As this article from the Romanian newspaper Romania Liberia shows once again – the divide between East and West Europe over President Obama’s decision to cancel the Bush-era missile shield couldn’t be starker. What West Europe regards as a reasoned and rational decision to bring Moscow more into the fold, Eastern Europe regards as naive if not betrayal. For Romania Liberia, Cristian Campeanu comments on President Obama’s naivete in part: “By abandoning the shield,...

Is the Polanski case an example of the Euro-American cultural divide striking again? Or is it about Switzerland, worried about its relations with the United States after the UBS debacle, trying to curry favor with Washington? Whatever the cause, the controversy triggered by the arrest and possible extradition to the United States of famed film director and pedophile Roman Polanski is fierce. For France’s Le Figaro, columnist Yves Threard captures French and Polish outrage by quoting French...

“Future news from September, 2012: After eight infuriated, highly-armed polar bears seize the U.N. General Assembly, the world suddenly realizes it confronts a new form of terrorism.” As the climate Change Summit in Copenhagen draws ever closer, pessimism is growing over whether the biggest gas emitters will take action to stop what most scientists assure us will be a catastrophe. And in the minds of a majority if not most people outside the United States, it is our nation, even under...

Unidentified members of Iran’s august Assembly of Experts, purported under Iran’s revolutionary constitution to oversee and be capable of removing that nation’s ’supreme leader’ who never faces the verdict of the average voter. (The same can apparently be said of that nation’s president, but setting that aside for the moment … While Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is at the U.N. feigning innocence, back in Iran, that nation’s supreme leader, Ayatollah...

As we’ve all heard by now, Western Europe is relieved, and Eastern Europe is aggrieved, over President Barack Obama’s decision to scrap Bush-era missile shield bases in Poland and the Czech Republic. This article by Marek Magierowski of Poland’s Rceczpospolita offers a good sense of how Poles view the decision. So why did Obama do it? Magierowski gives three reasons: “First, the Americans came to recognize that Iran will not soon be able to threaten Europe with its rockets...

This article from Colombia shows the Latin American backlash against Republican Joe Wilson’s anti-immigrant outburst during President Obama’s speech to a joint session of Congress. According to this editorial from Colombia’s El Tiempo, Wilson is the one who’s ‘lying’, since the bill in Congress ‘explicitly’ forbids health care to the undocumented. Which is why, the newspaper writes, Wilson embodies the insane world of the Republican right, where medical...

Continuing with our global coverage of President Obama’s decision to put an end to Bush-era anti-missile bases in East Europe, this is a German editorial roundup of nine regional newspapers from the Financial Times Deutschland. They are unanimously supportive of ditching the bases. For example, medium-sized newspaper, the Fuldaer Zeitung of Fulda, opines on the president’s decision: “From a diplomatic point of view, Obama’s move must be welcomed. He has opened the door for...

So who comes out ahead of President Obama’s decision to freeze or scrap Europe-based, Bush-era anti-missile sites? According to this op-ed by Dominique Jung of France’s Les Dernieres Nouvelles d’Alsace, Barack Obama is looking like a pretty good card player right at the moment. For Les Dernières Nouvelles d’Alsace, Dominique Jung writes of why East and West Europe differ in their reactions to the move: “France and Germany, mindful of ensuring that the United States doesn’t...

Continuing with our global coverage of President Obama’s decision to scrap Bush-era missile shield plans for Eastern Europe (more from Poland, Germany and France later this evening), we just posted something by Alexander Golz of Russia’s Yezhednevniy Zhurnal that is likely to surprise many American cable news viewers. What people of the neocon persuasion are calling the mistake of an amateur is being described by some Russian news outlets as a monumental foreign policy coup for the...

Iraqis ponder the impact of September 11 on them. So how were Iraqis feeling on September 11, 2009, eight years after the attacks that led – justifiably or not – to the invasion of their land? Judging by this op-ed from Iraqi magazine Iraq of Tomorrow, the people of the country are anything but grateful for the role America has played in their nation’s recent history – despite being free of Saddam. For Iraq of Tomorrow, Tarek Issa Taha writes in part: “The attacks against...

So the long-rumored deed is done: American has decided that the anti-missile shield, parts of which were to be built in Poland and the Czech Republic – is best set aside for other considerations. When one get’s past all the bravado and one-upmanship of foreign affairs, what impact will it have on Russian behavior? This editorial from Russia’s Gazeta newspaper, notably owned in part by Mikhail Gorbachev, suggests to the Kremlin and its reliable stable of party-line yes men that...

One of the many under-reported stories in our nation’s media are U.S. plans to build a number of new military bases in Colombia and expand others around the region. This article by Angel Guerra Cabrera from Mexico’s La Jornada reflects the views of a huge swath of Latin American opinion – and it’s anything but music to U.S. ears. For La Jornada, Angel Guerra Cabrera writes in part: “Over the past decade, in the United States as well as locally, the Right has suffered...

