BBC News reports: Beneath Moldova’s soaring parliament building, a parade of its most precarious file slowly past – bussed in by the thousand from across the country, each with their private tale of poverty and frustration. “We’re a laughing stock – the government is mocking us,” Ala tells me. Capped in a blue woollen hat, she thrusts her wide pale face close to mine, and says: “There are people with four or five children who literally have nothing to…
In a ten-tweet thread, Joe Cirincione explores the implications of Putin’s announcement: Let’s break down what Putin’s announcement that he is “suspending” compliance with the New START treaty means. The accord limits the US and Russia to 1,550 operationally deployed strategic weapons. It runs thru 2026 and is the last remaining strategic arms control treaty. First, this is a major violation of the treaty. There is no provision for “suspending” compliance with the treaty. It formalizes Russia’s existing noncompliance with…
The New York Times reports: One day in November 2015, Saad Almadi typed out a 14-word post on Twitter about Saudi Arabia’s deputy crown prince. “Mohammed bin Salman has taken over the economy, defense and everything under the king,” he wrote, replying to a professor who is a fierce critic of the kingdom’s monarchy. A Saudi-American dual citizen living in Florida, Mr. Almadi had little reason to believe his post would attract attention. He was a retired project manager, not…
The New York Times reports: A special grand jury that investigated election interference by former President Donald J. Trump and his allies in Georgia recommended indictments of multiple people on a range of charges in its report, most of which remains sealed, the forewoman of the jury said in an interview today. “It is not a short list,” the forewoman, Emily Kohrs, said, adding that the jury had appended eight pages of legal code “that we cited at various points…
David Rothkopf writes: Biden, in going to Kyiv, offered the clearest possible reminder of his stance against Russian aggression from the first moments of his presidency. It illustrated that he did not hesitate to support Ukraine when it was imperiled and that his leadership among our allies worldwide has been one of the signature triumphs of his first term in office. NATO, recently adrift and doubted by other U.S. political leaders, was stronger than ever, on the verge of expanding….
Anne Applebaum writes: An American AWACS began patrolling the skies west of Ukraine last night; Kyiv was locked down this morning. Motorcades crisscrossed the city and rumors began to spread. But although it was clear someone important was about to arrive, the first photographs of President Joe Biden—with President Volodymyr Zelensky, with air-raid sirens blaring, with St. Michael’s Square in the background—had exactly the impact they were intended to have: surprise, amazement, respect. He’s the American president. He made an…
Eliot A. Cohen writes: Symbols matter: a Kennedy or a Reagan at the Berlin Wall, a Churchill with a cigar and a bowler, for that matter a green-clad Zelensky growling, “I need ammunition, not a ride.” Simply by taking the hazardous trip to Kyiv, Biden made a strategic move of cardinal importance. While the president clearly intended to bolster the confidence of Ukraine, and the commitment of ambivalent Europeans and neo-isolationist Americans, his real audiences lay elsewhere, as his remarks…
Peter Beinart writes: The warnings come every day: Israeli democracy is in danger. Since Benjamin Netanyahu’s new government announced plans to undermine the independence of Israel’s Supreme Court, hundreds of thousands of Israelis have demonstrated in the streets. All of Israel’s living former attorneys general, in a joint statement, have warned that Mr. Netanyahu’s proposal imperils efforts to “preserve Israel as a Jewish and democratic state.” Liberal American Jewish leaders are cheering on the protests. Earlier this month, Alan Solow, the former head of the…
The New York Times reports: Deaths in state and federal prisons across America rose nearly 50 percent during the first year of the pandemic, and in six states they more than doubled, according to the first comprehensive data on prison fatalities in the era of Covid-19. The tremendous jump in deaths in 2020 was more than twice the increase in the United States overall, and even exceeded estimates of the percentage increase at nursing homes, among the hardest-hit sectors nationwide….
The New York Times reports: The grievances, paranoia and imperialist mind-set that drove President Vladimir V. Putin to invade Ukraine have seeped deep into Russian life after a year of war — a broad, if uneven, societal upheaval that has left the Russian leader more dominant than ever at home. Schoolchildren collect empty cans to make candles for soldiers in the trenches, while learning in a new weekly class that the Russian military has always liberated humanity from “aggressors who…
The Washington Post reports: President Vladimir Putin likes to portray himself as a new czar like Peter the Great or Ivan III, the 15th-century grand prince known as the “gatherer of the Russian lands.” But Putin’s year-long war in Ukraine has failed so far to secure the lands he aims to seize, and in Russia, there is fear that he is leading his nation into a dark period of strife and stagnation — or worse. Some in the elite also…
Slavoj Žižek writes: Last May, before being newly re-elected as president of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva claimed that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, bear equal responsibility for the war in Ukraine. Yet whether the refusal to pick sides comes from Brazil, South Africa, or India, claiming to be “neutral” on Russia’s war of aggression is untenable. The same is true of individuals. If a passerby saw a man relentlessly beating a child on a street corner, we…
Politico reports: The top U.S. general in Europe is quietly telling American lawmakers that giving Ukraine advanced Western equipment — such as F-16 fighter jets, drones, and long-range missiles — could help Kyiv rule the skies and bolster its own offensives against Russia. In a Friday morning closed-door briefing with more than 10 senators and House members, Gen. Christopher Cavoli was asked if F-16 fighter jets would help Ukraine win the war against Russia. He responded: “Yes,” according to five…
Mattathias Schwartz reports: In March 2020, a freelance writer in Mexico City was browsing the internet at home when he saw an ad for a self-described “social media” company that was looking for writers to post messages online. The company didn’t appear to have a name. Instead, there was a WhatsApp number and an address for an account on an encrypted email service. “Fluent English is a must,” the ad emphasized. The freelancer — I’ll call him Carlos — thought…
Yi Fuxian writes: China’s population decline, which the Chinese government officially confirmed in January, has led many observers to wonder if the country’s current demographic trends threaten its stability. According to the National Bureau of Statistics, China’s population shrank last year for the first time in 60 years, nine years earlier than government projections had anticipated. The fertility rate (births per woman) fell to 1.0-1.1, well below the official forecast of 1.8. Most notably, the number of births dropped sharply to 9.56 million, the fewest since 1790, despite China’s…
Politico reports: American and European allies are mobilizing to thwart the rapid expansion of the Russian paramilitary group known as Wagner, run by a Putin-affiliated oligarch, as it captures key cities for Moscow in Ukraine and spreads its influence to Africa and other corners of the world. With tens of thousands of fighters, many of them now battlefield-trained, the Wagner Group’s emergence as a rogue military threat could become a serious global challenge in years to come, U.S. and European…