Section: European Voice (EU)
The dangerous link between Syria and Ukraine
Despite what Vladimir Putin is saying, the United States still staunchly refuses to believe Russia is engaged in a new Cold War — and that the U.S. is losing. But Russia aggressively pushes its own narrative where U.S. leadership is absent. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov seems to be everywhere in recent weeks, speaking several times with...
Obama to face off against Putin
After a vigorous internal administration debate, President Barack Obama has decided there is little to lose by ending a diplomatic freeze-out and agreeing to a one-on-one meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the United Nations in New York City next week. Expectations are low that the meeting will yield much progress on friction points...
Playbook Plus
ANOTHER BITE OF THE APPLE: Which EU official accidentally breached three layers of security at Apple’s Silicon Valley headquarters — in search of nothing more than a good coffee? After being told an unscheduled tour of the campus wasn’t possible the official decided to make the best of bad luck and find a good coffee. Unfortunately...
U.S. perplexed by Putin’s Syria ploy
A month after Russia began sending military equipment and personnel into Syria, Obama administration officials still haven’t figured out exactly why Vladimir Putin escalated Russia’s involvement in the conflict or developed a response to the Russian leader’s ambitions outside his borders. U.S. officials are trying to determine...
South Africa hurtles ‘south’
CAPE TOWN, South Africa — Throughout the long Cold War one of the West’s principal concerns was the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa. On the one hand it was feared that the main liberation movement, the African National Congress, had fallen under Communist control. This considerably complicated the West’s support for the...
Varoufakis told you so
ATHENS — Yanis Varoufakis lives in understated elegance. His apartment is spacious and pleasing to the eye. Shelves bulge with books on politics and economics, unsurprising for a university professor who was, until July, Greece’s finance minister. Varoufakis is welcoming. He makes us coffee and puts a box of chocolates on the table, next to...
Gazprom bids to end EU antitrust probe
Gazprom has offered to settle antitrust charges leveled by the European Commission in a bid to end a politically charged investigation that could cost it billions in fines. The company, which is the dominant supplier of natural gas in much of Central and Eastern Europe, addressed the Commission’s concerns about how Gazprom sets prices,...
Time to get tough on Azerbaijan
Almost all the news coming out of Azerbaijan these days is bad. On August 9, an independent Azerbaijani journalist, Rasim Aliyev, was beaten and killed. A few days later, civil society activists Leyla and Arif Yunus were sentenced to lengthy prison terms on politically-motivated charges. And on September 1, a court sentenced award-winning...
UK watchdog raps RT for biased reports
LONDON — RT, the state-owned Russian news channel, was reprimanded by Britain’s communications watchdog Monday for airing biased and misleading reports on Ukraine and Syria. Ofcom found “significant” breaches of U.K. broadcasting rules in three separate programs screened by RT last year. It ordered the news channel to broadcast statements...
Poland: Seal EU borders
For the last few weeks, Europe has quarreled and quibbled about how to divide up 120,000 refugees among EU member countries. While we talk, the wave of refugees continues to grow and grow. Instead we should be jumping into action with a broad plan that tackles the causes of the exodus as well as the symptoms. And we need to strike the right...
