Doug Bandow, Japan Times
Although the North is unlikely to attack since it would lose a full-scale war, South Korea remains uncomfortably dependent on America. And Washington’s commitment to the populous and prosperous South likely will decline as America’s finances worsen and challenges elsewhere multiply.
Sevgi Akarcesme, New York Times
The virtual control he already has of a majority of Turkey’s newspapers and TV stations apparently isn’t enough for President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. On Friday, with the zeal of its despotic leader, his government seized my paper, Today’s Zaman, and its parent, the Turkish-language Zaman, which is the highest-circulating daily in the country. Together, these titles were two of the few remaining independent voices inside Turkey — and Today’s Zaman, in particular, was... Читать дальше...
Lawrence Martin, Globe and Mail
When President Obama gives Prime Minister Trudeau the rare honour of a state dinner on Thursday, the tensions become old history. The two leaders are on the same ideological page and have a personal rapport. That’s what it takes for Canada-U.S. relations to work. Forget all the academic theorizing. What history shows is that it’s mainly happenstance. If the times serve up compatible leaders from compatible parties, all’s well. If not, beware.
Phil Stewart, Reuters
The United States launched an air strike in Somalia that killed more than 150 fighters with the al Qaeda-linked Islamist group al Shabaab following U.S. intelligence on preparations for a large-scale militant attack, the Pentagon said on Monday.
Noah Feldman, BV
The legal/illegal difference will sound familiar to Americans. Since the Syrian crisis began, however, Europe has largely elided the distinction, accepting people first and figuring out their refugee status later. The change marks an Americanization of European thinking: A tender morality is giving way to a realist legalism. This may have been inevitable. But it’s still sad to see.
Katrina Vanden Heuvel, Wash Post
In fending off the challenge posed by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Hillary Clinton has wrapped herself around President Obama, touting her appointment as secretary of state as confirmation of his trust in her “judgment,” while criticizing Sanders for not being ready for prime time as commander in chief. In fact, when it comes to foreign policy, there is little question that Sanders is closer to Obama’s sensibility than is Clinton.
Hassan Hassan & Michael Weiss, BBC News
Using bribery, blackmail and its own totalitarian form of cultural outreach, it has been able to win friends and influence people across thousands of square kilometres, often conquering a town, city or village long before its advancing columns lay siege to it.
Frederic Hof, Newsweek
Moving with dispatch on the ground to kill ISIS in Syria is essential. Even if the effort requires significant American “skin in the game,” surely President Obama can make the requisite case to the American people. The case might be much easier to make if ISIS were to do a Paris-like operation in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, or Biloxi, Mississippi. But if that kind of operation is possible, why wait?
Ben Caspit, Al-Monitor
Reconciliation with Turkey is stalled, possibly due to Israeli-Russian security interests regarding Syria, Lebanon and Hezbollah, as well as Russian hostility to Israeli-Turkish rapprochement.
David Pence, Star Tribune
In short, an honest debate of American policy in the war on terror must address this riddle: Why are two of our most trusted “allies” all these years — Saudi Arabia and Pakistan — also the primary guardians of our deadliest enemies?
Matthew Karnitschnig, Politico EU
Instead of weighing sanctions, the EU is considering accelerating Turkey’s negotiations for EU membership. That process, which has been stalled for years, normally requires a candidate country meet basic standards on everything from the independence of its judiciary to press freedom. Acceding to Turkey’s demand that the EU open talks in five key areas linked to its membership bid would force the Union to ignore Turkey’s record on human rights, intimidation of the media and manipulation of the judiciary.
Eugen Iladi, RealClearWorld
In September 2000, world leaders gathered at the United Nations to sign the Millennium Declaration, which outlined goals for international development ranging from universal primary education to eradicating extreme poverty. The target date for reaching those goals was 2015. Although many countries made progress, Bangladesh succeeded beyond all expectations: more children are going to school than ever before, more mothers have access to the healthcare they need, and fewer suffer in extreme poverty.
Shapiro, Geo. Futures
The Islamic State continues to dominate its core area between Raqqa and Deir el-Zour and to demonstrate flexibility on the battlefield.
