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Riga to Russian speakers: Learn Latvian
RIGA — Last September, school children weren’t the only ones headed back to class in Latvia. The end of the summer vacation also saw some 3,500 Russian-speaking teachers go back to school to brush up...
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Why I’m sick of Turkey
I am already sick of Turkey. I suspect that many Americans feel this way, about the bird and the country. Yet a small group of Washington foreign policy hands — at the State Department, at the Pentagon...
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Here comes the next euro crisis
Rome’s battle with Brussels over the populist government’s spending plans has many wondering if Italy will be the spark that sets off the next euro crisis. That’s certainly possible, but experts say...
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In Ukraine, it’s no longer about little green men
WASHINGTON — Russia’s recent aggression in the Azov Sea was predictable. For those of us following events in Ukraine, it was not a question of whether Moscow would try to cut off the Kerch Strait...
View ArticleWhat an obscure German novel taught me about dictators
I was born in Hamburg, Germany in 1949, so I grew up playing cowboys and Indians with my cousins in the rubble fields of my native city. Family lore had it that my mother, who had survived the Hamburg...
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Europe’s Russia sanctions are not working
ROME — The naval skirmish in the Sea of Azov marks a new phase in the festering conflict between Ukraine and Russia. Europe should be on high alert. Beyond exacerbating deep tensions between Kiev and...
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Trump says climate change isn’t real. He should come to Utqiagvik in Alaska
It felt like the top of the world in more ways than one. It was my last evening in Barrow, now Utqiagvik, Alaska, the northernmost community in the United States. I borrowed skis, a skijoring harness,...
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Tackle global warming with hope, not fear
We used to only talk about climate change in the future tense. Heat waves will increase. Sea levels will rise. Droughts, floods and fires will get worse. Today, climate change is no longer a far-off...
View ArticleEurope hasn’t won the war on terror
OSLO — A recent lull in the number and severity of jihadist attacks in Europe might lead one to conclude the worst is over. But it’s far too early to declare victory in the fight against terror. The...
View ArticleThe (not so) great Brexit debate
So the Brexit debate is on. Sort of. The gauntlet has been thrown down by Theresa May and accepted by Jeremy Corbyn. Viewers are in for a treat. What’s likely to be the most boring head-to-head in...
View ArticleRussian-speakers to Latvia: Embrace bilingualism
RIGA — The Russian-speaking minority in Latvia is often portrayed as an arrogant community that is reluctant to learn the language of the country they live in. This image, which has been carefully...
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Germany’s rocky road to life after Merkel
LONDON — When, in late October, Angela Merkel announced she would be stepping down as leader of her Christian Democrats (CDU), few believed she could last very long as chancellor. An old rival,...
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Macron’s mistake: Taxing the poor to tackle climate change
Emmanuel Macron won’t “Make our planet great again” like this. A year after the French president answered Donald Trump’s “America First” rejection of the Paris climate accords with a slogan of his own,...
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Macron’s moment of reckoning
Fifty years after May ’68 — a month where all of France held its breath — the country appears to be going through one of its characteristic outbursts of public anger once again. Social movements are...
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Britain’s meaningless Brexit vote
PARIS — The British parliament is due to cast what has become known as a “meaningful vote” Tuesday on Prime Minister Theresa May’s EU divorce deal, but that may be the biggest misnomer since Brexit was...
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Belgium’s identity crisis isn’t about migration
Belgium’s Charles Michel, painted into a corner by his coalition partners, has made a huge political gamble. With the New Flemish Alliance (N-VA) crashing out of the government Saturday, the Belgian...
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Why Putin is learning to love rap
MOSCOW — When 25-year-old rapper Husky found out in late November that Russian officials had cancelled his gig in the southern town of Krasnodar, he clambered onto the top of a vehicle in a nearby car...
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Democracy has no clothes
This article is part of “Democracy Fix,” a series looking at efforts to counter rising illiberalism, digital disruption and dropping confidence in institutions of the Western world. TOULOUSE, France —...
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Why are France’s Yellow Jackets so angry?
PARIS — The Yellow Jackets ripping across France are not just the French being French. They’re not just a reaction to President Emmanuel Macron, or just the fault of Facebook. They’re not the spawn of...
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Why the EU should fear a second UK referendum
Bad news for Theresa May is good news for the chances of a second Brexit vote. With the British prime minster struggling to get her Brexit deal through parliament, more and more Europeans are hoping...
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