Le Monde’s editorial board warns that the brutal killing of a middle school teacher is another direct attack on the same basic freedoms targeted in France since the Charlie Hebdo murders in 2015.
Category: Geopolitics
Prostitution was officially a crime in German Democratic Republic. But documentary filmmaker Axel Nixdorf discovers how widely it was tolerated, and even encouraged,
Italy was hit particularly hard and early by the first wave when northern region of Lombardy became the first epicenter of the virus in the West. Now all eyes are on the less developed, more vulnerable southern regions.
In Lebanon and Iraq, two countries that Iran’s clerical regime has long tried to control, some Shias are fed up with Tehran’s machinations and affiliated militia groups.
No country has profited from the Pax Americana as much as Germany. Now, as U.S. influence wanes, it has a key role to play in filling the power vacuum.
Valuable pieces of art have a special appeal to people in organized crime, both as trophies — conveying power and prestige — and as a means to launder ill-gained earnings.
A leader can, in good conscience, conceal dysfunctions, hide problems or mitigate difficulties. Telling white lies allows him to restore hope for his allies, and rekindle their desire to act. But what happens when it is the very definition of self-serving
The European Court of Justice has squashed the law that forced George Soros and his Central European University (CEU) to leave Budapest. It brought up ghosts from near and distant pasts.
Every U.S. election carries consequences beyond America’s borders. But Nov. 3 stands out for multiple reasons: a lethal pandemic has killed more than one million people across the world, once thriving economies are in tatters, U.S. isolationism has created an international power vacuum that is allowing right-wing autocrats to thrive across continents. And then, there’s […]
Lebanese have long emigrated to Europe and elsewhere. But not like during this crisis: on clandestine boats, in a perilous trip toward the island of Cyprus.
The current U.S. president has made life decidedly difficult for the Islamic Republic. But would a Biden victory really do much to benefit Iran’s ailing regime?
The news that Donald Trump has been infected with COVID-19 echoed around the world, making front pages and prompting a gush of wishes from leaders in all continents — and snark from many corners. In the night between Oct. 1 and 2, U.S. Eastern Time, the U.S. president confirmed on Twitter that he and his […]
Ahead of the Nov. 3 election, this is an October Surprise that has four full weeks to play out.
-Analysis- LIMA — Last August, U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration published its Western Hemisphere Strategic Framework paper, which designated the Western Hemisphere — North and South America — as a “geo-political priority for the United States.” National Security Adviser Robert C. O’Brien, who presented the document, insisted the region was incredibly important to the United […]
Under pressure both at both home and abroad, the Islamic Republic’s clerical regime is using capital punishment to sow fear and force compliance.
Italian populist party leader Matteo Salvini’s disappointing results in regional elections is being blamed on his erratic handling of the health crisis in one of the worst-hit countries.
An indigenous tribe in Brazil’s Amazon region has seen plenty of coronavirus cases, but zero deaths.
From Rosa Parks and Malala Yousafzai to Golda Meir and Corazon Aquino, women activists and political leaders have led the fight for gender equality and human rights around the world over the past century. But as the tributes keep pouring in for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died on Sept. 18 at […]
Though it may undermine free speech, Ethiopians seem accepting of government-ordered Internet shutdowns to curb rioting fomented online.
While the U.S.-China rivalry is not yet a repetition of the Cold War, it will have repercussions for Latin American states at a time of acute regional weakness.
The pandemic has delivered yet another blow to the increasingly irrelevant, UN-led multilateral system that was created after World War II.
Testimony from Afghan and Somali migrants, as well as locals on Greek island of Lesbos, where Europe’s largest migrant camp has burned to the ground, leaving 13,000 migrants without shelter.
TURIN — Two months from election day, we can leave no doubt: Donald Trump is taking the Republican Party for a ride toward the Apocalypse. The Republic convention was a frantic exercise in stoking of fear, violence and social unrest in the U.S. — a country already burning, scared, angry and almost never so divided. […]
Several reform-minded Iranian economists say President Rouhani’s government has been unable to curb inflation, shore up the currency or even absorb liquidity through constructive taxation.
Argentina must boost its scientific activities in the South Atlantic and maintain diplomatic pressures on Great Britain as part of its efforts to recover the Falklands.
MILAN — I recently spent a weekend at the Lago d’Iseo, a picturesque area of Lombardy at the foot of the Alps east of Milan, the city where I live. The air was hot and still, resting damp and heavy like a warm towel placed over your face. Dark clouds loomed all day across the […]
SÃO PAULO — One of the world’s most important biodiversity regions is experiencing the worst drought and the worst series of wildfires in decades. Yes, the Pantanal, the world’s largest tropical wetland area, in western Brazil, is burning. So far this year, fires have scorched more than 1.2 million hectares of land, about eight times […]
The bombastic president seems to have little regard for precedence or decorum. But is he just an anomaly? And if not, what happens if he loses?
From Zoom changing the way we work to artificial intelligence changing the way we shop, we’ve gotten used to reading about how information technology influences our daily habits and drives the world economy. But lately, we’re also seeing technology make more and more front-page headlines in the realm of politics and diplomacy. U.S. President Donald […]
Argentines were hoping Alberto Fernández would be autonomous from his VP and former president Cristina Kirchner. But he’s beginning to look like the puppet that former Russian President Dimitri Medvedev was to Putin.
BERLIN — Over the past two weeks, since the allegations of election rigging in Belarus, there have been calls for Germany to open a dialogue with Russia. As if the country with the world’s largest nuclear arsenal and a permanent seat in the UN Security Council is nothing more than a wayward child that Germany […]
The opponents of ‘Europe’s last dictator’ are trying to avoid loss of life and focusing new energy on labor strikes.
Mexico’s socialist president is fanning class resentments and threatening Mexico’s fragile social peace, while delivering little of the welfare he promised in 2018.
Desperate for a chance to boost the economy and create some much needed jobs, Buenos Aires is ready to sign off on what environmentalists call a ‘pandemics factory.’
As borders closed and lockdowns were rolled out around the world, the steady flow of illegal immigration that has plagued southern Europe for years was also temporarily halted. But new arrivals are now accelerating again, and some of the countries hit hardest by the pandemic are now also forced to deal with a worsening refugee […]
For a long time, urbanization has been one of the defining features of our societies — a tendency that has accelerated with the growth of the information economy, with now half the world’s population living in cities. But some believe that we may have reached a peak, as COVID-19 has not only paused the trend […]
PARIS — Last week’s explosion at a port warehouse in Beirut, which killed at least 200 and caused a minimum of $5 billion in damage, should serve as a sobering wake-up call for countries that have equally (or more) dangerous chemical reserves. Beyond the human toll and material consequences, the catastrophic event has also triggered […]
Artist Balvir Singh and his murals of revolutionaries like Che Guevara and Lenin have helped rekindle socialist ideas in his home state of Punjab.
While some countries stopped doing business with the Islamic Republic, others keep engaging in commerce but refuse to pay what they owe. What gives?
A largely unknown figure until recently, candidate Svetlana Tsikhanovskaya is now challenging to end the 26-year presidency of Alexander Lukashenko.