Shaun Walker, The Guardian
Russian president says Moscow will not ignore incidents in which two soldiers were killed, but which Kyiv denies took place
Michael Weiss & Pierre Vaux, The Daily Beast
Countless omens signal a new war on its way, from troop movements to Russia's âÂÂAugust Curse.â But this time they may be more smoke than fire.
Bryan Riley, RealClearPolicy
The facts suggest not that trade with China costs jobs but that we need a more dynamic and growing economy so that Americans who lose their jobs â for whatever reason â have ample opportunities to find new work and continue their pursuit of the American Dream.
Tony Keller, Globe and Mail
A Canadian Trump probably wouldn't mine racial paranoia. But that still leaves lots of resentments and frustrations waiting to be harnessed.
Arthur Herman, NRO
For five successive days Chinese fishing boats backed by Coast Guard vessels have all but surrounded the Senkakus, complicating Japanese access to its own islands; while the other day Japanese surveillance discovered an ocean-radar facility planted on one of China's nearby offshore natural-gas platforms. (Like the South China Sea, the East China Sea has extensive oil and natural-gas reserves.) That's a clear first step by China toward militarizing the Senkakus the way it's been asserting itself in the Spratlys.
Chris Solomon, Global Risk Insights
Syria's long term bilateral ties with China brings about questions on how China's ambitions might play out both during and after Syria's Civil War.
Carlos Hernandez, New York Times
News of the crisis in Venezuela has gotten so big that the O.A.S., a bloc comprising most states in the Americas, has been discussing what to do with us. No one really believes that the Venezuelan opposition's effort to remove Mr. Maduro from office by referendum, although progressing, is going to succeed.
Ishaan Tharoor, Wash Post
Here's what you should know about Turkey's failed coup and ongoing purge.
Don Winslow, Esquire
If you wonder why America is in the grips of a heroin epidemic that kills two hundred people a week, take a hard look at the legalization of pot, which destroyed the profits of the Mexican cartels. How did they respond to a major loss in revenue? Like any company, they created an irresistible new product and flooded the market. The scariest part: this might not have happened with El Chapo in charge.
Gideon Rachman, Financial Times
The politicians who captured the spirit of the early 1990s were inspirational democrats such as Mandela, Václav Havel in Czechoslovakia â and liberal reformers such as Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin in Russia. Today, the leaders that seem to embody the spirit of the age are autocrats with scant respect for democratic values â men like Vladimir Putin and Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the presidents of Russia and Turkey; as well as Donald Trump, a trash-talking... Читать дальше...
Joseph Stiglitz, Guardian
In this extract from his new book, the Nobel prize-winning economist argues that if the euro is not radically rethought, Europe could be condemned to decades of broken dreams
Matt McGrath, BBC
New research blames rising temperatures over the last century as the key cause of decline in Lake Tanganyika, one of the world's most important fisheries.
Damon Linker, The Week
The German chancellor has opened Europe to a flood of alienated, sex-starved refugees. What could possibly go wrong!
Fabrice Balanche, Wash. Inst.
Anti-Assad forces can relish a victory, but their stated aspiration to hold the entire city should be taken with a grain of salt.
Megan McArdle, Bloomberg View
Or too few female refugees. More immigration could solve the problem.
Jonathan Tobin, Commentary
The false narrative about the Middle East, in which Palestinians are depicted as the moral equivalent of the victims of America's Jim Crow era rather than a people who have repeatedly rejected peace and are dedicated to the eradication of Israel, is regarded by the left as accepted truth.
Tom Rogan, National Review
While Obama remains passive, Putin is succeeding, step by deliberate step, in expanding Russia's empire.
Philippe Legrain, Project Syndicate
The post-Brexit turmoil appears to have boosted support for mainstream politicians and the EU. But this sentiment is likely to fade as the Brexit fallout begins to sap eurozone economic performance and further polarizes politics in the member states.
Danielle Resnick, The Conversation
When Rupiah Banda conceded defeat to Michael Sata in Zambia's 2011 elections, many commentators hailed the peaceful transfer of power as a sign that the country'sà democracy had matured. Twenty years after ousting the United National Independence Party (UNIP) in the historic 1991 multi-party elections, the Movement for Multi-Party Democracy (MMD) lost to Sata's urban-based and populist Patriotic Front (PF).
Daniel Larison, Amer. Cons.
We should assume that she will get the U.S. involved in crises and conflicts that have not yet begun.
Economist
The first good news in many months from Syria's suffering city
