Russian tanks and troops descend upon the Crimean peninsula. The Ukrainian interim Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk describes the situation as a “red alert” and “a declaration of war.” NATO calls an emergency meeting. The UN Security Council convenes to assess the situation. President Obama gets on the phone with allies in Europe and even speaks … Read more
The Ukraine is boiling over. The Maidan, the Tahrir Square of Kiev, is a war zone. The battle lines are constantly being redrawn, and the conflict has already spread beyond the capital, even into traditionally Russian strongholds. But you might miss the rapidly unfolding human drama if you follow only American news sources. Here’s your … Read more
Editor’s note: For another perspective, check out staff writer’s Andrew Ma’s article, “Europe’s Decline.” If the 19th Century is known for European hegemony, the 20th Century is known for European division. For decades, the continent served as a center of multilateral conflict, ethnic tension, and wildly divergent foreign policies and ideology. Now, however, for the … Read more
Editor’s note: For another perspective, check out staff writer Nicholas Bonstow’s article, “Europe’s New Rise.” Nowadays, when we think of the UN, we think of old Westerners sitting at a table, working out issues for some unfortunate and unrelated country that direly needs foreign aid. A general sense of Eurocentrism permeates these images of international … Read more
Even before the Gezi Park uprisings this June, staff writer Cansu Colakoglu had been a vehement critic of Turkey’s turn away from secularism. In a brief, prescient article published in mid-May, she wrote of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and the organization’s march toward political Islamism. When more than three million gathered in … Read more
After several years of war, thousands of people have died. Cities and suburbs are the scenes of brutal fighting. The conflict has a sectarian cast, with different ethnic and religious groups taking sides and fighting one other. And while the fighting continues, the outside world appears unwilling to act. This is Bosnia, 1995. Sound familiar? … Read more
Yesterday, October 11, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for their “extensive efforts to eliminate chemical weapons.” This award must be seen as an endorsement of the perceived success of the OPCW in working to arrange for the destruction of chemical weapons and averting a once-imminent … Read more
The past few years have not been Russia’s best, at least from an international perspective. Since the reelection of Vladimir Putin for a third term as president in 2012 — but even during his role as prime-minister — the country has been known for major human rights violations that often escalated into full-blown violence. Such … Read more
Russia has recently returned to the headlines in the wake of the Edward Snowden odyssey, but otherwise the nation’s domestic politics have remained off the radar since the brief flurry of post-election protests in March. Since then, the general notion has been that Putin has rebuffed the political threat and continued to consolidate control over … Read more
On June 23, Albania held its fourth regular parliamentary elections since the country’s fragile democracy was established in 1990 — elections that were of utmost importance for this small, eastern European country, as they would not only make or break its economic and political future, but also indicate how ready the nation was to become a … Read more