Worldcrunch
Welcome to Thursday, where Israel announces a 3rd national lockdown, a Brexit deal looks imminent, and we’ve got the price for zooming with Santa in Lapland. We also look at the effects the pandemic is having on the gig economy. SPOTLIGHT: JOE BIDEN’S REAL CHALLENGE: MOVING BEYOND ANTI-TRUMPISM President-elect Joe Biden’s ample support base is […]
Welcome to Wednesday, where Trump blocks U.S. stimulus package, the last continent gets its first COVID cases and Messi breaks Pele’s record. We also discover the different ways the world’s teachers kept 1.5 billion students learning through the pandemic’s lockdowns. SPOTLIGHT: A HUMAN MUTATION: PANDEMIC TRIALS, TRANS SPECIES VISIONS Seeing Manel de Aguas can prompt […]
In loudly rejecting President’s Trump threat to label Mexican drug gangs terrorists, Mexico’s government is covering its failure, if not reluctance, to tackle systemic corruption and its offspring, crime.
Alberto Fernández takes office with a well-known left-leaning world view, but in a Latin American region increasingly dominated by the right.
-OpEd- MOSCOW — Despite the predictions before this past week’s NATO summit of a major split in the alliance, and some awkward moments among its respective leaders, the meeting itself concluded without any real substantive complications. Even traditional anti-globalist clashes we’ve come to expect from these kinds of gatherings were absent. As for Russia, it […]
President Trump’s erratic strikes against the world’s trading regime require a collective response, as unilateral state reprisals cannot check an ‘arrogant’ U.S. administration.
The U.S. president has a history of strong-arming trading partners. But the move to tax things like French wine and Spanish olives is actually justified.
The U.S. president’s abrupt decision to withdraw troops from northern Syria was short-lived. But backpedal as he might, the damage is already done.
The impeachment storm in Washington comes with high stakes in Ukraine as well, especially for the country’s own TV-star-turned-President.
It would not be the first time Brazil and Argentina vie to clinch privileged ties with Washington, though for its economic weight and its president’s conservative fervor, Brazil may be ahead in this game.
After Trump fired hawkish U.S. official John Bolton, who had repeatedly threatened Venezuela’s regime with military action, Maduro may have the opening he’s been waiting for.
The U.S. president has little regard for the rules of trade and diplomacy, as evidenced by the extortion tactics he just pulled off with Mexico.
By distinguishing between refugees and migrants, international law underestimates the plight of people displaced by poverty and climate change.
President Donald Trump’s threat to raise tariffs against Mexico over immigration is political blackmail, and potentially makes nonsense of any trading deal with the U.S.
WASHINGTON — Next, more of the same, but with more entrenched division, a bitter crossfire of allegations and then, finally, a reckoning in the form of the 2020 presidential election. The long-awaited conclusion of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election is likely to harden congressional Republicans’ wall of support for President Trump, strengthen Democratic demands to hold Trump to account — and result in little change in public opinion, according to historians and politicians who have studied past national scandals. Mueller’s conclusion — he found no evidence of collusion with Russia but […]
The aggressive Republican stance on Venezuela reflects an attempt to seduce Latino voters in Florida.
The straight-talking senator from Vermont energized the 2016 presidential race. But he faces a very different playing field this time around.
As tensions between Washington an Beijing continue to build, smaller nations like Argentina should stay out of the fray and instead strengthen regional integration.
There is a concerted push underway to remove the Venezuelan leader from power. But there’s no guarantee it’ll work.
The Trump administration had more than America’s commercial deficit with Mexico in mind when it demanded an overhaul of the 25-year-old North American trade deal.
From Spain’s Podemos to Noam Chomsky, many left-wingers around the world are too blinded by ideology to see the Venezuelan crisis for what it really is.
