Weekend Roundup: A Sigh of Relief in Europe

Credits

Nathan Gardels is the editor-in-chief of Noema Magazine.

Though nothing is finally settled, Europe this week breathed a sigh of relief.

Greece’s Syriza-led government backed down in its confrontation with its EU partners over austerity policies and, after bloody skirmishes in the early days of a new cease-fire agreement, the combatants in Ukraine backed off.

Not everyone was happy in Greece, though. Manolis Glezos, a 92-year-old WWII Greek resistance hero and prominent member of Syriza, writes that “I apologize to the Greek people for collaborating in this illusion” that the new government would break free of the crushing bailout constraints. Greek journalist Thanos Dimadis argues that standing up to Germany on Greek terms was itself a victory despite compromises.

Writing from Kyiv, former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko hopes that “Minsk 2.0” will bring peace, but worries that there is no enforcement mechanism.

This week “Forgotten Facts” reviews the past experience of agreements in the Ukraine crisis that inevitably gave way to renewed fighting.

Writing from Brussels, European parliamentarian Guy Verhofstadt says that Putin would be “hit where it hurts most” if the EU adopted a common, independent energy policy to wean it from Russian oil and gas. Looking out on the world from Moscow, analyst Fyodor Lukyanov traces the present turmoil in the world order to the erosion of the nation-state from above through integrating sovereignty, and from below, through the UN-sanctioned “right to intervene.” In an interview, former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright says “the international community has to act” if a nation does not protect its own citizens.

Writing from Beijing, Pepe Escobar observes an historic shift as China turns away from the West to the emerging economies to help build its future. Oscar-nominated producer Mike Medavoy and WorldPost Editor-In-Chief Nathan Gardels ponder the paradox of Chinese authorities cracking down on “Western values” in textbooks even as Chinese audiences throng Hollywood movies that impart those very values. WorldPost China Correspondent Matt Sheehan reports from Beijing on the “praying pig” that bowed down in front of a Buddhist temple for hours on the way to the slaughterhouse. Videos of the scene went viral. He also reports that China has suspended imports of ivory to help stem the slaughter of elephants in Africa.

In a statement exclusive to The WorldPost, British Barrister Amal Clooney writes in advance of his Mar. 8 trial in Cairo that Egyptian authorities should send Al Jazeera journalist Mohamed Fahmy home to Canada.

Nazila Fathi documents how Iranian youth are transforming their country not through political revolt but by the slow movement of lifestyle changes. From Egypt, WorldPost Middle East Correspondent Sophia Jones tells the story of one Coptic Christian who escaped from ISIS in Libya where 21 others were beheaded. She also reports from the Syrian border town of Karkamish, Turkey that all it takes to cross over to ISIS territory is $25 for a visa and a guide. J.M. Berger explains how Facebook and Twitter are fighting back against the Islamic State’s social media strategy.

In an interview with WorldPost’s Nick Robins-Early, Hussein Ibish discusses how ISIS sees itself as “God’s chosen instrument for cleansing history and bringing about the end of times.”

Echoing U.S. National Security Advisor Susan Rice, Robert K. Lifton, former president of the American Jewish Congress, says that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s controversial speech before the U.S. Congress next week hurts Israel’s interests.

In an exclusive interview with HuffPost India in New Delhi, Nobel laureate Amartya Sen proposes how India can flourish. Indian educator Bodhisattwa Biswas addresses the challenge of keeping students from dropping out of free primary schools. Aseefa Bhutto Zardari lays out a way to eliminate polio in Pakistan.

IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde calls for “fair play” for women in top positions in government and business. Writing from Buenos Aires Pierpaolo Barbieri warns Europeans tempted by populism to take a look at the results in Latin America. Writing from Lima, economist Hernando de Soto argues provocatively that Thomas Piketty has gotten it wrong for the Third World, where revolts like the Arab Spring are for capital, not against it.

In advance of the WorldPost “Future of Work“ conference in London next week, MIT’s Andrew McAfee tells us how to prepare for “the second machine” age when robots invade the workplace. Scripps scientist Eric Topol explains how smartphones will radically change health care by putting doctors and patients on equal footing.

