Italian Premier Matteo Renzi with United Nations special envoy for Libya Bernardino Leon as they arrive for a meeting, Chigi Palace, Rome, March 11, 2015 (AP photo by Alessandro Di Meo, Ansa).

In the winter of 2013, then-Italian Prime Minister Enrico Letta came out of a meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama with the idea that the United States, too busy with other issues, had delegated the solution of the turmoil in Libya to Italy. This perception soon percolated into both the foreign policy and the defense establishments in Rome: Libya was now important not just because of geography and longstanding ties, but also because it was one of the few areas of the world in which the rest of the West would look to Italy for a solution. Yet two years […]

An Egyptian policeman patrols as tourists walk through the ruins of the Karnak Temple in Luxor, Egypt, June 11, 2015 (AP photo by Hassan Ammar).

Last week it was the Pyramids, and Wednesday, the Karnak Temple in Luxor. Twice in one week, militants attacked major tourism sites in Egypt, reviving fears of a return to the violence that marked the 1990s. Then, the low-level insurgency by Islamic radicals against former President Hosni Mubarak culminated in the horrific 1997 attack on the Temple of Hatsepshut, across the Nile from Luxor, when gunmen killed 58 tourists and six Egyptians. On Wednesday, a suicide bomber blew himself up in a parking lot just outside the sprawling, Pharaonic-era Karnak Temple along the Nile. Two gunmen then engaged in a […]

A boat loaded with migrants is spotted at sea off the Sicilian island of Lampedusa, Italy, March 7, 2011 (AP photo by Antonello Nusca).

The plight of migrants and refugees has made headlines around the world in recent months. Despite the globalized economy, governments remain stubborn about the movement of human beings across national borders. This report covers ongoing migration crises from the Mediterranean to Africa to Southeast Asia. For the next two weeks, all of the articles linked below are free for non-subscribers. Europe: Thousands of African and Middle Eastern migrants fleeing to Europe in unsafe boats have drowned in the Mediterranean in high-profile incidents this year. The European Union has drawn much criticism for its inability to prevent these tragedies. Not the […]