A member of the Italian Parliament goes undercover to protest for the rights of undocumented immigrants after images emerged of mistreatment at the rescue center in Lampedusa.
Category: Geopolitics
Photographs of world events from Chile to the Philippines to Paris and Brazil…
A Rafsanjani return?The former diplomat and Tehran-based commentator Sabah Zanganeh wrote in an item published Dec. 22 in the reformist daily Aftab-e Yazd that the former president Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani, considered Iran’s great “pragmatist” politician, could help engineer a rapprochement with regional rival Saudi Arabia, for the “trust” he inspired among Iranian and Saudi officialdom. Zanganeh […]
A widening corruption probe has been consuming Turkey in recent days. Figures close to the leading Justice and Development Party (AKP), including sons of cabinet members, are facing serious allegations of bribery and money laundering. The government is denying all accusations and claims the charges are part of a conspiracy with roots both foreign and […]
Dec. 24, 2014 MISSOURI POLICE KILL ANOTHER BLACK TEENA crowd of about 300 angry protesters gathered near Ferguson, Missouri, in the early hours this morning after St. Louis police shot and killed a teenager in the nearby town of Berkeley, NBC News reports. Local media reported that the victim, who police say was threatening an […]
Much has changed in the past 10 years. Oligarchs have been replaced by networks as the real challenge to Vladimir Putin’s power.
ALEPPO — The toll in what was once Syria’s thriving capital of commerce is also being measured by low temperatures and record snowfall. Activists say the people of Aleppo risk dying every day in unheated homes. The Syrian Network for Human Rights said that no fewer than 22 people died in Syria last week, including nine children, from sub-zero temperatures as lengthy power shortages were recorded. In Aleppo, once the country’s economic capital, electricity has been scarce since continued shelling took out power lines. The exorbitant prices of oil and diesel fuel, and even wood, prevented many from being able […]
Tuesday, December 23, 2014 U.S. SUSPECTED IN N. KOREA WEB OUTAGEInternet access has been partly restored in North Korea after the country found itself without any service for more than nine hours. It’s unclear whether it was the result of a coincidental glitch or of a cyber attack, though it comes just days after President […]
-Commentary- BERLIN — When two soldiers fell in the first hours of the French military operation that began last week in the Central African Republic, President Francois Hollande declared, “Morts pour la France.” Yes, killed for their country. But the young soldiers also lost their lives fighting for Europe, even if Europe has hardly shown […]
Monday, December 22, 2014 SOUTH KOREA NUCLEAR PLANTS THREATENEDSouth Korea’s nuclear plant operator has launched a two-day drill to check the safety of the country’s four power plants after a hacker leaked non-critical data and threatened further leaks yesterday, news agency Yonhap reports. It’s unclear whether it was connected to North Korea and the Sony […]
Morsi accused of “espionage”Mohamed Morsi, the former Egyptian president deposed in a military-backed coup this past summer, is facing charges alongside 35 other defendants. The charges? Espionage and aiding terrorism. Morsi was specifically accused of collaborating with the Palestinian political organization Hamas, in an alleged attempt to orchestrate what prosecutors characterize as an Islamist takeover. […]
The Sochi Olympics are to Putin what Saint Petersburg was to Peter The Great. Freeing rivals, such as Khodorkovsky and Pussy Riot, are one more step toward sealing his place in history.
BANGUI – Bibiane had a dreadful night. As torrents of rain came beating down on the capital of the Central African Republic, this 28-year-old mother, her two children, her parents and her seven brothers and sisters tried in vain to gather under a single canvas sheet, pocked with holes. Still, compared to the 35,000 to […]
From Melbourne to Moscow to Machu Picchu, we are all counting down the hours on an eventful 2013. News was made across the globe: deadly attacks at the Boston marathon and a Nairobi mall, national farewells in Venezuela and South Africa, revelations from Edward Snowden and Pope Francis, natural disasters, gay marriage debates and horsemeat […]
BRASILIA — The Brazilian government doesn’t like to talk about it publicly, but top officials are worried about the impact that Uruguay’s decision to legalize the production and sale of marijuana — the first nation to do so — will have on its larger neighbor to the north. Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff talked about it […]
December 19, 2014 KURDS BEAT ISIS ON MOUNT SINJARKurdish forces have broken a months-long ISIS siege on Mount Sinjar after a two-day offensive backed by U.S. airstrikes. The BBC describes it as the Kurds’ “biggest victory yet” against the terrorist group. Thousands of displaced people had been trapped on the mountain in northwestern Iraq since […]
Listen closelyAn Iranian parliamentarian reminded his colleagues — if they needed reminding — that all their mobile telephones were very likely bugged, Radio Free Europe’s Radio Farda website reported, citing several Iranian newspapers. Tehran Member of Parliament Ali Mottahari told a Dec. 9 student gathering in Tehran that his own office was bugged, with listening […]
MOSCOW – As they met in the Green Room at the Kremlin, Vladimir Putin and Viktor Yanukovych were sitting comfortably in armchairs, sharing each other’s worries about the drop in trade between their countries. Now, the Russian and Ukranian presidents told each other, is the time for decisive action, time to open up a new […]
TEHRAN — The charm and media savvy of Iran Foreign Affairs Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif have made him Tehran’s new wonder weapon. And over the last few days, he has put his arsenal to use in visits to four of the six Gulf States on a trust-building tour designed to cement links between the countries. […]
Wednesday, December 17, 2014 PAKISTAN MOURNS DEAD CHILDRENA three-day period of mourning began today in Pakistan, with vigils held in the country’s major cities and funerals in Peshawar, after Tuesday’s Taliban attack on a school in the northwest city that killed 141 people, including 132 children. The army began a series of massive air strikes […]
France defends “human dignity”, Spanish director slams Spain, the Mandela memorial fake sign-language interpreter speaks up … and other notable quotes from around the world.