In Following Francis this month, Sébastien Maillard looks at how Pope Francis is revolutionizing how the Vatican operates.

Our Singularity University series this week looks at how all the world’s data could fit on a teaspoon-sized DNA hard drive. Fusion this week offers some Instagram photos that document the impact of climate change around the world.

WHO WE ARE

EDITORS: Nathan Gardels, Senior Advisor to the Berggruen Institute on Governance and the long-time editor of NPQ and the Global Viewpoint Network of the Los Angeles Times Syndicate/Tribune Media, is the Editor-in-Chief of The WorldPost. Farah Mohamed is the Managing Editor of The WorldPost. Kathleen Miles is the Senior Editor of the WorldPost. Alex Gardels is the Associate Editor of The WorldPost. Katie Nelson is the National Editor at the Huffington Post, overseeing The WorldPost and HuffPost’s editorial coverage. Eline Gordts is HuffPost’s Senior World Editor. Charlotte Alfred and Nick Robins-Early are Associate World Editors.

CORRESPONDENTS: Sophia Jones in Istanbul; Matt Sheehan in Beijing.

EDITORIAL BOARD: Nicolas Berggruen, Nathan Gardels, Arianna Huffington, Eric Schmidt (Google Inc.), Pierre Omidyar (First Look Media) Juan Luis Cebrian (El Pais/PRISA), Walter Isaacson (Aspen Institute/TIME-CNN), John Elkann (Corriere della Sera, La Stampa), Wadah Khanfar (Al Jazeera), Dileep Padgaonkar (Times of India) and Yoichi Funabashi (Asahi Shimbun).

CONTRIBUTING EDITORS: Moises Naim (former editor of Foreign Policy), Nayan Chanda (Yale/Global; Far Eastern Economic Review) and Katherine Keating (One-On-One). Sergio Munoz Bata and Parag Khanna are Contributing Editors-At-Large.

The Asia Society and its ChinaFile, edited by Orville Schell, is our primary partner on Asia coverage. Eric X. Li and the Chunqiu Institute/Fudan University in Shanghai and Guancha.cn also provide first person voices from China. We also draw on the content of China Digital Times. Seung-yoon Lee is The WorldPost link in South Korea.

Jared Cohen of Google Ideas provides regular commentary from young thinkers, leaders and activists around the globe. Bruce Mau provides regular columns from MassiveChangeNetwork.com on the “whole mind” way of thinking. Patrick Soon-Shiong is Contributing Editor for Health and Medicine.

ADVISORY COUNCIL: Members of the Berggruen Institute’s 21st Century Council and Council for the Future of Europe serve as the Advisory Council — as well as regular contributors — to the site. These include, Jacques Attali, Shaukat Aziz, Gordon Brown, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, Juan Luis Cebrian, Jack Dorsey, Mohamed El-Erian, Francis Fukuyama, Felipe Gonzalez, John Gray, Reid Hoffman, Fred Hu, Mo Ibrahim, Alexei Kudrin, Pascal Lamy, Kishore Mahbubani, Alain Minc, Dambisa Moyo, Laura Tyson, Elon Musk, Pierre Omidyar, Raghuram Rajan, Nouriel Roubini, Nicolas Sarkozy, Eric Schmidt, Gerhard Schroeder, Peter Schwartz, Amartya Sen, Jeff Skoll, Michael Spence, Joe Stiglitz, Larry Summers, Wu Jianmin, George Yeo, Fareed Zakaria, Ernesto Zedillo, Ahmed Zewail, and Zheng Bijian.

From the Europe group, these include: Marek Belka, Tony Blair, Jacques Delors, Niall Ferguson, Anthony Giddens, Otmar Issing, Mario Monti, Robert Mundell, Peter Sutherland and Guy Verhofstadt.

MISSION STATEMENT

The WorldPost is a global media bridge that seeks to connect the world and connect the dots. Gathering together top editors and first person contributors from all corners of the planet, we aspire to be the one publication where the whole world meets.

We not only deliver breaking news from the best sources with original reportage on the ground and user-generated content; we bring the best minds and most authoritative as well as fresh and new voices together to make sense of events from a global perspective looking around, not a national perspective looking out.