PBS Newshour
GEORGE KOSMOPOULOS, Director, Amnesty International Greece: The way we see it, these people are genuine refugees. And what they’re fleeing for is actually terror and very, very great human rights violations. They’re leaving behind war. They’re leaving behind destruction. And this is the lens we should apply, and not put the blame to a whole group of people who are simply looking for safety and a better future in Europe.
Stratfor
Before his term ends, Morales will work to bolster his popularity while trying to groom a successor. He will be forced to referee the power struggle among his party's leaders over who will be his chosen heir, a contest that has the potential to weaken the MAS. But no matter who wins the office in 2019, constraints on Bolivia's economy placed by falling hydrocarbon revenue will limit the next president's ability to implement the same populist policies that propelled Morales to his current status.
Alexei Bayer, Kyiv Post
Even the Bolshevik Revolution was made based on what were at the time progressive ideas and slogans, which eventually spread around the world: to put an end to the bloody, pointless war, to offer self-determination to colonial nations, to distribute land to peasants, to guarantee equality to women and institute universal suffrage.
Chen Qin, Worldcrunch
BEIJING - China has always been clear about its "firm opposition" to North Korea's development of a nuclear weapons program. But as the international community's negotiation over the issue has stalled, Pyongyang continues to develop its nuclear technology. It is a provocation that leaves China little room for diplomatic maneuver.
B. Chellaney, PS
Clearly, where communists call the shots, the development of a free market for goods and services does not necessarily lead to the emergence of a marketplace of ideas. Even Nepal, a communist-dominated country that holds elections, has been unable to translate economic liberalization into a credible democratic transition. Instead, the country’s politics remain in a state of flux, with political and constitutional crises undermining its reputation as a Shangri-La and threatening to turn it into a failed state.
D Potapenko, Mos. Times
We constantly take abuse from the law enforcement agencies, the Federal Tax Service, local fire departments, and so on. When the Tax Service reports that it collects more taxes each year even while the number of businesses declines, it means that ever fewer businesses are paying ever higher taxes.
John Geddes, Maclean's
His first deployment to the southern Afghan province of Kandahar was in 2006, when Canadian troops fought against fierce Taliban resistance in what was called Operation Medusa. Sajjan was on leave from his regular job as a police officer, and when he returned home, Brig.-Gen. David Fraser sent a letter to the Vancouver Police Department, praising Sajjan as “the best single Canadian intelligence asset in theatre,” and crediting him with saving “a multitude of coalition lives.”
Economist
Having filled every imaginable niche, however, its growth seems to be slowing as it struggles to imagine new ones. Mercedes may overtake BMW by unit sales this year, as a slick re-styling of its models wins over buyers seeking an alternative to BMW’s more staid designs. Jaguar Land Rover, Volvo and other premium carmakers are also competing harder than they used to. Mass-market brands such as Ford and Citron are pouring resources into “premiumising” some of their models, in a drive for bigger margins. Читать дальше...
Oster, Bloom. Bus.
Beijing wants to identify subversives before they strike.
R. Javad Heydarian, Huffington Post
In recent years, he took a quantum leap by jumping directly into the snake pit of Philippine politics as a member of the House of Representatives -- among the most oligarchic institutions on earth. Sandwiched among political dynasties, corporate lobbyists, and traditional politicians, he effortlessly pushed for important legislations to nudge his native country, the Philippines, one step closer to genuine democracy.
Leonid Bershidsky, Bloomberg View
The campaign became less about re-electing Yeltsin than about keeping out Zyuganov and the Communists.
Roger Cohen, New York Times
What is striking about the anti-Zionism derangement syndrome that spills over into anti-Semitism is its ahistorical nature. It denies the long Jewish presence in, and bond with, the Holy Land. It disregards the fundamental link between murderous European anti-Semitism and the decision of surviving Jews to embrace Zionism in the conviction that only a Jewish homeland could keep them safe. It dismisses the legal basis for the modern Jewish state in United Nations Resolution 181 of 1947. Читать дальше...