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In The News

From Colombia, A Passionate Defense Of Casting A Blank Vote

The choice of two radical candidates in Colombia’s second round of presidential elections does not oblige people to vote for one or the other. Let them cast a blank vote.

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In The News

Speak Sisi: Tracking Egypt’s President Evolution Through His Words

Set for a second term, Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has evolved in tone and substance over the past four years: from soft-spoken insider to all-powerful leader.

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In The News

China, Deconstructing Xi Jinping’s Imperial Temptation

By becoming president for life, Xi Jinping is bringing China back to its imperial history, taking advantage of the exceptional development of his country but also of America’s mistakes. But Chinese coming fortunes are still very much up in the air.

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Evo Morales, Economic Success Can Never Justify Autocracy

The legalistic formula the Bolivian leader has found to perpetuate his presidency is despotic and shameful.

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In The News

Lourenço’s Turn, The Past Hanging Over Angola’s New President

João Lourenço succeeds José Eduardo Dos Santos, who ruled with an iron fist since 1979. But Dos Santos has been busy keeping his hands on the levers of power.

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Eyes on the U.S. Geopolitics Trump And The World

Mike Pence Is Dull And Conservative And He’s Still Our Best Hope

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Donald Trump’s presidency has produced a proliferation of Eeyores. It’s not their (our) fault. However dismal one’s view of current American politics, Trump is sure to expose it, with a tweet or the lack of one, as a naive and rosy fantasy. Each day, we adjust our sights down. Each day, the president forces our gaze lower. Some conservatives might take comfort in the prospect — wish, really — of a President Mike Pence assuming office before the current occupant’s term is up. The Indiana Republican is as dull and serviceable a politician as Trump is bizarre […]

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In The News

How Lula’s Corruption Case Could Return Him To The Presidency

Even as Brazil’s current president Michel Temer is facing corruption allegations, his nemesis and former president Lula was in court last week on bribery charges that he aims to use as a weapon in a possible return to power.

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Ideas Trump And The World

Hey World, Look Who’s Coming To Dinner

-Analysis- Donald Trump is not afraid of flying. Since taking office, he’s made it a habit to board Air Force One for back-and-forth weekend visits to his Mar-a-Lago Florida golf resort. But today, four months into his presidency, he takes off for his first overseas trip, with six international flights scheduled over eight days and […]

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In The News

How Trump’s Big Mouth Sounds To The World

-Analysis- Last week, just a day after the abrupt dismissal of FBI Director James B. Comey set off the worst round of criticism Donald Trump’s young presidency, the next — and perhaps even more damaging — controversy was being ignited. The Washington Post is reporting that Trump allegedly revealed highly classified information to Russian Foreign […]

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In The News

Paris To Berlin, A Unique Chance For Europe

-Analysis- Some new presidents wait three months until they make their first overseas trip. Not Emmanuel Macron. Following in the footsteps of his predecessors Nicolas Sarkozy and François Hollande, the freshly-elected, 39-year-old French president headed to Berlin today, just 24 hours after his inauguration. A stronger, more united Europe sits at the top of Macron’s […]

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In The News

Man In A Hurry, The Dazzling Rise Of Emmanuel Macron

PARIS — He wanted to be a writer. He’ll be president of the French Republic instead — what a tale to tell! The story of a young advisor to the king who, taken aback by his master’s powerlessness, somehow decides to replace him and try and conquer the Elysée palace, alone against the world, overcoming […]

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In The News

France Votes, The World Watches

PARIS — The hour is nigh. On Sunday, French voters, as well as abstainers, (expected to rise in numbers since the first-round ballot on April 23) will decide who, between Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen, will lead the country for the next five years. One way or another, their choice and its consequences will […]

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In The News

In France, Why Children Of Immigrants Have Turned To Le Pen

COULOMMIERS — In the working-class outskirts of Paris, people are counting. They count the number of houses now occupied by people from an immigrant background. “There are four Arabs opposite my house, four others at the end of the street, on the right-hand side, and one Black guy to the left,” says 88-year-old Micheline, who […]

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Eyes on the U.S. Ideas Trump And The World

Duterte And Trump, When Tough Talk Leads To Deadly Action

WASHINGTON, D.C. — During his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination, Donald Trump boasted that “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters.” On the 100th day of his presidency, Trump invited Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, who has said that he used to roam the streets on a motorcycle looking for criminals to kill, to the White House. A Duterte state visit to Washington or Mar-a-Lago would be a ghastly spectacle, given the way the Philippines have pursued a war on drugs even more literal than the one in the United […]

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In The News

French Election: A Nation Of Reason Sliding Into Political Extremism

Four candidates, including one from the extreme left and one for extreme right, are in a virtual dead heat ahead of Sunday’s election. But the problem runs much goes deeper than tight polls.

