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 diplomatic scramble to rescue the Afghan people from total economic collapse and widespread hunger rests on a theory that Western democracies can compel a more moderate Taliban rule through the provision of aid and measured collaboration with the regime when necessary.Â
The Center for Nonproliferation Studies calls the U.S. and British commitment to provide Canberra what it needs to build a nuclear submarine fleet “an unprecedented transfer of strategic capability to another country” and one “sure to irk China and accelerate the spiral toward a Cold War-style standoff.”
The latest aggregate of Germany’s multitudinous polls scatters voter support so widely among the six parties in contention that the leader whose party wins the most seats in the Bundestag will have to woo two others into a three-party governing coalition.
The popularity of Persian Gulf refuge for discredited leaders reflects the shift in global turmoil to the Middle East and Asia from previous decades’ fighting and coup-waging that toppled Latin American strongmen and Eurasian Communist dictators.
The attacks claimed by the Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP) at an airport gate thronged by those desperate to flee the Taliban demonstrated that the extremist force claiming to be in power has no control over rival militant factions or even many in its own ranks.
French president Emmanuel Macron’s edict spurred 160,000 protesters to take to the streets accusing him of dictatorial tactics. It also drove nearly 4 million others to book vaccinations.
What has kept U.S. forces in the unreformable country is a circular argument about how to secure the gains made over 20 years, most notably the rights of women and girls in education and the economy.
The cumulative dispute resolutions and restoration of Europeans’ confidence in their U.S. allies likely constituted Biden’s most consequential week since taking office five months ago.