German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen is a fighter. The authors of two new books about the daughter of the very conservative Ernst Albrecht envision the unconventional leader as the next chancellor.
Category: Geopolitics
For the past 50 years, religion has been a key element in Moroccan diplomacy with its African neighbors. Now it’s part of the fight against Islamic terrorism on the continent.
As the European Commission targets Russian state-owned energy giant Gazprom for antitrust violations, tensions between Europe and Russia over Ukraine are only bound to rise.
At the border between Serbia and Hungary, the number of illegal arrivals has increased dramatically over the past few months. Syrians and Afghans who take the road in the Balkans cross paths with migrating Kosovars.
Syria Deeply met with some young Syrians who have recently made it to Europe to seek asylum. With so much at stake, no two viewpoints are quite the same.
KATHMANDU — It’s 4 p.m. in Durbar Square, the iconic piazza in the middle of Nepal’s capital, and a group of volunteers is digging through the rubble of the Hindu Kasthamandap Temple which, according to legend, was built with the wood of a single tree in the 12th century. Suddenly, there’s an explosion of joy […]
Why is debt-ridden Greece still spending more, per capita, on its military than any other country in Europe? And why are German companies so eager to sell them arms?
TEL AVIV — One day, six years ago, while working on a documentary for Israel’s Holocaust Memorial Day, television producer Ronnie Sarnat came across a strange story. “I sent a crew to film testimonies of Holocaust survivors and the crew came back deeply distraught,” she says. “One of the survivors came out to them, crying […]
CAIRO — There are two smiling European-looking 30-somethings waiting to welcome you to the new website, Liberland.org, while a hopeful-sounding logo proclaims, “Live and let live.” Formerly referred to as Gornja Siga, the seven square-kilometer state (slightly larger than the Vatican and Monaco) came into existence following a border dispute between Croatia and Serbia. The […]
Categories
Muslim And Happy In … Brazil
The world’s largest Catholic country has a long-established and steadily growing Muslim population. With some rare exceptions, Brazil is a model for integration of Islam into a mixed population.
-OpEd- ISTANBUL — Turkey’s Roboski military outpost became infamous as the location of the 2011 bombing that killed 34 Kurdish youth, whom Turkish fighter pilots had mistaken for PKK rebel troops. Now we see the latest news about Turkish soldiers killing mules, not men, in the same area near the Turkey-Iraq border. According to Ferhat […]
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.
On this southern European island, some of the hundreds of corpses have arrived from the latest migrant tragedy. They will be processed and buried without knowing their identity. It is not the first time.
GARABULLI — Two unfinished houses on the sand, facing a Mediterranean sea in shades of grey. So this is where they left from. According to various Libyan sources, the vessel carrying more than 800 people left Libya on what became its fateful crossing between Saturday April 18 and Sunday 19 from this long stretch of […]
-Analysis- TURIN — Thousands of people — calling them people, i.e. men, women and children, is the first step — have died in the Strait of Sicily since 2010. Sunday saw the worst tragedy yet, but it was not the first, and unfortunately it won’t be the last. Many of these people are fleeing the […]
Newspapers around the world featured the tragedy in the Mediterranean Sea on the front pages of their Monday edition, after as many as 700 migrants reportedly died when their boat capsized. Sunday’s tragedy is believed to be the worst maritime disaster in Europe since World War II. ITALY FRANCE GERMANY CHILE U.S.
It’s an untold story that offers hope during troubled times in Europe, the Middle East and beyond. Anna Boros survived the Holocaust thanks to a courageous Egyptian doctor.
Kurdish fighters and the forces loyal to the Syrian regime have settled into a delicate coexistence against jihadists in this city marked by chaos and competing interests.
Earning cash and starting a business are no longer frowned upon on the island nation, as the rapprochement with the U.S. sets the stage for a different kind of Cuban economy.
Kurds, persecuted by the Turkish state, are only now beginning to face the role they played in the mass execution of Armenians a century ago.
Even Somalis born and raised in Kenya are often rounded up and harassed after the Somali-based terror group al-Shabaab strikes, as it did in Garissa April 2.
Like with the 18th century Andean silver route for Spain, Argentina has become a short cut for sending Peruvian and Bolivian cocaine to Europe. It’s also a customer.
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 […]
-OpEd- SAO PAULO — The just-concluded Summit of the Americas in Panama was hailed as historic because it was the first time since the gathering began that both Cuba and the United States were present. And yet, there’s plenty of room for disappointment. The gathering of heads of state could have been even more significant […]
Categories
Cover Your Eyes, Yemen Is Dying
A view from Turkey on the new conflict that is not only shaking the map of the Middle East, but costing the lives of innocent victims.
The White House move to impose sanctions on Venezuela was a badly timed swipe against the authoritarian government that may have imploded on its own. Instead, the U.S. gave it new life.
Categories
Russia Flexes Soft Power In Moldova
Gagauzia, a small region in neighboring Moldova, has taken a turn toward economic union with Russia, and away from the EU. Will the whole country follow?
Germany’s first Sharia-compliant bank wants to revolutionize the finance sector of the European economic juggernaut. Investment in businesses related to alcohol and gambling are prohibited, as is the practice of charging interest, and Muslim and non-
The West’s accord with Iran was not just about a nuclear threat. The U.S. has bigger plans to recalibrate the region’s balance of power among Saudi Arabia, Israel, Egypt and beyond.
Mexico is struggling to move past almost a century of semi-dictatorship to become a liberal democracy. But it is plagued by a shared and absolute rejection of the ideas of others.
-Editorial- PARIS — The deal reached in Lausanne on Iran’s nuclear program is a historic breakthrough. Or at least it will be if it leads to a “final” agreement by the June 30 deadline, which is by no means certain. For the first time in 12 years, when the West’s talks with Tehran began, the […]
-Analysis- BOGOTA — Cuba, in its effort to loosen the economy and move toward a partially free market system, may be borrowing a page from the history of another communist country, Vietnam. Starting in 1986, Vietnam implemented a series of economic reforms known collectively as Doi Moi. The changes were inspired by the industrialization drive […]
Categories
The World Reacts To Iran Nuclear Deal
After prolonged talks, the P5+1 group (U.S., Russia, China, U.K., France and Germany) and Iran agreed Thursday on a “historical” framework agreement for Iran’s nuclear program. “Important implementation details are still subject to negotiation, and nothing is agreed until everything is agreed,” the White House warns. But the main points of the preliminary deal are […]
-Editorial- PARIS — During the nail-biting four days of an election that many warned would be too close to call, Nigeria was in a collective state of high anxiety. Then, in a twist for Africa’s most populous nation, a presidential election that had threatened to end in a bloodbath instead concluded peacefully with the incumbent […]
The death toll after Cyclone Pam hit the South Pacific nation was notably low thanks to new warning systems and ancient shelters. But saving the local economy may be harder than saving lives.
Lies and mistrust are spreading throughout society, destroying the relationships between people and states. How could it come this far? And what can be done about it?
With scant help common from Frankfurt, a group of French intellectuals is calling for online donations to help the Greek people. Desperate times indeed.
Egypt’s participation in the military operation “Decisive Storm” against the Houthis in Yemen is a question of interests, alliances and cold, hard cash.
ATHENS — In her beautiful Athens offices, billionaire Gianna Angelopoulos nurses a large cigar and calls it like she sees it on the promise of the radical-left Syriza party to levy new taxes to avoid the country going bankrup. “It’s gonna take balls,” says the 60-year-old. The wealth of her and husband Theodore is estimated […]