BBC
Molenbeek is a place full of contradictions.
Chams Eddine Zaougui, Huffington Post
BRUSSELS — For some time, a sword had been hanging over Brussels, the capital of Belgium and Europe. This ominous intuition became clear when it turned out that the attacks in Paris on Nov. 13 had been partially organized from Belgium. After the Paris attacks, suspect Salah Abdeslam, a 26-year-old Moroccan Frenchman, went into hiding in Molenbeek, a Brussels neighborhood. For months, Belgian security officers searched for him.
R. Kassam, Breitbart
Teddy bears, tears, candles, cartoons, murals, mosaics, flowers, flags, projections, hashtags, balloons, wreaths, lights, vigils, scarves, and more. These are the best solutions the Western world seems to come up with every few months when we are slammed by another Islamist terrorist attack. We are our own sickness.
R. Fontaine, TNI
For a middle power, Australia has long defined its national interests in very broad terms. It has sent its troops alongside U.S. forces to Iraq and Afghanistan, and over the years its military has participated in operations as far afield as Rwanda, Somalia and Lebanon. Today, Canberra is part of the coalition carrying out airstrikes against Islamic State in Syria.
Jeffrey Gedmin, Politico EU
What does such a world look like? The Obama Doctrine of reticence gives us strong hints. In real estate terms, Russia gets Eastern Europe, China gets East Asia, and Iran and ISIL get the Middle East. And the U.S. gets left alone? That’s always been the isolationist’s fantasy. Trump seems to think there’s something in all this for America. But when it comes to foreign policy, you don’t get to just fire the bad guys.
Duchâtel & Sheldon-Duplaix, ECFR
The mainstream discourse of Chinese experts stresses the key difference between logistical facilities and military bases overseas, and there is an effort to dismiss concerns that China is being assertive and expansionist. At the same time, the role of the Chinese military in helping support non-combatant evacuations has been welcomed in Europe as a new direction that offers cooperation opportunities on security issues in a volatile area. Therefore, China’s... Читать дальше...
Michele Berdy, Moscow Times
Figuratively, refers to anything that stands out, like an example: — , (He's a striking example of a self-made man.) Or like impressions: (We still have such vivid impressions from our visit.)
Economist
Now, says George Tsai, a political scientist (unrelated to the president) at the Chinese Culture University in Taipei, the Taiwanese capital, the ball is in Ms Tsai’s court. China, he says, will wait for her inauguration speech for signals about her intentions. If the speech does not, in the eyes of Chinese leaders, rehearse an acceptable catechism, the diplomatic game could fully resume, or worse. “We absolutely will not allow…national separation,” thundered President Xi Jinping recently.
K. Dozier, Daily Beast
The official says U.S. forces killed a high-ranking official in a raid on his vehicle who they believe was Haji Imam, after they tracked him for several days. They had hoped to take him alive, but those in the vehicle apparently resisted and were killed.
Max Fisher, Vox
Russia's government relies overwhelmingly on oil and gas taxes, which fund about half of its national budget. Half! So with those oil taxes falling from to per barrel, that's been catastrophic for the Russian economy, to the point that some analysts fear political instability. So you can see why many in the Russian government are pushing for higher taxes on oil revenue.
Ian Buruma, New York Review of Books
All that Belgians have in common—and this may be more than it sounds—is a monarchy and a national soccer team, the Red Devils. As in the case of the EU, Belgium seems constantly to be on the brink of falling apart. And yet it has not. One of the reasons is Brussels. No one, certainly not the Francophone population, but not even the Flemish nationalists, wants to give it up. They may not love their capital city, but Brussels still represents something more than the nation’s increasingly separate parts. Читать дальше...
N. Chokshi, WaPo
The U.N. team found that three-fourths of the variation could be explained by six indicators: economic output — or gross domestic product — per person; healthy years of life expectancy; having someone to count on in times of trouble; trust in government and business; perceived freedom; and generosity.
Sven Felix Kellerhoff, Worldcrunch
The United Nations War Crime Tribunal in The Hague has officially declared the massacre of Srebrenica in Bosnia in 1995 as genocide. The term has a complicated back story, which is worth revisiting after Thursday's historic conclusion in The Hague in the case of Radovan Karadzic.
G. Friedman, Geo. Futures
There is a deep connection between the end of the Cold War, the Yugoslav wars and the attacks in Brussels. They may appear separate but are deeply interconnected. The release of tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union triggered a seismic shift along the fault line of U.S. containment strategy that runs through the Middle East. These tremors are still playing out today.
Samuel Bendett, RCWorld
In the near future, Ukraine plans to conduct test launches of domestically produced ballistic missiles built without the involvement of foreign companies, said National Security and Defense Council Secretary Oleksandr Turchinov in an interview with Interfax-Ukraine news agency. According to Turchinov, resuscitating the domestic missile industry is a priority for Ukrainian authorities. "We need to develop as a space-faring nation, producing high-tech spacecraft, but we also... Читать дальше...
Pierre Atlas, Indy Star
In an interview from Havana with Breitbart News, Flake likened Obama's initiative to Ronald Reagan's opening to the Soviet Union and said, "I don't think we need to have any respect for the system. I certainly don't, it's a failed communist socialist system. But the policies that we have now are benefiting the Cuban people and I think will lead to a hastier transition to democracy than what we had."
