I was a socialist in college. I read magazines like The Nation and old issues of The New Masses. I dreamed of being the next Clifford Odets, a lefty playwright who was always trying to raise proletarian class consciousness. If you go on YouTube and search “David Brooks Milton Friedman,” you can see a 22-year-old […]
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WASHINGTON — The Trump administration has formally objected to the World Bank’s plans to continue lending to China, the latest flash point in a long-running battle between the world’s largest economies. The objection comes at a delicate moment, as Washington and Beijing try to reach a Phase 1 trade agreement within the next 10 days. […]
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PARIS — The streets of French cities were filled with anti-government demonstrators, tear gas and police officers on Thursday as Emmanuel Macron again faced what has become an emblem of his presidency: social unrest. This time it was a general strike over his plans to overhaul the country’s pension system. Much of the country came […]
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Here’s what you need to know: ImageFrench union members protesting in Marseille on Thursday against the government’s pension proposals.Credit…Jean-Paul Pelissier/Reuters Idled trains, boarded-up shops and deep discontent. A protest against changes to France’s pension system brought parts of the country to a grinding halt on Thursday, with nationwide strikes shutting down transportation and leaving schools […]
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Two years ago, a 27-year-old man named Kobili Traoré walked into the Paris apartment of a 65-year-old kindergarten teacher named Sarah Halimi. Mr. Traoré beat Ms. Halimi and stabbed her. According to witnesses, he called her a demon and a dirty Jew. He shouted, “Allahu akbar,” then threw Ms. Halimi’s battered body out of her […]
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TOKYO — Japan will spend nearly $120 billion to stimulate its slowing economy and to help some of the areas worst affected by Typhoon Hagibis, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe announced on Thursday. In announcing the much-anticipated package of more than 13 trillion yen, Mr. Abe told a meeting of his governing Liberal Democratic Party that […]
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Dec. 5, 2019 ImageEvgeny A. Freidman in his garage in Long Island City, Queens.Credit…Sasha Maslov The man known as the Taxi King arrived at his 2014 holiday party in a $384,000 Ferrari, wearing a custom Italian suit. He told the guests whom he had invited to an upscale Manhattan club — including executives, politicians and […]
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To visit Venezuela today is to see how misrule can shatter a country. Years of corrupt, incompetent and autocratic rule have left Venezuelans hungry and children dying for want of basic medical care. Daniela Serrano, above, lost a child this year to malnutrition and now watches apprehensively as her daughter, Daryelis, 3, undergoes a health […]
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PARIS — President Emmanuel Macron is facing his biggest test since the “Yellow Vest” uprising shook his presidency a year ago, as unions representing railway and transport workers and many others in the public sector called for a mass walkout on Thursday to protest changes to France’s uniquely generous pension system. The strike, which began […]
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Having covered the Middle East my entire adult life, I’m seeing some trends emerging there that I’ve never seen before. One is from the streets of Beirut to the streets of Baghdad to streets all across Iran, Middle Easterners are demanding to be treated as citizens with rights, and not just members of a sect […]
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SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea said on Tuesday that its leader, Kim Jong-un, had opened a new mountain resort this week, calling it “an epitome of modern civilization,” as the isolated country tries to attract more foreign tourists to blunt the pain of international sanctions. Mr. Kim attended the ribbon-cutting ceremony of the Township […]
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BEIRUT, Lebanon — In Lebanon, its people like to boast, you can take in pristine mountain villages and swim in the shimmering sea all in one day. But the country’s blond-sand beaches are now scarred with plastic bottles and its mountain streams befouled by open dumps. The Mediterranean gurgles with toxic runoff from rotting garbage. […]
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Two weeks after protests first gripped Iran — and quickly turned deadly — the government has officially acknowledged that security officials used firearms to tamp down the widespread demonstrations. A report on state television on Tuesday said that some of the protesters killed in the crackdown were “rioters who have attacked sensitive or military centers […]
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LONDON — President Trump moved on Tuesday to distance himself from Prince Andrew, the son of Queen Elizabeth II who has become entangled in sexual abuse accusations against the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein. “I don’t know Prince Andrew, but it’s a tough story,” Mr. Trump told reporters while visiting London for a NATO meeting, adding: […]
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Listen and subscribe to our podcast from your mobile device: Via Apple Podcasts | Via RadioPublic | Via Stitcher Iran is experiencing its deadliest political unrest in decades, with scores of people killed by government forces in the last few weeks. Natalie Kitroeff speaks to Farnaz Fassihi about why the United States wanted that unrest […]
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TAESUNG FREEDOM VILLAGE, South Korea — For decades, a village of 188 people has enjoyed perks that few others in South Korea have, with its men exempted from mandatory military service and its 46 households getting special tax cuts. These are the rewards for carving out a life in what has been called the scariest […]
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The text messages arrived on a snowy January afternoon, a few hours after New York’s state ethics commission privately debated whether to investigate a disgraced former aide to Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo. They were from a high-ranking government lawyer, sent to one of the commission members. Was the meeting over? the lawyer asked. He had […]
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BEIJING — China said on Monday that it would suspend visits to Hong Kong by American warships and impose sanctions on several United States-based nongovernmental groups, in a mostly symbolic retaliation for tough human rights legislation President Trump signed last week. Hua Chunying, a spokeswoman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, said the measures were a […]
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Video transcript Back transcript What Iran Did Not Want You To See In the wake of an internet shutdown, one human rights researcher sifts through video evidence of atrocities. It’s really shocking. You see the security forces who are just shooting. The protests were triggered by a massive rise in the fuel price. And within […]
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VALLETTA, Malta — Destabilized by a widening investigation into the 2017 murder of Malta’s best-known journalist, the prime minister of the Mediterranean island nation announced on Sunday that he would resign, but not leave office until January, following an uproar over the possible role of close associates in the killing. The announcement by Prime Minister […]
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He was a former hacker from Alabama who styled himself a “disruptive technologist” and believed that he was using his data-mining expertise as a force for good. But then, in April, Virgil Griffith traveled to North Korea with a visa he had obtained from a diplomatic mission in New York City, going through China to […]
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“Not a chance,” the president’s tweet said, in Chinese characters. That was the message from Tsai Ing-wen, the leader of Taiwan, on Nov. 5, after the Chinese government announced a string of initiatives to lure Taiwanese companies and residents to the mainland. “Beijing’s new 26 measures are part of a greater effort to force a […]
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PARAÍSO, Mexico — Every day before dawn, a knot of unemployed men gather at the gate of a construction site, hoping to land a job building a new oil refinery that Mexico’s president promises will bring riches to this forgotten corner of southeastern Mexico. They linger until noon before drifting off in the haze of […]
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