With Sunday’s election of Michelle Bachelet in Chile, three of Latin America’s most pivotal countries are now led by women. There is symbolic unity, but very different types of leaders.
Tuesday, December 16, 2014 TALIBAN MASSACRES DOZENS IN SCHOOL ATTACKAt least 126 people, including at least 84 children, were killed and another 122 wounded when Taliban gunmen attacked an army-run school in Peshawar, in northern Pakistan, this morning, Dawn reports on its live blog. A rescue operation is still ongoing with more children believed to […]
In a rare sit-down with a reporter, Argentine pontiff responds to a wide range of questions from La Stampa’s Vatican correspondent about Marxism, divorce and the meaning of suffering.
Nelson Mandela is mourned in South Africa, authorities are challenged with music in Ukraine and more images capturing the news..
As France embarks on its third military intervention in Africa in the past three years, in the Central African Republic, a search for the sources of a continent’s perennial instability.
A writer in Damascus says Assad’s regime is trying every tactic to reduce its adversaries to something subhuman. “Kneel,” his soldiers laugh, “or you will go hungry …”
Your weekly shot of what the Arab world is saying, hearing and sharing.
Politics is not driving the past two weeks of police-led protests and looting, it’s the rising cost of living. Now, if the administration of President Cristina Kirchner would just deal with it.
Friday, December 12, 2014 HOUSE PASSES U.S. SPENDING BILLThe U.S. House of Representatives narrowly passed a $1.1 trillion spending bill to fund most government operations until September 2015, The New York Times reports. But the newspaper notes that the liberal base of the Democrat party formed an “unlikely alliance” with the Tea Party in opposition […]
For one prominent Polish columnist, all the European Union’s panting for expansion to the East may lead it to choke on its own ambitions.
Thursday, December 11, 2014 HONG KONG POLICE ARRESTS PROTESTERSBailiffs and police officers began a planned clearing operation of Hong Kong’s main protest site this morning, where the Occupy Central movement started more than two months ago. According to the South China Morning Post, dozens of protesters have been arrested, including radical lawmaker “Long Hair” Leung […]
The former boxing champion has been plucked by the Western media as the new face of Ukraine’s opposition. The situation is more complicated than that, even as risks for all rise.
MOSCOW — Last week’s U.S. criminal complaint alleging that Russian diplomats in New York systematically defrauded Medicaid reads like a low-down scam at its worse. Moscow, however, is convinced that it is actually the latest geopolitical chess move, the result of deteriorating relations between the two countries. As the accused diplomats prepare to return to […]
Wednesday, December 10, 2014 CALLS TO PROSECUTE AFTER CIA TORTURE REPORTThe United Nations Human Rights Council has called for the prosecution of U.S. officials “responsible for the criminal conspiracy” unveiled in the summary of a Senate report into the CIA’s post-9/11 interrogation methods, The New York Times reports. Praising the Obama administration for their courage […]
JOHANNESBURG – When Nelson Mandela was sworn in as president 19 years ago, he proclaimed that South Africa was entering “a covenant” to create a society that guaranteed human rights for both blacks and whites, “a rainbow nation at peace with itself and the world.” Mandela, who died on Thursday at the age of 95, […]
Tuesday, December 9, 2014 CIA TORTURE REPORT TO BE RELEASED Security has been tightened at U.S. embassies around the world and intelligence agencies have been asked to monitor more closely terrorist communications in anticipation of today’s release of a CIA torture report. The U.S. Senate will release the long-delayed report into the intelligence agency’s brutal […]
Monday, December 8, 2014 ISRAEL ACCUSED OF BOMBING SYRIA Syria has officially asked the United Nations to impose sanctions on Israel after accusing the Israeli military of bombing the international airport in Damascus and another target in the countryside near the Syrian capital. “This direct aggression by Israel was carried out to help the terrorists” […]
BEIJING — Both the definition of “Free-Trade Zone” and the “Pacific” should be called into question as the U.S. and Japan try to seal a deal on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) by the end of the year. As an ambitious multilateral trade cooperation mechanism outside the World Trade Organization (WTO), the TPP would not currently […]
JOHANNESBURG — “As long as he’s alive, his family members still refrain, but you’ll see when he passes away …” Earlier this year, a man close to several of Nelson Mandela’s relatives told Le Monde of his fear that the unity displayed during the moments of reverence around South Africa’s global icon of reconciliation, would […]