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In The News

Our Identity Is At Stake, The Marine Le Pen Interview

After Trump and Brexit surprise victories with the support of disenchanted voters, the populist right-wing candidate in France is feeling supremely confident.

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In The News

A President’s Downfall, Nepotism And A Ghost Town In Sri Lanka

Mahinda Rajapaksa, who was credited with defeating Tamil guerillas, lost his bid for reelection in 2015. Now, his local fiefdom is suffering.

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In The News

Trump’s Big Mouth On German Front Page

I love Germany. I love Great Britain. I love Mexico. I love free trade. I like Angela Merkel, but I don’t know her. I liked President Obama. He was very nice. He was very nice in personal conversations. Maybe not so nice for the rest. NATO is obsolete. Apart from that, it’s still very important […]

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In The News

Trump’s Aggressive Handshake Diplomacy

The refrain has continued ever since Donald Trump stunned the world with his election victory: “But what will he actually do?” As the two-plus month interregnum winds down, ahead of the Jan. 20 inauguration, some (but not all) of the answers have begun to emerge. The first clear message is that he will nominate whomever […]

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In The News

Death Of Rafsanjani: The Meaning Of ‘Reform’ In Iran

TEHRAN — When a major political leader dies, the labels and comparisons acquired over a lifetime can tell us much about both the leader and the nation itself. Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a veteran of the 1979 Iranian Revolution who later evolved into a reformist, has been called over the years everything, from the “General of […]

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In The News

François Hollande, The President That Never Was

French President Hollande, who announced he will not seek reelection, led a series of mishaps and failures, down to the indignity of his last public speech.

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Eyes on the U.S. Geopolitics

How A Trump Presidency Looks In The Middle East

The election of Donald Trump as the next president of the United States has prompted several reactions, with those who see his political ascension as the beginning of a new phase of political unrest — of which the Arab world is feared to carry the lion’s share — being gripped by panic. Immediately following the […]

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In The News

Victory Week, 22 Donald Trump Magazine Covers Around The World

UNITED STATES TIME Washington City Paper The New Yorker BRAZIL Veja Carta Capital PERU Caretas UNITED KINGDOM The Economist The Spectator New Statesman SWEDEN Fokus FRANCE Courrier International Le Point GERMANY Stern ITALY Internazionale PORTUGAL Visão UKRAINE Korrespondent SERBIA Nedeljnik SLOVENIA Mladina INDIA The Week India Today INDONESIA Koran Tempo HONG KONG Yazhou Zhoukan

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Eyes on the U.S. Geopolitics

How Trump Will Feed European Populism — And Could Destroy The EU

With the American billionaire heading to the White House, the European establishment is quaking in its boots.

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In The News

Trump Times, 39 Newspaper Front Pages From Around The World

A German daily goes upside-down, the French see “Psycho,” Australians drop a WTF, and more …

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In The News

“Trump Triumphs” – Next American President On NYT Front Page

After a long day at the voting booths, Americans, and the world, watched and waited to see who the next American president would be. In the final, and to many, shocking, twist to this historical and polarizing campaign, Donald J. Trump was elected the 45th president of the United States. Trump, the billionaire businessman turned […]

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Eyes on the U.S. Trump And The World

Trump Or Clinton? Arab-Americans’ Surprising Ambivalence

The navy blue Porsche, casual clothes and sparkling eyes of Fady Chamoun scream: “American Dream.” He came from Lebanon in 1972 to study engineering at the University of Michigan and stayed after the outbreak of civil war in 1975 in his homeland. He wouldn’t trade the life he’s built in Cleveland for anything. Over the […]

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In The News

House For Rent

House for rent, move in date after Nov. 8. Quiet neighborhood, 18 acres of grounds, well-equipped security system. (Exterior unchanged from date of photograph, alterations to interior; tenant at the time: George H. W. Bush.)

