How many more people must die, asked Annette Ramelsberger in the Süddeutsche Zeitung, “before police, prosecutors, and domestic intelligence understand that the most dangerous enemy is not on the Left but on the Right?” The murder of Walter Lübcke, president of the Kassel regional council in central Germany, should be Continue Reading
The U.S. economy blew past expectations in the first months of 2019 in a burst of growth that feels like the 1990s, said Heather Long in The Washington Post. Last week, the government reported a 3.2 percent annualized GDP growth rate in the first quarter, energizing supporters of President Trump Continue Reading
For two centuries, Belgium has been split between francophone Walloons in the south and Dutch-speaking Flemings in the north, said Konrad Yakabuski in The Globe and Mail (Toronto). Aside from their shared Catholic faith, the two sides “agree to disagree on almost everything”. In 2010-11, it took them a record Continue Reading
An estimated 250,000 Czechs rallied in Prague’s Letna Park this week to demand the resignation of Prime Minister Andrej Babis, in the biggest show of public discontent since the 1989 Velvet Revolution that overthrew the Communist regime. Babis, the billionaire head of the anti- establishment ANO party, is facing a Continue Reading
The International Criminal Court this week convicted a notorious Congolese rebel commander known as the Terminator on 18 counts of crimes against humanity and war crimes for his role in a bloody ethnic conflict. Bosco Ntaganda has been involved in numerous battles in Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, Continue Reading
The Al-Safar Mosque in West Java is not a shrine to the Antichrist, said M. Taufiqurrahman. But many Indonesians have now heard that absurd conspiracy theory, thanks to the province’s governor, Ridwan Kamil. The rumors were started by popular YouTube preacher Rahmat Baequni, who claimed that Al-Safar’s triangular motifs represent Continue Reading
In America’s squalid border facilities, even children are treated worse than prisoners of war, said Max Boot, yet President Trump “gives every appearance that he could not care less.” New investigations of these facilities should shock anyone with a conscience: Adults were crowded in so tightly at one camp they Continue Reading
Russian officials said that a blaze aboard a nuclear-powered research submarine in the Arctic last week could have caused a “catastrophe of global proportions” if 14 crew members hadn’t sacrificed themselves to save the ship. All of those who died were high-ranking officers—two had been awarded the Hero of Russia Continue Reading
Nike just gave neo-Nazis, Klansmen, and alt-righters a huge gift, said Jonah Goldberg: “It turned the Betsy Ross flag into a racist symbol.” The shoe manufacturer was set to release a line of Fourth of July sneakers featuring the original American flag, with 13 stars in a circle. But Nike Continue Reading
“All that was missing,” said Eugene Robinson in The Washington Post, “was a reviewing stand, like the one on Red Square where grim-faced Soviet leaders used to watch the tanks roll past.” On July 4, President Trump got the “big military extravaganza” he dreamed of: troop carriers, battle tanks, flyovers Continue Reading
Kamala Harris “changed the campaign” with her dazzling performance at the first Democratic presidential debate, said Ezra Klein in Vox.com. The California senator was the runaway winner of the two-night, 20-candidate face-off. Her triumph came largely thanks to a “devastating,” if carefully planned, assault on front-runner Joe Biden over his Continue Reading
The United Nations has laid out in grim detail exactly how Venezuela’s authoritarian President Nicolás Maduro has clung to power, said Américo Martín in Tal Cual (Venezuela). Maduro initially welcomed the investigation by U.N. human rights chief Michelle Bachelet because he thought she was an ally—as the leftist president of Continue Reading
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