Section: The Atlantic (USA)
How the West Propped Up Putin
Russian matryoshka dolls featuring Barack Obama, Dmitry Medvedev, and Vladimir Putin Denis Sinyakov / ReutersFive years after Vladimir Putin became president of Russia for the first time and began to rebuild the Soviet police state, I experienced a rebirth of my own. In 2005, I retired from 20 years on top of the professional chess world to join...
Violence and Xenophobia on the German Campaign Trail
Wolfgang Rattay / ReutersOn Saturday, Henriette Reker, a leading mayoral candidate in Cologne, Germany, was stabbed in the neck while campaigning at a market ahead of the city’s elections on Sunday. She was seriously wounded and is currently in stable condition. According to reports, her attacker was a 44-year-old Cologne man, who had been...
Can Containment Work Against Modern Russia?
Graffiti depicting Russian President Vladimir Putin extending a hand to the Ukrainian people on a wall in the Crimean city of Simferopol Shamil Zhumatov / ReutersThe signs of the times are everywhere. Estonia is erecting a 2.5-meter-high metal mesh fence reinforced with barbed wire along much of its border with Russia—and backing it up with...
Is Eastern Europe Any More Xenophobic Than Western Europe?
An anti-immigration protest in Dresden, Germany Hannibal Hanschke / ReutersAngela Merkel has arrived fashionably late to the chicest global party of the fall: the bash-Eastern-Europe bash. In a closed-door meeting last week, the German chancellor became the latest figure to criticize Eastern European governments for their isolationist response to...
What Bernie Sanders Is Missing
Lucy Nicholson / ReutersBernie Sanders didn’t prepare much for Tuesday night’s Democratic presidential debate. And on foreign policy, it showed. It began when Anderson Cooper asked the Vermont senator “what would you do differently” than Hillary Clinton about the conflict in Syria. Sanders answered that, “We should be putting together...
The World in Quotation Marks
Pro-Russia protesters in Luhansk, Ukraine Shamil Zhumatov / ReutersAfter visiting Argentina in the 1970s, the novelist V.S. Naipaul reflected on the “colonial mimicry” of Buenos Aires. “Within the imported metropolis there is the structure of a developed society. But men can often appear to be mimicking their functions,” he wrote. “So many words...
The Atlantic Daily: Israeli-Palestinian Violence, MH17 Report, Democratic Debate
Mohamad Torokman / ReutersWhat We’re Following: Violence in Israel Three Israelis were killed and 20 others were readers’ stories, and share your own, here. Verbs Rand Paul’s entire day livestreamed, Pitchfork purchased, 92-year-old World War II veteran skydives. Answers: 80, COLORADo, 25,000 …read more Source: <a...
Getting Ready to Move to Mars
Alvaro DominguezOne day, when earth is destroyed by war or rising seas or a wayward asteroid, humanity will be extinguished—and along with it reality television, baseball stadiums, and thousands of recipes for guacamole, with and without peas. Unless, that is, we’ve established a colony somewhere in space. “History has shown that extinction...
Who Brought Down Flight MH17?
The national flags of the passenger aboard Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 are seen at the crash site near Hrabove, Ukraine, on July 17, 2015. Mstyslav Chernov / APMalaysia Airlines Flight MH17 was struck by a Russian-made Buk surface-to-air missile as it flew over Ukrainian airspace on July 17, 2014, the Dutch Safety Board said in a report released...
What We’re Following This Morning
Fourth time’s the charm: AB InBev says it has reached an agreement in principle to buy SABMiller for about $104 billion. As David reported last week, SAB Miller had rejected an offer from its larger rival three times. The agreement would create a brewing behemoth that includes the Budweiser and Miller brands. Democratic Debate: Hillary...
