The enduring image from last week’s UN conference on climate change in Durban, South Africa, was of negotiators “huddling” in full view on the plenary floor to come up with the form of words that allowed the final deal to be reached. The negotiators are in shirtsleeves, visibly tied at the end of talks that [...]

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WASHINGTON—The European Commission’s economic proposals to be unveiled on Wednesday will include a call for the Eurozone nations to pool their representation at the board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) into a single seat. Designed to boost the currency bloc’s clout at a time when emerging markets are seeking greater powers in the world [...]

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Washington – In yet another sign of the eurozone members’ inability to stem their regional financial crisis, last week Standard and Poor’s downgraded Spain’s credit rating to AA-. This move has raised new fears about the ability of beleaguered European nations to pay their sovereign debts. And it has revived calls for expanding the International [...]

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WASHINGTON — The financial crisis in Europe has merged with contemporary communications capability to produce an extraordinary quantity of commentary on the future of the euro and, by extension, the future of Europe. Most of the commentary focuses on what means will best prevent the worst economic consequences of the crisis, what measures would best [...]

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WASHINGTON — A specter is haunting Europe — the specter of default in the eurozone. At the core of the problem is Greece — one of the smallest yet most heavily indebted economies in Europe. The country desperately needs a next aid payment of $11 billion to avoid running out of cash within weeks, but [...]

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WASHINGTON — The United Nations’ recent report investigating the deaths of nine Turks when Israel stopped a flotilla trying to break a Gaza blockade has brought an end to a suspenseful episode in Turkish-Israeli relations. But with closure (of a sort) comes an opening (of a sort). We might be nearing one of the greatest [...]

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NEW YORK — Politicians on both sides of the Atlantic have been rather well behaved over the past few years. They have avoided, to a significant degree, blatant forms of protectionism in the face of one of the worst financial crises in modern history. In the dark days of early 2009, following the collapse in [...]

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BERLIN — “Europe whole and free” owes a great debt to the decision by a courageous Hungarian government to open its frontiers to Austria in the summer of 1989, allowing thousands of East German refugees to escape. Twenty-one years later, and just as it takes over the rotating European presidency, Hungary is a frontrunner once [...]

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MINSK—Peace and quiet reign on Independence Square — Christmas trees sparkle in the snow, the traffic is flowing, people are heading home to prepare for the holidays. Yet on Sunday, this square in the center of the Belarusian capital witnessed the largest protests against dictatorial rule in a decade, when thousands of President Alexander Lukashenko’s riot [...]

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CANCUN — It is hardly news anymore when international talks on climate change fail to produce a breakthrough agreement. But the real story of the annual UN climate conference, which concludes Friday in Cancun, Mexico, is what was happening on the sidelines of the conference. Last year’s summit on climate change in Copenhagen was ruined [...]

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