THE EU TESTS ITS LEVERAGE — Piero Fassino, the European Union’s new special envoy for Myanmar, a.k.a. Burma, is likely to have an uphill battle to persuade that country’s neighbors to go along with new EU sanctions against the Burmese regime. Last week, the European Union drew up a list of sanctions specifically targeting Burma’s ruling junta, including blocking their exports of Burmese gems — a key source of revenue for the leadership — plus a Europe-wide travel ban, and curtailment of other trade. The aim is to pressure the junta to improve on the so far modest concessions made [...]
Trying to understand Russia through the prism of the British and American news media these days can be a real headache. On one hand, if you read the business pages of the Wall Street Journal or the New York Times lately, you will learn that Russia is now one of the world’s leading emerging markets, and the Russian economy has grown at an average annual rate of 7 percent since 2000. On the other hand, if you turn to the international headlines or the editorial pages, you will read that Russian President Vladimir Putin has been busy crushing democracy and [...]
“Is the Romanian bogeyman destined to become Italians’ new nightmare?” This was the question raised by Maria Luisa Agnese in a Nov. 1 column in the Italian daily the Corriere della Sera, suggestively titled “The Specter of the ‘Monsters’ from Europe.” Two days earlier, on Oct. 30, Giovanna Reggiani, the 47-year-old wife of a navy officer, was found half-naked and barely alive in a ditch near the Tor di Quinto train station on the outskirts of Rome. Reggiani had been robbed and savagely beaten. Taken in a coma to the Sant’Andrea hospital, she would subsequently die there of her injuries. [...]
