KYIV, Ukraine — Washington may be obsessed with the impeachment inquiry over President Trump’s dealings with Ukraine, but it was far from the minds of a few thousand protesters who gathered on a recent frosty night in Kyiv to vent their anger at their own country’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, over his peace overtures to Russia. […]
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Locals call it the Monkey House. The decaying, three-story cement fortress sits among weeds in the wooded, hilly outskirts of Dongducheon, a Korean city of 96,000 that encircles Camp Casey, the closest U.S. military base to North Korea and home to key elements of the U.S. Army’s 2nd Infantry Division. The 2ID is “the only […]
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CANBERRA, Australia — A Chinese defector to Australia who detailed political interference by Beijing. A businessman found dead after telling the authorities about a Chinese plot to install him in Parliament. Suspicious men following critics of Beijing in major Australian cities. For a country that just wants calm commerce with China — the propellant behind […]
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PRAGUE — On the top floor of an opulent Art Deco building in the heart of old Prague, the new lord mayor was standing with a glass of sparkling wine in hand, greeting diplomats as they made their way into his official residence for a New Year’s gathering. But when the Chinese ambassador reached Mayor […]
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Boycotting Israel is a failure, and has only helped that country while damaging Arab nations that have long shunned the Jewish state, according to a small new group of liberal-minded Arab thinkers from across the Middle East who are pushing to engage with Israel on the theory that it would aid their societies and further […]
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COPENHAGEN — More than 60 years of hassle-free travel from Sweden to Denmark has ended after the Danish authorities, struggling to quell a wave of bombings blamed on Swedish gangs, introduced passport checks for the first time since the 1950s. The measures put in place on Tuesday are temporary and will be applied intermittently, but […]
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For many in the West, Russia’s return to the world stage over the past few years has come as a surprise, and not an especially pleasant one. After the downfall of the Soviet Union, the country was written off as yesterday’s snow, a regional power, a filling station masquerading as a state. Five years later, […]
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ANTANANARIVO, Madagascar — The Russians were hard to miss. They appeared suddenly last year in Madagascar’s traffic-snarled capital, carrying backpacks stuffed with cash and campaign swag decorated with the name of Madagascar’s president. It was one of Russia’s most overt attempts at election interference to date. Working from their headquarters in a resort hotel, the […]
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SHANGHAI — When the Pompidou Center first floated the idea of opening a Chinese outpost more than a decade ago, skeptics back home in France were still fiercely debating the question of whether the country’s cherished national museums should have a role in promoting political and commercial interests abroad. But with the opening in recent […]
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SHANGHAI — Xi Jinping, China’s top leader, broadly endorsed free trade principles and promised to welcome foreign investment in a speech on Tuesday, but he stopped short of providing specifics or addressing his country’s long-running trade war with the United States. Speaking at the opening of the second annual China International Import Expo in Shanghai, […]
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WASHINGTON — President Trump has offered several justifications for an American withdrawal from Syria. He has dismissed the country as nothing but “sand and death,” discounted its American-backed Kurdish fighters as “no angels,” and argued that he is winding down “endless wars.” But in recent days, Mr. Trump has settled on Syria’s oil reserves as […]
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AKCAKALE, Turkey — The Turkish Army halted its incursion into a Kurdish-run area of northern Syria on Wednesday morning, after a deal between the Turkish and Russian governments promised that Kurdish fighters would retreat from the Turkish-Syrian border. In a statement, the Turkish defense ministry said it would not advance beyond an area of roughly […]
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The United States has often played a pivotal role in my political life, beginning 50 years ago when I was a student of international relations at a Moscow university. At that time, Soviet propaganda was well-practiced at denouncing Richard Nixon for rejecting the Kremlin’s dogma that in politics, the ends justify the means. Mr. Nixon […]
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The sudden decision to pull about 1,000 American troops out of northern Syria, and leave Kurdish allies in the lurch after they did so much to fight off the Islamic State, has already had terrible consequences. The Kurds have been forced to make a deal with the murderous regime of President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, […]
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WASHINGTON — President Trump has decided to host the Group of 7 meeting next June at the Trump National Doral near Miami, Mick Mulvaney, the president’s acting chief of staff, said Thursday, a decision that prompted immediate questions about whether it was a conflict of interest for him to choose one of his own properties […]
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WASHINGTON — President Trump will host next year’s Group of 7 meeting next June at Trump Doral, his luxury resort near Miami, the president’s acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, told reporters on Thursday. “‘It’s almost like they built this facility to host this type of event,’” Mr. Mulvaney said during a press briefing, quoting […]
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DOHUK, Iraq — Syrian government forces streamed into the country’s northeast on Monday, seizing towns where they had not stepped foot in years and filling a vacuum opened up by President Trump’s decision to abandon the United States’ Syrian Kurdish allies. Less than a week after Turkey launched an incursion into northern Syria with Mr. […]
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KATHMANDU, Nepal — Xi Jinping touched down in Nepal on Saturday, the first visit by a Chinese president to the country in more than two decades, underscoring Beijing’s increasing interest in South Asia as a strategic hub for defense and transit projects. Ahead of Mr. Xi’s two-day visit, which follows a trip to India, thousands […]
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PARIS — When I first met Isadora Zubillaga in New York some 20 years ago, she was a young venture capitalist investing in Latin American start-ups, and I was an equally young reporter covering Latin America. She never mentioned politics. We soon lost touch. So I was surprised when Ms. Zubillaga emailed me out of […]
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BEIJING — As President Xi Jinping of China watched from a rostrum above the iconic portrait of Mao, the weapons came one after the other down the Avenue of Eternal Peace. Intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of delivering multiple nuclear warheads. Drones built for precision strikes. Tanks and armored personnel carriers bearing soldiers in green uniforms. […]
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The past few months have been challenging for China: A trade war with the United States has taken a toll on the economy, while months of protests in Hong Kong have raised questions about the sustainability of Chinese political control at the edges of its rule. But rather than play down these challenges at home, […]
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BERLIN — At the outset, the German officers investigating the brazen daylight assassination of a former Chechen separatist commander were lucky. The killer, a man in a wig who had gunned down the victim in a Berlin park, was spotted by two teenagers, who called the police. Officers arrested the suspect near the Spree River […]
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President Trump delivered a sharp nationalist message and assailed “globalists” in remarks to the world’s leading international body on Tuesday, while taking a notably moderate line on Iranian aggression in the Middle East. “If you want freedom, hold on to your sovereignty, and if you want peace, love your nation,” Mr. Trump said, as he […]
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