Is it time to, “completely forget the classic Left-Right dichotomy and apply what we’ve discovered about left- and right-handers to today’s problems?” In this tongue-in-cheek article from Frederico Bastiao of Portugal’s Jornal de Negocios, a completely new way of addressing the world’s problems needs to be considered. For the Jornal de Negocios, Frederico Bastiao writes in part: “A new and refreshing approach was recently proposed by my colleague Elesk...

It’s hard to know how to react to this article in China’s state-controlled People’s Daily. But it’s certainly interesting. An ode to the ideals held by the Kennedy family and the recently deceased Senator Ted Kennedy, columnist Li Hong writes that ambitious families in so-called communist China and other countries like Brazil, could learn a lot from the Kennedy clan, and ‘run for the highest office and endure to realize the greatest ambition.’ Has anyone informed...

‘THE TRIAL OF EMBASSY WORKERS’ Who detests the other more: The United States government or the regime at the helm of the Islamic Republic of Iran? Based on this article from the tightly state-controlled Kayhan newspaper, one would have to think that the Iranian Mullahs come out on top on that question. For Kayhan, that newspaper’s regular columnist on foreign affairs, Kian Mokhtari, writes in part: “So we must talk to the murderers who supplied chemical and biological weapons...

What is it about Libyan despot Mouamar Qaddafi that Western leaders find so irresistible? There’s no mystery about that, nor the unmistakable hypocrisy it represents. Expressing bile over Western tolerance for the man known in Libya as ‘the Guide,’ this editorial from France’s Le Monde sums it up this way: “His record is damning. The dashing officer who modeled himself on Egypt’s Nasser has been an across-the-board failure. Now an aging and pathetic despot, he...

Victory Day in Russia, 1945 Continuing with our coverage of the 70th anniversary of the outbreak of World War II, this article from Izvestia reflects the outrage Russians feel about being called allies of Hitler, as responsible as Germany for the last ‘War to End All Wars.’ For Izvestia, Vyacheslav Nikonov writes in part: “What a remarkable thing: the more time passes since the Second World War, the more we [Russians] have to explain ourselves. The years have washed away historical...

ON GLASSES: ‘CARE PLAN’TITLE: ‘FRAGILE’ Gravitas and the power of “the word.” Gravitas is that ancient Roman measure of a leader’s influence and credibility – and “the word” is a key tool that leaders must use to exercise that ancient virtue. Continuing with our sampling of global reaction to the issue of health care in America, according to columnist Lluis Bassets of Spain’s El Pais, after Obama’s breathtaking rise to power,...

As we have been seeing for months, when it comes to provisioning the population with health care, the behavior of U.S. Republicans is far more incomprehensible to Europeans than even for most U.S. Democrats. According to columnist David Francis of Germany’s Financial Times Deutschland, President Obama’s speech to a joint session of Congress on health care came close to sealing the deal while exposing Republicans as, “a party of fear-stoking, the sole purpose of which is not the...

Has America’s reaction to September 11 – its invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq – accelerated the end of U.S. dominance of the international system? According to commentator He Liangliang of Hong Kong’s Phoenix TV – one of the few privately-owned cable operators permitted by Beijing authorities to broadcast to the Mainland – America’s days as a global cop are well and truly over. For Hong Kong newspaper Wen Wei Po, He Liangliang presents what is likely a...

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is making news today with his splash of an arrival at the Venice Film Festival for the premier of Oliver Stone’s movie about his life called South of the Border. Italian news agency Adnkronos gave this somewhat detailed account of Chavez’ arrival in Venice and his comments in praise of Oliver Stone, President Obama and the Italian actresses that have stolen his heart – chiefly Gina Lollobrigida. Chavez also talks of wanting to meet the Pope –...

When one wants to get a sense of how people on the Afghan-Pakistan border feel about something, Pakistan’s Frontier Post, based in Quetta, Pakistan, is a good place to look. In this indignant editorial reaction to yesterday’s ill-fated NATO attack in Afghanistan’s Kunduz Province, the Frontier Post equates NATO forces with Taliban fighters, attacks the sincerity of the West’s stance on the value of human life and questions U.S. justification for the war. Another irony –...

If you happen to work for the Obama Administration and you’re reading these words, get ready for an earful. According to columnist Marcin Bosacki of Poland’s Gazeta Wyborcza, Eastern European and particularly Polish discontent with the White House is high, and the reasons essentially boil down to the following: The decision to ditch the Bush-era anti-missile shield which was to be built in Poland and the Czech Republic and come along with substantial military assistance – offering...

Continuing with our European coverage of the 70th anniversary of World War II, Izvestia columnist Anna Kaledina complains that while debate rages among Western leaders about who is most responsible for starting the war, most of their populations haven’t the foggiest notion of who fought, when they fought or who was at fault – nor do they care. And this, she warns – is dangerous – because only those who are aware of the truth can correct the record. Referring to what Russian...

With President Obama confronting a confluence of issues that appear to threaten his chances of having a successful term in office, his supporters in Europe are also sounding alarmed. For France’s Liberation, columnist Bernard Guetta writes in part: “The likelihood is that Obama has already failed to become a new Roosevelt, an architect of a modern New Deal that without increasing health spending who would offer some form of protection against disease for the nearly 60 million Americans...