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blog

French First Lady Julie Gayet Breaks Silence, Poses For Magazines

PARIS — Breaking more than two years of public silence, actress Julie Gayet, the long presumed companion of French President Francois Hollande, appears on two major French magazine covers this week. Gayet has guarded her privacy after her affair with the French President was revealed in January 2014 in a gossip magazine while Hollande was […]

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blog

Nicolas Sarkozy’s Presidential Bid On France’s Front Pages

Libération, Aug. 23 Former right-wing French President Nicolas Sarkozy, 61, announced he’s running for the 2017 presidential election. “What is worse is that he may win,” leftist newspaper Libération lamented on its front page. The daily has a point: Socialist President François Hollande faces record unpopularity, making re-election an uphill battle if he plans to […]

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blog

Front Page In Philippines: ‘Have Decency’ President Duterte

Philippine Daily Inquirer, Aug. 19 Philippines’ maverick president Rodrigo Duterte has declared a new war of words against Senator Leila de Lima, whom he accused of being an “immoral” woman with a “very sordid personal and official life” and linked to the illegal drug trade. “If you are bent on destroying me, please have the […]

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Eyes on the U.S. Ideas

Clinton To Counter Trump’s Gloom-And-Doom Message

-OpEd- The Democratic National Convention will feature plenty of well-earned criticism of Donald Trump’s isolationist, revisionist, immoral and self-contradicting foreign policy agenda. But if Hillary Clinton wants to win the argument, she must also convince voters that the world is not in the catastrophic state that Trump would have them believe. Foreign policy was always going to be a big part of the 2016 presidential election, as far as the Clinton campaign was concerned. Its candidate spent four years as secretary of state and is running on her record of service. What the Clinton team did not anticipate is that […]

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Eyes on the U.S. Trump And The World

Clinton Makes History. My Generation, With No Sense of History, Doesn’t Care

A millennial explains why her peers aren’t excited about the likely first female major-party nominee for U.S. president

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blog

New Argentine President Sworn In

La Capital, Dec. 11, 2015 “I want to be the president of a united Argentina,” Argentina’s oldest daily La Capital quotes the country’s new leader Mauricio Macri as saying on its front page Friday, a day after he was sworn in as president. Predecessor Cristina Fernández de Kirchner boycotted Macri’s inauguration after a bitter dispute […]

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blog

Extra! Impeached Guatemalan President Jailed For Corruption

Guatemala’s parliament voted to sack President Otto Pérez Molina Thursday, forcing his resignation and immediate arrest for his suspected participation in an extensive corruption ring. Like an ordinary felon, he will have to “answer to justice,” the daily Publinews wrote on its front page. Publinews Guatemala and other Guatemalan dailies also showed the former president […]

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Eyes on the U.S. Geopolitics

At Home In Kenya With Obama’s Grandma

As the U.S. President visits his father’s homeland, an exclusive encounter with the now 94-year-old woman who raised Barack Obama Sr.

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Geopolitics Ideas

Mexico Malaise: Democracy Lessons For Pena Nieto From Brazil And Chile

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.

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Geopolitics Society

Unraveling The Putin Enigma, From The Inside

They’ve known him from up close, and their insights help explain the mystery of the Russian president’s rise. And, perhaps, what he’ll do next.

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Eyes on the U.S. Geopolitics

Hillary’s In, And The World Reacts

Hillary Rodham Clinton’s Sunday announcement that she’s running in the 2016 presidential race, her second bid to become the first female U.S. president, drew news coverage from around the world, with one German newspaper even using the English headline, “The Very First Lady.” Via a short video (watch below) on her campaign website, the former […]

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blog

Extra! Moroccan Weekly Features Francois Hollande As Hitler

The Jan. 29 front page of Morocco’s weekly magazine Alwatan Alane features French President Francois Hollande wearing a Nazi outfit, complete with a swastika armband and Adolf Hitler’s trademark mustache. The controversial photomontage is accompanied by the title, “Will the French revive Hitler’s concentration camps to exterminate Muslims?” Contacted by francetv info, publication director Abderrahim […]

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