The United States under the Trump administration has targeted China as a trade and security threat, and North Korea’s Kim Jong-un takes advantage of the rising tensions to court three presidents: Moon Jae-in of South Korea, Xi Jinping of China and Donald Trump of the United States. China, resisting...
Catbird’s seat: Kim Jong-un, left, meets with Xi Jinping over North Korea’s rising strategic value amid rising tensions with the United States; US Vice President Mike Pence’s suggests that a new Cold War may be underway
STANFORD, CALIFORNIA: US-...
Across the Middle East, signs of democracy are emerging. In Lebanon, peaceful protests toppled the Syrian-backed government. Palestinians successfully pressured their leader to fill his cabinet with qualified, fresh faces. And the Egyptian president announced support for a law permitting open...
The brisk pace of domestic political change towards more freedom and democracy in several parts of the Arab world this week has already triggered a passionate argument about whether this is the result of the American-...
US President Donald Trump seeks partners in his push to rebalance global trade, reduce global agreements with environmental and other constraints, and build US influence based on power rather than cooperative alliances. He views the UK’s Boris Johnson as a likeminded leader, after an overwhelming...
Economic integration on a scale the size of Europe is not easily accomplished. A plan to bring in another 10 member states expands the possibilities for regional cooperation, but it has also threatened to harm the economy of the former East Germany. After some deliberation, the European...
Eastern Germany will continue to receive billions in subsidies from the European Union earmarked for poor regions despite the membership of several other former communist countries, which will pull down the Union's per...
Political leaders in southern region of the United States are making strides to limit abortion rights with the ultimate goal of reversing the Roe v. Wade court decision that protects a woman’s right to end a pregnancy. The laws target poor and vulnerable women while the wealthy women can travel to...
Kofi Annan, the UN secretary-general, is inherently cautious in his choice of words. In the weeks leading to the Iraq war, Annan refrained from outright criticism of the grounds for invasion, and only recently did he warn of the dangerous precedents established by preemptive action. But in a recent...
The declaration of the United Nations secretary-general, Kofi Annan, on the Iraq war was shocking in its simplicity. He described it for the first time as "illegal". No caveats. No equivocation. None of the ambiguity...
It’s a mistake to judge a nation by its most vocal extremists. Iran, a country of 80 million, is young, diverse, urbanized and entrepreneurial. The literacy rate is 85 percent and many Iranians pursue advanced degrees. The country’s ranking for inequality is near that of the United States. “There...
Click here for the article in Spiegel Online.
For all the furor about the US’ proposed tariff on Chinese car tires, the end result is more likely to be a whimper, according to trade specialist Edward Gresser of the Democratic Leadership Council in Washington. It is unlikely that this tariff will set off the next trade war, igniting a global...
WASHINGTON: Sometimes a small pebble, dislodged from a mountainside, turns out to be the trigger of an avalanche that leaves the environment vastly changed. Most of the time it doesn’t. Instead the pebble lands, bounces once or twice, kicks up a...
