Moscow is quietly working toward a federal future for war-torn Syria, with a central government but the nation divided into three different ethnic zones. It’s a nod to Kurdish ambitions and lessons from the Balkans.
Category: Geopolitics
Switzerland-born globetrotter Olivier Racine does things because he can. He wanted to give the North Korean dictator two gifts from his country, a giant Toblerone chocolate bar and a piece of the Matterhorn mountain. This excerpt from his recently publish
Thirty years after the Chernobyl catastrophe and five years after Fukushima, scientists have had a chance to quantify their impact.
Former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva was detained as part of a widespread corruption scandal at state oil giant Petrobras. But the probe could actually prove to be the spark to help him succeed Dilma Rousseff.
A woman’s movement challenging a centuries-old practice of denying women entry into the most sacred areas of worship in Hindu temples and Muslim shrines is generating a heated debate across India.
-Analysis- BEIJING — China has always been clear about its “firm opposition” to North Korea“s development of a nuclear weapons program. But as the international community’s negotiation over the issue has stalled, Pyongyang continues to develop its nuclear technology. It is a provocation that leaves China little room for diplomatic maneuver. China has carried out […]
The earthquake and subequent nuclear diaster in Fukushima were no doubt devastating, but Japan still struggles to quantify the number of deaths linked to them.
A combination of political differences, bungling of protocol and lack of sensitivity seem to have further gnarled relations between Argentine President Mauricio Macri and fellow countryman Pope Francis.
PALAWAN — It’s the middle of a grueling practice for young women competing in a local beauty pageant. They sashay back and forth in high heels to perfect their walk without tripping. Their trainer, Thom Avila, explains the rigors of his beauty boot camp. “When the girls wake up, we start the day with jogging,” he says. “After jogging, we have breakfast, followed by walking exercises. After that, we teach them how to put on makeup and that is followed by question and answer exercises.” Most of his students come from impoverished backgrounds. One of them is Janicel Lubina, 20, […]
The French island of Reunion in the Indian Ocean is a place of green experimentation, but economic and climate realities make sustainability a huge challenge.
SALLA — On the door of the tourism bureau in Salla, Finland, there’s a poster proudly informing visitors that they are “in the middle of nowhere.” That much is indisputable: Salla is a dark, remote place, lost in the middle of hundreds of miles of Laponian pine forests and covered in a thick mantle of […]
The internationally brokered ceasefire had a rocky start. While the first 24 hours passed relatively quietly, Russian and Syrian government air strikes picked up again on Sunday, with airplanes targeting towns and villages controlled by the Free Syrian Ar
BEIJING — Zhang Wenyi is bullish on Amazon in China, which he says is already the U.S. retailer’s fastest-growing market in the world. Zhang is Amazon’s vice-president and general manager of Amazon Kindle in China, and the recent press conference of Kindle’s annual eBook reading behavior report was a chance to demonstrate how fast growth […]
-Analysis- MIAMI — The gradual renewal of ties between the United States and Cuba no longer qualifies as news. Both sides have put aside their prerequisites for sitting and talking — an end to the embargo for Cuba, and Cuba pledging to change its political system. Each country has followed a basic script guiding both […]
The village of Sutera was facing demographic doom as young people have been leaving for generations. Then locals started to wonder about those migrants coming to Italy.
LUNEL — Tac trimmed his beard and cut his hair short. He also stopped wearing his long prayer shirt. After the Paris attacks in November, he thought, the police were bound to come looking for him. Even his family had gotten into the habit of calling him “Daesh” (acronym for ISIS) as a joke about […]
Over-the-top expectations at universities, where researchers are required not just to publish but to generate significant grant revenue, are likely to dissuade young people from pursuing scientific careers.
Many locals in Lebanon’s capital are firm Hezbollah and Assad loyalists, seeing the Islamist militia that supports the Syrian regime and fights ISIS on the ground as their ultimate protector against the civil war raging across the border.
