Liz Sly, Wash Post
Syria marks the fifth anniversary of its first peaceful protest Tuesday in the shadow of a brutal war that has sucked in global powers and fueled the rise of radicals such as the Islamic State. Libya and Yemen are likewise locked in savage conflicts.
J Towson, Nikkei Asian Review
Chinese consumers continue to grow relentlessly in number and wealth. This is a well-studied economic trend. But what people are missing is how the behavior of these consumers is regularly starting to shake the world.
Cengiz Candar, Al-Monitor
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan who is increasingly displaying authoritarian, even dictatorial, tendencies was quick to grasp that the EU is no longer dealing from a position of strength. Erdogan feels, perhaps not wrongly, the time has come when Europe needs Turkey more than Turkey needs Europe.
Pawel Swidlicki, Daily Telegraph
Politics is fracturing in major European countries - that doesn't mean the establishment is about to fall.
Mary Dejevsky, Guardian
With no mainstream outlet for discontent over migration, the real problem facing the chancellor is not AfD gains but the future effects of her deal with Turkey.
Nicholas Borroz, Natl Int
The international investment community is smitten with Argentina’s new president, Mauricio Macri. A wealthy businessman who was voted into office in November 2015, Macri vows to facilitate foreigners’ access to his country by reducing trade barriers. Additionally, he plans to cut domestic subsidy programs, which will improve Argentina’s economic stability and therefore make it a more attractive investment destination.
Will McCants, NYDN
Both men are equally wrong. Islam neither hates nor preaches — its followers do. Islam is what people make of it, and they have made it many different things.
Shmuel Rosner, New York Times
The rocky relations of the Obama era have damaged the American-Israeli alliance and eroded Israel’s standing in Washington and around the world. Four — or eight — more years of bickering could cause even more lasting damage to the one foreign relationship that is truly critical to Israel’s future.
Rachel Greszler, RealClearWorld
Puerto Rico is on the brink of defaulting on its debt. And the Obama administration wants to push Puerto Rican pensioners to the front of the payment line, ahead of Americans with retirement accounts that hold constitutionally protected bonds. The administration recently shared with Democratic lobbyists its "pre-decisional" draft proposal for how to handle the looming default. Referring to roughly 330,000 active and retired Puerto Rican public employees, the proposal... Читать дальше...
Economist
“WHAT I want is facts…facts alone are wanted in life.” Thomas Gradgrind’s grim message in Charles Dickens’s “Hard Times” is echoed in the debate ahead of the referendum on June 23rd about whether Britain should leave the European Union. Voters confused by claims made by opposing sides and in the media are asking for plain facts on Britain’s EU membership so they can make up their minds. Sadly, hard facts are hard to find.
Jason Karaian, Quartz
Finland gets praise for its progressive “open prisons,” where inmates circulate freely in the surrounding community during the day—working, studying, and shopping among the locals. This costs less to run and leads to lower reoffending rates than locking up criminals in the traditional manner.
A. Umland, WAJ
Not everyone in Europe agrees with German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s recent description of Russia’s annexation of Crimea as “criminal.” Across the EU, Kremlin lobbyists, America-haters, and those the Germans call Putinversteher (“Putin-understanders”) disseminate justifications and apologies for Russia’s absorption of the Black Sea peninsula and its hybrid war in the Donets Basin, also known as the Donbas. Such “explanations” partly succeed because most citizens of the West are... Читать дальше...
Aaron David Miller, Politico
Diplomacy is about remedy. And Americans’ urge to “do something” in the face of crisis, catastrophe and conflict is at times hot, relentless and all-consuming—and at times it’s understandable.
Remi Piet, Al Jazeera
Far from traditional cliches and the image that terrorists want to spread, Western Africa has changed over the past few years. From the peaceful transition in Nigeria between Goodluck Jonathan and Muhammadu Buhari to the stepping down of president Amadou Toumani Toure in conformity with the Malian constitution or the rebirth of democracy in Burkina Faso, the continent has proved its capacity to steadily move towards sustainable democracy despite the terrorist threats.
