Carol J. Williams is a retired foreign correspondent with 30 years' reporting abroad for the Los Angeles Times and Associated Press. She has reported from more than 80 countries, with a focus on USSR/Russia and Eastern Europe.
The Pentagon last week issued an order to defense installations prohibiting them from public disclosure of coronavirus infections among their ranks. That has stirred fear in civilian and military communities in places like Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor, Puget Sound Naval Shipyard and Joint Base Lewis McChord
Putin’s posture during the pandemic had for weeks mimicked that of Donald Trump and Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who persisted in brushing off the threat to their countries from a virus that was spreading rapidly elsewhere.
Putin is now positioned to join the rulers-for-life club whose membership is a Who’s Who of autocracy: Chinese President Xi Jinping, North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
The only clarity to come out of the competition for the loudest voice in the room was that what is needed most for a Democratic victory in November – unity – is nowhere in sight.
The Kremlin's attempt to cover up the 1986 Chernobyl disaster eroded public trust of the Communist leadership and set the Soviet Union on the path to breakup in 1991. Could the Chinese government's secrecy on the coronavirus epidemic undermine its authority?
What we feared during the last decade when autocrats and populists took power in democratic countries like ours has come to pass and surpass our worst nightmares.
Congressional Republicans could be relied for the past century to attack Kremlin perfidy and Communist propaganda. Now Joe McCarthy, Ronald Reagan and John McCain are rolling in their graves.
If Putin could have one wish granted, it would be for the demise of NATO. Since its formation in 1949, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization has succeeded where the Kremlin-controlled Warsaw Pact failed.
Two words pop into my head every time I hear House members –
from both parties – thank the impeachment inquiry witnesses for their decorated
military service: Bone spurs.
One word comes...
Thirty years ago this week: Over three tumultuous days, 4 million East Germans – a quarter of the population -- flooded into West Berlin to a joyous reception. But expectations of a more peaceful and collaborative world have been dampened by new threats.