decisive government action, after learning that two vaccine manufacturers distributed substandard products.
The Catholic Church may have only itself to blame for failing to attract young people.
Police and pro-government paramilitaries have killed more than 200 people — including a 14-month-old boy — since a wave of anti-Ortega protests began in mid April.
MOSCOW — Nicolas Maduro has been reelected as Venezuela’s president for a new six-year term. Alexei Kolesnikov in the Moscow-based independent magazine The New Times looks at international reaction to the election, specifically as it relates to Russia: “Last month’s election of Maduro was clearly flawed and not recognized as legitimate by neither the country’s […]
Our new OneShot commemorates Vietnamese monk Thích Quảng Đức’s self-immolation, which took place exactly 55 years ago, on June 11, 1963. The images of this dramatic moment by Associated Press photographer, Malcom W. Browne, won both the World Press Photo of the Year and the Pulitzer Prize. [youtube https://www.youtube.com/embed/gaFZvscGsM8 expand=1] Thích Quảng Đức’s self-immolation, June 11, 1963 (© Malcolm W. Browne/Associated Press/Public Domain) OneShot is a new digital format to tell the story of a single photograph in an immersive one-minute video. Follow OneShot:
CAIRO — “Angry” was the way many described President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s improvised speech during the inauguration ceremony of the Zohr natural gas field on January 31. The president declared that the only way Egypt’s national security could be compromised was over his “dead body” and the “dead body of the military.” But with whom […]
What can the White House do, beyond public declarations? Loud statements not backed by action is not the answer.
The devastating earthquake in 1985 upended politics in Mexico. Could last month’s deadly disasters do the same?
-OpEd- BOGOTÁ — In August 1894, while traveling to Venezuela, the Colombian poet José Asunción Silva spent time in Cartagena de Indias, the colonial port on Colombia“s Caribbean coast. He wrote about his impressions of the city to his mother and sister. He had taken a liking to the locals, who were cheerful and informal, […]
CAIRO — Just north of the Egyptian capital, a short ferryboat ride will take you to the southern tip of the Nile island of Warraq. It has patches of agricultural land and scattered houses and deeper in, the island resembles a typical Cairo neighborhood with tightly-stacked buildings and narrow streets packed with motorcycles and tuk-tuks. […]
-Essay- Does anyone even read Henry David Thoreau anymore? Today, July 12, marks the 200th anniversary of the American poet and philosopher’s birth. And much is being said and written about him — not all of it flattering. His work is “anecdotal,” some say. Or “irrelevant,” “juvenile” even. To answer the initial question, I do. […]
Brexit could isolate Britain in its dispute with Argentina over the Falklands, though leaders in Buenos Aires need to think and speak clearly, or risk keep the status quo.
Right-wing populists are advancing in every corner of the world, but let’s not forget the Israeli prime minister who has been in power for years. Here’s his formula.
-Analysis- I want to avoid all possible misunderstandings so I’ll go straight to the point: I believe Donald Trump’s victory was the effect of an irreversible decline of representative democracy as a viable system of government. What leads me to this conclusion is not my antipathy towards the campaign that led him to victory, nor […]
O Globo, Nov. 17, 2016 “Attacks on the Legislature” was the headline Thursday morning on Brazilian newspaper O Globo after protesters calling for a military coup forced their way into Brazil’s lower chamber of Congress. The protestors in Brasilia, the country’s capital, pushed passed security guards and smashed a glass door before entering into the […]
Momentous national referendums in Colombia and Britain have shown how dangerous it can be to put complicated decisions in the hands of a fickle populous.
A truth and reconciliation commission is investigating crimes committed during Nepal’s decade-long internal conflict (1996-2006) between state security forces and Maoist rebels.
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It Is A ‘No’ For Rajoy
Spain’s political crisis has deepened, after the country’s acting prime minister, Mariano Rajoy, lost a parliamentary bid for a second term in office. “84 times no,” daily newspaper La Razón wrote on its front page, referring to the socialists who refused to back Rajoy’s attempt to stay in power. The leader of the opposition, Pedro […]
-Analysis- BEIJING — As the Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro come to an end, the Chinese delegation’s “failure” seems to be a foregone conclusion. Even in gymnastics, where it had excelled in the past, China won only two bronze medals, making it the worst performance of the past decade. The first reaction of the […]
Politicians are hiding behind complacent language instead of facing the challenges that their constituents are fired up about.
BEIJING — Chinese people watching American television series are exposed to an enviable image of an average middle class American family. Bound for a leafy neighborhood in the suburbs, a Chevrolet leaves the bustling city and rolls into the driveway of a wooden home on a quiet street. Two or three kids are playing on […]
Now that two of the world’s five biggest economies – Germany and Britain – are headed by women, and the biggest one of all, the U.S., has a woman front-runner in its presidential election, the glass ceiling in politics can probably be declared broken, and it’s time to consider what kind of change this brings to the world. The overall statistics of female leadership do not look particularly encouraging. There are fewer women heads of government today than there were last year. Not even 5% of government leaders are women. Yet they are winning where it matters: If there were […]
BEIJING — China’s copycat culture is so deeply ingrained that along with the mock mobile phones, counterfeit clothing and faux food packaging, there is also an abundance of supposedly civic minded NGOs that are also effectively counterfeit knock-offs. Last week, the Chinese Ministry of Civil Affairs published a list of 203 illegitimate civil society organizations. […]
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‘The End’ For South Africa President Zuma?
South African President Jacob Zuma is facing new accusations of influence peddling, in what may be the most perilous scandal of his political career. On its front page Friday, Cape-Town-based Afrikaans-language daily Die Burger asked if this was “The End?” for the South African leader. Senior public figures accused the Gupta family of close ties […]
Jornal de Noticias, Jan. 25, 2015 “Marcelo crowned,” Portuguese daily Jornal de Noticias writes on its front page Monday, as center-right candidate Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa won Sunday’s presidential election with 52% in the first round, a resounding victory otherwise marked by a low turnout of just 48.8%. “The people command, and the people chose […]
German Chancellor Angela Merkel had been immune to crisis, so far. But now that the government coalition is divided about the country’s open-door policy, things are about to change.
TIANJIN — In the frenzy of China’s real estate speculation, what goes up must sometimes come down — right away. Two brand new 31-story buildings and another 65-story skyscraper are set to be demolished in China’s northeast port city of Tianjin after undergoing unauthorized design changes during construction. According to the China Times, the three […]
Government transparency is considered something of a Scandinavian specialty. And Taiwan? After having ranked 36th in 2013 and 11th last year, the Asian island nation has shot to the top of this year’s Global Open Data Index, the China Times reports. It is the first time a non-European country has topped the annual ranking from […]