Seth Frantzman, Terra Incognita
The real origin and message of the debate about Syria is that it is not about Syria. Ã Most of those who openly support Assad do not live in Damascus and they don't want to live in Syria under Assad, nor do they want an Assad-like regime to rule over them. Ã They are almost all western, privileged, and often elites, who are critical of their own countries. Ã They are mostly eurocentric or Americanocentric. Ã For them the historic role of the US or UK in the... Читать дальше...
Christopher de Bellaigue, Guardian
After a decade in power, Turkey's ruler presides over a new form of democracy that the west neither likes nor understands: an authoritarian regime that exults the will of the majority.
Claire Rigby, DB
Brazil's first woman president refused to be bowed during a 14-hour senate interrogation. She will be impeached anyway.
Julia Amalia Heyer, Der Spiegel
Many see Alain Juppé as boring. But the conservative former French prime minister is still the best liked candidate ahead of next year's presidential elections. He could thwart Nicolas Sarkozy's comeback and send President François Hollande into retirement.
Mehdi Jedinia & Noor Zahid, VOA
New force will recruit fighters from Shi'ite Muslim areas across the region.
Ishaan Tharoor, Washington Post
The Uzbek dictator presided over what may be the bloodiest crackdown since Tiananmen Square.
Julian Pecquet, Al-Monitor
The Gulf emirate expanded its stable of lobbying and public relations firms from two to five in 2015 and paid them a combined $3.34 million, according to a review of financial disclosures. That's up from $764,000 the year before.
Fintan O'Toole, Irish Times
Our decades old economic strategy based on low corporation tax is probably doomed anyway.
Stephen Gordon, National Post
He created a culture in which parties compete to offer the most popular tax cuts.
Salvatore Settis, New York Times
A deadly plague haunts Venice, and it's not the cholera to which Thomas Mann's character Gustav von Aschenbach succumbed in the Nobel laureate's 1912 novella âÂÂDeath in Venice.â A rapacious tourist monoculture threatens Venice's existence, decimating the historic city and turning the Queen of the Adriatic into a Disneyfied shopping mall.
Roger Cohen, New York Times
Mr. Make-America-Great-Again stood shoulder to shoulder with Mr. Brexit to make the point that, on both sides of the Atlantic, the same disruptive movements aim to break the free-trade, pro-globalization neoliberal consensus that has held sway in the West for at least a quarter-century.
Richard Gowan, World Pol. Review
Here is a moral dilemma: Would you be happy to live in a world in which 80 percent of the population enjoys more or less peaceful conditions, but the remaining 20 percent are condemned to live with a worsening spiral of war and suffering?
William Hague, Telegraph
It would be the ultimate Yes, Minister plot.
Bret Stephens, WS Journal
Bernard Lewisà once made the point that there are two basic ways in which people and nations respond to adversity and decline. The first, the great historian wrote in 2002, is to ask âÂÂWho did this to us?â The second is, âÂÂWhat didà weà do wrong?â One question leads to self-pity; the other to self-help. One disavows personal responsibility and moral agency; the other commands them. One is a recipe for economic failure and political squalor; the other for success.
Stratfor
Because geopolitics is based on the eternal verities of geography, relatively little in geopolitics comes to an end.Ã
Financial Times
Russian president Vladimir Putin dismissed an ally from a key Kremlin post, raising questions about his long-term plans. Andrew Monaghan, senior research fellow at Chatham House, joins FT comment editor Frederick Studemann and east Europe editor Neil Buckley to discuss what the move means.
Anne Appelbaum, Washington Post
Physical, human and political damage on an unprecedented scale.
N. Hopkins & E. Beals, Guardian
Guardian analysis shows series of contracts awarded to government and charities linked to president's family
John O'Sullivan, Nat'l Review
Mrs. Thatcher, famously skeptical of the EU project, was years ahead of the curve, even in her own party.
Tom Goodenough, Spectator
During the referendum campaign, David Cameron sparked fury by suggesting the migrant camp in Calais could be shifted to Britain following a vote for Brexit. Now, that threat is resurfacing. This time, it's French politicians saying they'll tear up the deal known as the âÂÂTreaty of Le Touquet' â a change, they say, which will allow migrants wanting to claim asylum in the UK to do so before they cross the Channel.
Louis Rene Beres, Jer. Post
Israel, Hamas and the laws of war
