What message is Attorney General William Barr sending citizens in defying court order? Nicholas Kamm/AFP via Getty Images What happens to the rule of law when even the top law enforcement official in the land refuses to obey it? That’s the question raised in a stinging rebuke of Attorney General William Barr and his Justice […] More
Donald Trump filed his paperwork to run for reelection only hours after his inauguration in January 2017, setting a presidential record, the first of his many dubious achievements. For a man who relished the adulation and bombast of campaigning, it should have surprised no one that he charged out of the starting gate so quickly for 2020 […] More
Watching French President Emmanuel Macron’s address to the nation on March 12, I couldn’t avoid admiring the skill with which he deployed two supremely engineered strategic themes. After drawing attention to the importance of a concerted European response to the pandemic, he insisted that the French government would not only bypass the interests of the […] More
The philosopher Martha Nussbaum has a prodigious output and, indeed, it takes a prodigious effort to keep up with it. No sooner had I completed reading the latest trio of her books than a new one was signaled, many of the recent works being based on her delivery of prestigious guest lectures at universities around […] More
A sudden controversy has exploded in the Netherlands. In March, the Dutch department store HEMA began selling a traditional Dutch pastry under the name chocoladebal (chocolate ball) instead of moorkop (referring to the head of a dark-skinned person). HEMA followed in the footsteps of a small baker who believed the racist connotation left the chocolate-glazed […] More
As COVID-19 continues to impact markets and national and global economies, it is worthwhile noting that Gulf economies were already slowing before the virus hit the region. A comprehensive assessment by London-based Capital Economics, released on February 25 but based on statistics up to the end of December 2019, illustrates that point. (China alerted the World Health Organization on […] More
On Friday, the media reported that Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), had arrested two powerful members of the royal family, Prince Ahmed bin Abdul Aziz, the sole remaining full brother of King Salman, and the former crown prince, Mohammed bin Nayef. Al Jazeera describes the arrests as “Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s […] More
With the COVID-19 outbreak unfolding worldwide, with around 35,000 cases confirmed outside China to date, it is possible to attempt a preliminary analysis of the politics of coronavirus and the efficiency of policies adopted by national governments and international bodies. Unfortunately, the measures seen so far have not always displayed the degree of leadership, responsiveness […] More