Nikolaus Piper, Worldcrunch
Socio-politically right-wing, economically left-wing – that, too, seems to be a valid strategy these days.
Hassan Hassan, The National
Over the past five years, Turkey emerged as one of the top, if not the top, humanitarian supporter of the Syrian people fleeing violence in their country. No fair-minded Syrian can deny the generosity of Turkish authorities in this regard. Also, while it supported hardline militants groups, it generally did not prevent other countries from using its soil to provide help and support to moderate groups fighting the regime or extremist forces. As an ally, however, Turkey... Читать дальше...
D. Larison, Amer. Conservative
While Obamas foreign policy has been compared to Eisenhowers by more than a few people, Obama has failed to do the one thing that clearly distinguishes Eisenhower from his predecessor and several of his successors: concluding the existing war(s) and avoiding new ones. This has supposedly been Obamas preoccupation throughout his presidency, and he has often boasted about ending Americas foreign wars, but it hasnt happened. He has not only failed to conclude the U.S. role in the war in Afghanistan... Читать дальше...
M. Karnitschnig, Politico EU
They were not prepared for what can only be described as a historic debacle. The CDU had hoped to retake two western German states, Baden-Wrttemberg and Rhineland-Palatinate, but instead recorded the party’s worst-ever results there. While the CDU managed to hold onto Saxony-Anhalt in the east, it also suffered losses there compared to the last election five years ago.
B. Johnson, T'graph
Think of Nafta – the North Atlantic Free Trade Agreement – that links the US with Canada and Mexico. Suppose it were constituted on the lines of the EU, with a commission and a parliament and a court of justice. Would the Americans knuckle under – to a Nafta commission and parliament generating about half their domestic law? Would they submit to a Nafta court of justice – supreme over all US institutions – and largely staffed by Mexicans and Canadians whom the people of the US could neither appoint nor remove? Читать дальше...
Paul Pillar, National Interest
The overall realist direction of that outlook is reflected in Mr. Obama's professed admiration for the approach toward foreign policy of George H.W. Bush and Brent Scowcroft. Goldberg tells of how when then-Senator Obama was writing the book that would become a campaign manifesto, his adviser Susan Rice had to urge him to include some complimentary words about Bill Clinton's foreign policy to balance the praise for Bush and Scowcroft. The principal tenets that can... Читать дальше...
Turki al-Faisal, Arab News
No, Mr. Obama. We are not “free riders.” We shared with you our intelligence that prevented deadly terrorist attacks on America.
Dalibor Rohac, Foreign Policy
If Trump becomes president of the world’s greatest democracy — or if someone like Le Pen accedes to power in France — the new and aspiring democracies will irrevocably lose a critical reference point and a driver of their own aspirations. It might be a reasonably safe bet that the West will weather the rise of the Trumps, Farages, Corbyns, Le Pens, and others. But the revival of this ugly brand of populism, deployed against the central tenets of liberal democracy, is already doing irreparable damage in the East.
Philip Obaji Jr., Daily Beast
Alagie Abdoulie Ceesay is the latest journalist imprisoned and tortured by the Gambian government. Another has languished in state security’s black hole for a decade.
Jonathan Blitzer, New Yorker
The Honduran activist Berta Cceres was at home last week, in a town called La Esperanza, when gunmen stormed in and shot her dead. Cceres, who was forty-four, had known she was in danger. Late last month, while leading a march in a nearby village, she had an altercation with soldiers, police officers, and employees of a Honduran company, Desarrollos Energticos S.A., or DESA, that she had been fighting for years. In 2010, the Honduran Congress passed a law that awarded contracts to a group of private companies... Читать дальше...
Ivan Krastev, New York Times
The populist insurgency feverishly advancing in Poland, Hungary and other parts of Eastern Europe is a rebellion against moderates and moderation. The events of 1989 are condemned as little more than an ingenious plot to transform the elites’ political power into economic power (like the Who song, it’s “meet the new boss, same as the old boss.”)