Iran is holding elections for two assemblies on Friday, the unicameral “Islamic” parliament (Majles) and the Assembly of Experts (Majles-e khobregan), a body of clerics and “experts” deemed versed enough in public affairs and laws to merit choosing, in time, the next supreme leader. It is the most important election in Iran since the 2013 […]
PARIS — Pinpointed strikes, carried out covertly: This is France’s strategy to face down the threat of ISIS in Libya. A senior French official has confirmed to Le Monde that “the last thing that should be done is to intervene in Libya. Avoiding any open military engagement, we must act discreetly.” In Libya where France […]
SUEZ CANAL — In Port Said, Egypt, at the mouth of the Suez Canal, three private guards, one from Romania and two from Ukraine, board the Monte Rosa, a 20,000-ton Swiss tanker captained by Viacheslav Gavrilov. Their destination is Sri Lanka by way of the Gulf of Aden, a 12-day journey. The captain, a 44-year-old […]
-Analysis- PARIS — Could the trap of the Syrian crisis break up NATO? This question, which carries potentially grave implications for the security of the West, might sound overblown. After all, NATO’s unfailing cohesion eventually brought down one of the most formidable war machines of all time, the Soviet Union. Still, the spreading corrosive capacities […]
On foot in the cold or crammed into run-down train cars, migrants face a long journey of long waits, endless security checks, and uncertain prospects. Up close along the Serbo-Macedonian Border.
As Republicans mercilessly attack the sitting president, Democratic hopefuls Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton should remember that ambivalence never wins elections.
From the Middle East to Europe and the United States to Asia, from geopolitics to economics, the world has fallen into widespread chaos. But there is cause for hope.
-OpEd- NOTTINGHAM — After recently studying a survey about the shocking number of Chinese students who are moving abroad every year, I couldn’t sleep. In 2015, 30% of the graduates from the five most prestigious Chinese universities —Peking University, Tsinghua University, the University of Science and Technology of China, Fudan University and the University of […]
Plan Colombia was never the aid program touted by leaders in Washington and Bogota. But it proved to be excellent business for arms dealers and other shady characters.
Given our growing concerns about ‘traditional’ employment, some say paying people a basic living income should not be linked to work. The idea is appealing, but requires a leap of faith few politicians are willing to take.
The siege of Madaya began in July, but global pressure on the Syrian government to allow humanitarian access didn’t begin to build until nearly 30 people had died of starvation. Why did it take so long?
MINSK — Belarus’s President Alexander Lukashenko has been dubbed “Europe’s Last Dictator,” and ties between Brussels and Minsk have been virtually frozen since a new series of sanctions were imposed in 2010. But now, it appears, Lukashenko and his country will be welcomed back into the continent’s fold as the European Union is set to […]
TEHRAN — Repeating something Ayatollah Khomeini, founder of the Islamic Republic, said years ago — long before Iran’s latest clash with Saudi Arabia — Moussa reveals much about the current mindselt in the streets and cafés of the Iranian capital: “With the Great Satan we could forgive and forget,” he says. “But with the Ibn […]
A new surge in deforestation can be traced to an unauthorized road connecting La Macarena to San Jose del Guaviare. What is the origin? What will be done?
There’s nothing the man in Kremlin wishes for more than Angela Merkel’s fall, which could give him plenty of leverage to play with and mould Europe.
Maya and Mehdi were seriously injured at Le Carillon café during the Paris attacks. Three of their friends (including Maya’s husband) were killed in front of them. Three months later, moving on is almost impossible.
-Essay- CAIRO — I did not know Giulio Regeni, but I could have. The earnest, affable face staring out of his photographs is reminiscent of any number of the trickle of European researchers and activists who pass through Cairo and want to meet in downtown dive bars to talk about the condition of the workers […]
SÃO PAULO — As dengue and the fear of the Zika virus continue to spread, local authorities across Brazil are desperately looking for doctors as they set up field hospitals to treat patients infected by the Aedes aegypti mosquito, which transmits both diseases. In cities of the states of São Paulo, Minas Gerais, Mato Grosso […]
PARIS — For the first time since the end of the Third Reich, Mein Kampf has been republished in Germany. With copyrights having expired on Jan. 1, the Institute of Contemporary History of Munich has released a critical, annotated edition of the only book written by Adolf Hitler, first published in 1925. And it’s a […]
Turkey is supposed to guard our borders against more refugees and receive financial aid for its services. But refugees fleeing to Europe across the Mediterranean keep coming.
Fed up of waiting for Brussels to act, countries in Eastern Europe and the Balkans are building an anti-migrant fortress bloc with Hungary’s Viktor Orbán as the architect.
A feeling has spread through the popular consciousness: The collapse is near, we’re living on the edge of implosion. But there is another way to look at our complicated world.