Carol J. Williams is a retired foreign correspondent with 30 years' reporting abroad for the Los Angeles Times and Associated Press. She has reported from more than 80 countries, with a focus on USSR/Russia and Eastern Europe.
What has kept U.S. forces in the unreformable country is a circular argument about how to secure the gains made over 20 years, most notably the rights of women and girls in education and the economy.
The cumulative dispute resolutions and restoration of Europeans’ confidence in their U.S. allies likely constituted Biden’s most consequential week since taking office five months ago.
Biden on Tuesday unveiled nine overseas appointments, including three senior officials from the Obama administration and the heartwarming choice of hero pilot Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger of “Miracle on the Hudson” fame to serve as U.S. representative at the International Civil Aviation Organization in Montreal.
A deeply divided Israeli parliament swore in ultra-nationalist Naftali Bennett as prime minister Sunday to lead an unwieldy governing coalition united by little more than their determination to end the 12-year reign of Benjamin Netanyahu.
“Viruses are spread by people’s movements,” the association warned in a letter to Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga and Japan’s top Olympics officials. “Japan will hold a heavy responsibility if the Olympics and Paralympics work to worsen the pandemic, increasing the number of those who must suffer and die.”
The State Department further warns that many of the holiday spots open to Americans now, or soon to be, are plagued by risks of ransom kidnapping, terrorism, cartel violence and rampant crime.
The ex-KGB agent has slithered out of political peril in the past with swift strikes against weaker neighbors and rebellious republics within Russia. But the swarm of troops, armor and warships around Ukraine’s land and sea borders has alarmed Western leaders and drawn threats of new sanctions that would compound the hardships suffered by Russians amid the Covid-19 crises and spreading political unrest.
The coinciding scandals spurred massive March 4 Women protests that drew 110,000 into the streets of dozens of cities under the banner of “Enough is Enough.”