Jonatan Matamoros, 36, climbs the border fence at La Playas de Tijuana, Mexico on December 8, 2018. He was part of a migrant caravan with his wife and son from Central America, and was scouting for possible places to cross to the U.S. eventually. He was just having fun at Playas de Tijuana border, looking […]
-OpEd- TOKYO — The United States has turned to inward-looking politics, while the unifying force of Europe has waned due to rampant populism and confusion in Britain, Germany and France. The pillars that have sustained global stability are seemingly fading away. Given the situation, we cannot but be wary of confusion stemming from the intense […]
-OpEd- WASHINGTON — Two newly released reports from the Senate Intelligence Committee about Russian interference in the 2016 election have been nothing short of revelatory. Both studies — one produced by researchers at Oxford University, the other by the cybersecurity firm New Knowledge — describe in granular detail how the Russian government tried to sow discord and confusion among American voters. And both conclude that Russia’s campaign included a massive effort to deceive and co-opt African Americans. We now have unassailable confirmation that a foreign power sought to exploit racial tensions in the United States for its own gain. Ever […]
And why he’ll never be the savior they’re looking for…
Even as it contends still with Brexit and the rise of right-wing populists, the European Union did enjoy some ‘almost good news’ this year.
-Analysis- WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump pledged in his campaign that he would not be predictable. He’s more than lived up to that promise this week, and along the way, he has made a hash out of the way business is being done in Washington. Three times this week, Trump abruptly and unexpectedly changed course, lending credence to perceptions of a presidency in chaos. The biggest bombshell came Thursday afternoon, when Trump announced that Defense Secretary Jim Mattis would leave the administration at the end of February, and Mattis’s resignation letter explicitly stated that he and the president were not […]
-Analysis- NEW YORK — What a difference two decades make. In 1997, China’s gross domestic product was about 11% of the U.S’s. By 2017, it was up to 63%. But this overstates the difference in living standards between the two countries, since prices are generally lower in China. In purchasing-power-parity terms, China’s economy became the world’s largest in about 2013. So which country’s economy is really bigger? The truth probably lies somewhere between these two figures. If China were to abolish its capital controls and open its currency to foreign speculation, there’s a good chance the yuan would rise in […]
The EU remains a work in progress, especially with Britain’s messy exit efforts. But if there’s one constant, it’s that Europe still needs France and Germany to be partners.
Far-right and far-left from around the world voice support for the popular uprising in France.
In the West, the era of grand, strategic pacts between nation-states seems to have come and gone. But in Asia, the trend may just be catching on.
Rowdy fans added to the annals of soccer stupidity by forcing organizers to cancel the hugely anticipated Copa Libertadores final in Buenos Aires.
WASHINGTON — On the night of the midterm elections, my wife and I organized an open house, inviting friends and people from all walks of life to watch the results. The TV was on, but instead of staring at the screen and following the constant predictions of electoral victories and losses, people were interacting and […]
-OpEd- BERLIN — Thousands of students marched through Tehran last weekend, and state television broadcast the protest march live. The crowd burned U.S. flags and pictures of President Donald Trump in front of the building of the former U.S. embassy. And, yes, they chanted: “Death to America.” After the U.S. withdrawal from the nuclear treaty […]
America’s midterm elections saw Democrats recapture the House, but lose ground in the Senate. A nation as divided as ever, though with new checks on Trump.
-Analysis- BERLIN — Democracies are made of constant ups and downs. Sometimes one party is on top, the next it’s another. And what may look like a dramatic election result often is, in reality, nothing more than the natural ebb and flow that characterizes healthy democracies. Every now and then, however, comes a moment when […]
The tendency of politicians in Latin America (and beyond) to cite Christ in their speeches may indicate both megalomania and contempt for institutional democracy.
This is what they had long been fearing. As the threats increased, as the online abuse grew increasingly vicious, as the defacing of synagogues and community centers with swastikas became more commonplace, the possibility of a violent attack loomed over America’s Jewish communities. On Saturday, the worst of those fears was made real as a gunman stormed a Pittsburgh synagogue, killing at least 11 of its members and injuring many more, reportedly shouting “All Jews must die” during his rampage. It is the worst single attack on American Jews in the history of the country. And it is one that […]
The U.S. has long enjoyed hegemony over the 2.7-million sq km Caribbean basin. But whether Washington likes it or not, Beijing is showing that it too wants a piece of the pie.
The Venezuelan crisis impacts Colombia directly. But military intervention, as hinted by Trump, could be disastrous.