Worldcrunch
-OpEd- BOGOTA — The government of Ecuadoran President Rafael Correa released a somewhat Orwellian video last month that tries to turn the concept of dictatorship on its head. The soundtrack of the video, which touts the administration’s various achievements, is a schmaltzy pop song that goes: “If this is a dictatorship, then we’ve been had. […]
¡El Candidato! Jeb Bush Running For President, World Reaction by Worldcrunch
La Estrella de Panamá, June 16, 2015 A corruption scandal involving high-level politicians in Panama is spreading, now implicating members of the administration of current President Juan Carlos Varela. Luis Cucalón, former finance minister under previous President Ricardo Martinelli, had already been charged with misusing state funds intended for a private tax collection agency. But […]
The government’s failure to address crime, corruption and declining living standards risks true social upheaval. But Enrique Pena Nieto just sits on the ball.
Meet Alondra Metaute, a 38-year-old woman who wants to shake up a sleepy Colombian town.
Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) may not have enough seats to form a government if the main Kurdish party passes the 10% election threshold.
The return to office of Chile’s first woman President has been a veritable disaster. It is only partly her own making.
La Tercera, May 7, 2015 Hoping to hit the reset button on her slumping presidency, Chile’s Michelle Bachelet has decided to dump not just one or two ministers, but her entire cabinet. Bachelet made the stunning announcement during a Wednesday evening television interview, saying she “requested the resignation of all the ministers” and will take […]
German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen is a fighter. The authors of two new books about the daughter of the very conservative Ernst Albrecht envision the unconventional leader as the next chancellor.
-OpEd- PARIS — Some say that television shows are to our time what serials were to 19th century literature, an inexhaustible source of entertainment and conversations. During “urbane dinners,” it has become obligatory to demonstrate knowledge of this new cultural front. “Tell me which shows you watch and I’ll tell you who you are.” Besides […]
The European Union was built atop the rubble of so much bad history, meant to build democracy and keep peace among neighbors. But something came undone, and the union itself is now in mortal peril.
Lula da Silva spent liberally when the Brazilian economy was booming, leaving Dilma Rousseff to face the deferred impact of the global recession. His personal popularity aside, the country’s current woes are largely his fault.
Brazilians are furious as their personal prosperity slips away amid reports of runaway corrruption. All the while, President Rousseff looks forced to impose new austerity measures. Which way out?
Ambitious and unafraid to anger foe or friend, the 38-year-old Speaker of Parliament may be Greece’s most powerful woman. And fighting corruption is at the top of her agenda.
Scandals and stagnation, crime and curbs on democracy are spreading across the region. Are things about to take a sharp turn back to the bad old days?
BERLIN — Frank Underwood is a cult figure to those besotted by politics. The House of Cards protagonist is willing to walk over dead bodies to achieve absolute power. As the third season begins, we are obliged to ask ourselves why Germans have such a deep love for this American villain played by Kevin Spacey. […]
From Greece and Spain, to Brazil and beyond, people are no longer convinced that politics is working for the greater good.
Argentine President and faux pas expert Cristina Kirchner graced us with yet another verbal woopsie Wednesday, when she tweeted, while on a state visit to China seeking investment: Más de 1.000 asistentes al evento… ¿Serán todos de “La Cámpola” y vinieron sólo por el aloz y el petlóleo? … — Cristina Kirchner (@CFKArgentina) February 4, […]
BRASILIA — Not so many months ago, pollsters were saying she’d be Brazil’s next president. But now, three months after failing to make it to even the second round of the election, former Sen. Marina Silva is nowhere to be seen. The once high-flying candidate seems to have lost more than just a presidential race. […]
Political drama may have once served Argentine President Kirchner, but now national debt, corruption and the suspicious death of a prosecutor are turning the people against her.
The anti-corruption activist, under house arrest in Moscow, says that Putin is pursuing war in Ukraine to consolidate his power and fulfill his ambition to be Russia’s “president for life.”
“The Good King leaves, Salman becomes Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques,” Asharq Al-Awsat writes on its front page after King of Saudi Arabia Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al Saud died early Friday at age 90, three weeks after being hospitalized for pneumonia. One of the many sons of Ibn Saud, the founder of modern Saudi […]
While the United States’ political system is gridlocked by ideological poison, the German coalition government limits the benefits of bickering. A search for that perfect dose of acrimony.
PARIS — What just happened? This question, which is still on everybody’s lips after Sunday’s historic rallies, goes beyond the three days of massacres that have shaken France, and also applies to its president. François Hollande has indeed seen an astounding reversal of fortunes. His popularity was stuck at its lowest levels just a week […]
Argentina’s electoral routine fosters inequality and injustice, enabling opportunists to cash in. It’s time for a new approach.
-OpEd- SÃO PAULO — The ongoing corruption and money laundering scandals at Brazil’s state-owned oil company Petrobras have badly tarnished the image of the company. Once considered as a sort of national treasure, the public firm faces almost daily revelations about kickbacks paid to politicians from oil sales as part of a scheme to buy […]
The past year had lots of bad news, which had us saying lots of bad words, new and old: Ebola, jihadism, selfie. But as a reminder that local and national events often still hold sway, the Word of 2014 in Portugal was corrupção. Corruption was indeed on the lips and minds of Portuguese, as the […]
Guatemala-born Internet activist Gloria Alvarez believes that today’s protest movements contain, as politics always has, the seeds of future complacency, arrogance and corruption.
SINGAPORE — Jashodaben Modi arrives at the police station sitting on the luggage rack of her brother’s motor bike. A simple woman, she wears a white cotton sari with an orange top underneath, wire frame glasses, and her grey hair in a braid. She wants to lodge a complaint with the police of the Mehsana […]
The Argentine embassy in Paris has gathered pictures and objects that piece together the life of Eva Peron, the loved and loathed first lady who became a “mother” to the poor in 1940s.
Is this the rise of another Hugo Chavez for Latin America?
SLUPSK — One of the first things journalists wanted to know after the recent mayoral election in Slupsk, a small city in northern Poland, is what the winner planned to do with the Pope John Paul II portrait hanging in his mayor’s office. Will he remove it? Does he plan to rid the office of religious symbols? Obviously irritated, Mayor-Elect Robert Bierdron fired back with some queries of his own. “What are you even asking me about?” Bierdron responded. “Why don’t you ask me about my plans for Slupsk?” Already known throughout the country as the first openly gay member […]
Polygamy is rampant, women are woefully underrepresented in politics and without the same land rights of men. But some Kenyan males have launched a surprising protest to any threats to their privileges.
Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff edged out reelection, thanks in part to her charismatic predecessor Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. What role will he seek in her second term? Is he preparing to run in 2018?
Mario Vargas Llosa sits down with Clarin in the Nobel laureate’s home to explore why the hopes at Communism’s fall have been replaced by deep religious hatred and a secular cynicism.
Leftist movements in the Arab World are divided and marginalized, even after leading the region’s democracy uprisings. In Tunis, Arab leftists got together to try to reverse course.
Bolivians have given Evo Morales a clear presidential mandate, a vote of approval for his political skills and the benefits of an oil-driven economy. He now must shape a legacy for the future.
-OpEd- PARIS — We French love our rentrée littéraire. But with the launch of this year’s new literary season, dedicated in part to the memory of our American World War II allies, a new war is erupting. And the alliances seem to be changing. U.S.-based Trojan horse Amazon started the fight by targeting major French […]
Their economic philosophies may differ, but Ecuador’s President Rafael Correa and Colombia’s arch-conservative former president Alvaro Uribe, share a taste for the perpetuation of power.