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Byline: Serge Schmemann In 2015 when Angela Merkel, the former center-right chancellor of Germany, declined to shut her country's doors to asylum seekers coming into Europe, she garnered bouquets from [...]

Byline: Serge Schmemann We may never know all the details of how Israel got explosives into thousands of pagers, and apparently other wireless radios, that have been exploding in Lebanon, [...]

Byline: Serge Schmemann Historical memory is bound to shape the first reaction to the powerful showing of a far-right party in two German state elections on Sunday. Nonetheless, there is [...]

The rescue of an Israeli hostage held by Hamas in Gaza on Tuesday was hailed as something of a miracle in Israel. But it did little to quell the anger [...]

In purely military terms, Ukraine's surprise incursion of Russia earlier this month is a dubious gamble. Moscow has not diverted forces from its grinding advances on the Donetsk front, a [...]

Byline: Serge Schmemann In purely military terms, Ukraine's surprise incursion of Russia earlier this month is a dubious gamble. Moscow has not diverted forces from its grinding advances on the [...]

Byline: Serge Schmemann 'I don't think war is inevitable,' Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said on Wednesday, after senior leaders of Hezbollah and Hamas were killed in pinpoint attacks in a [...]

A rocket lands on a playing field on the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights, killing 12 children and teenagers. Israel vows a “severe” response, and the United States and other Western leaders [...]

Byline: Serge Schmemann Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel demonstrated on Wednesday that he is master of the American way of doing politics, shaking hands right and left on his [...]

Byline: Serge Schmemann Last month, Russian prosecutors finally brought the Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich to trial on charges of espionage, after holding him for almost 15 months in [...]

Two terms crop up often in the French political lexicon: ''la rupture'' and ''la cohabitation.'' The former means the same as in English and is applied to any political parting [...]

Byline: Serge Schmemann Two terms crop up often in the French political lexicon: 'la rupture' and 'la cohabitation.' The former means the same as in English and is applied to [...]

Byline: Serge Schmemann An unusual crush of summer shocks - President Biden's debate debacle, electoral upheavals in Britain and France - seemed for a spell to push other crises into [...]

Byline: Serge Schmemann Many years ago, in the 1980s, I went to Brighton Beach, then in its heyday as a district of newly arrived Soviet Jews, to celebrate the first [...]

Byline: Serge Schmemann The visit of Vladimir Putin to North Korea this week was choreographed as an old-timey Communist summit, with armies of flag-waving children, portraits waving from every lamp [...]

Byline: Serge Schmemann By all accounts, the real reason Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel dissolved his 'war cabinet' - the small decision-making body he established soon after the Hamas [...]

Byline: Serge Schmemann That far-right parties made gains in the just-concluded elections to the European Parliament somehow doesn't seem too shocking, though President Emmanuel Macron's decision to hold snap elections [...]

The “comprehensive new proposal” made by Israel for the Gaza war, announced by President Biden on Friday, is essentially a six-week cease-fire that would include the withdrawal of Israeli troops [...]

Byline: Serge Schmemann The Georgians call it the Russian Law. It was passed recently by the Parliament in the Republic of Georgia, purportedly to improve transparency by having civil society [...]

When the first reports came out on Sunday that a helicopter carrying the president of Iran, Ebrahim Raisi, had gone down, the first question on most minds was probably, “Who [...]

With Vladimir Putin’s revival of Soviet-style centralized and secretive rule, the old art of Kremlinology is making a comeback. It’s not quite the same as when the lineup atop Lenin’s [...]

In Tbilisi, Georgia, the country’s parliament passed https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/14/world/europe/georgia-parliament-foreign-agents-bill.html on Tuesday that, according to the ruling Georgian Dream party, will increase transparency on foreign funding of nongovernmental groups and media outlets. [...]

The Israeli government’s decision to kick Al Jazeera out of Israel says more about the government than the TV network. The Arabic programming on Al Jazeera may often be tendentious [...]

Byline: Serge Schmemann Anyone who was at Columbia University in the spring of 1968 cannot help but see a reprise of those stormy, fateful and thrilling days in what is [...]

Anyone who was at Columbia University in the spring of 1968 cannot help but see a reprise of those stormy, fateful and thrilling days in what is happening on the [...]

Deciphering Middle Eastern enmities and conflicts has never been easy or even remotely certain. What happened on Oct. 7 and since is not simply Israelis versus Palestinians; it includes the [...]

The case of Julian Assange must rank among the most bizarre in the annals of legal wrangling. The founder of WikiLeaks, a site dedicated to publishing leaked information, Assange has [...]

A joint investigation by Russian, American and German reporters has produced evidence that is chilling and plausible, albeit not conclusive, that Havana syndrome — painful and debilitating medical episodes experienced [...]

How the United States deals with U.N. Security Council resolutions on Israel has long been a barometer of Washington’s feelings about its close ally. America’s record of at least 55 [...]

In the wrenching debate over the Gaza war, the source of criticism is at least as important as the criticism itself. Chuck Schumer, the Senate majority leader, was very much [...]

The spectacle of Alexei Navalny’s funeral on Friday must have filled Vladimir Putin with fury. He had done everything to silence Navalny, to crush any hint of disobedience from his [...]

Byline: Serge Schmemann This piece has been updated to reflect recent developments. For most of the 12 or so years in which Alexei Navalny crusaded against the rule of Vladimir [...]

This piece has been updated to reflect recent developments. For most of the 12 or so years in which Alexei Navalny crusaded against the rule of Vladimir Putin, the Russian [...]

Byline: Serge Schmemann A senior Hamas leader this month declared that any deal to end the fighting in Gaza must include the release of Marwan Barghouti. Three weeks before, a [...]

Tucker Carlson’s interview with Vladimir Putin should seem familiar to the MAGA world: He lobs Putin a softball and lets him ramble on about whatever grievances are on his mind [...]

It has become clear that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel is not the leader for this critical moment. The devastation of Gaza is at intolerable levels and getting worse; [...]

Byline: Serge Schmemann It has become clear that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel is not the leader for this critical moment. The devastation of Gaza is at intolerable levels [...]

Nancy Pelosi’s https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/28/us/politics/nancy-pelosi-fbi-russia-gaza-protesters.html whether pro-Palestinian protesters have links to Russian money was remarkably foolish. Her best move now would be to stop trying to explain and to acknowledge she was [...]

At about 6 p.m. Central time on Thursday, a 58-year-old man named Kenneth Smith is https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/25/us/alabama-nitrogen-execution-kenneth-smith.html at a state prison in Atmore, Ala. He will then have a mask strapped [...]

For those needing a break from the anxiety-inducing news about Houthis and Iowa, the long weekend past provided a remarkably binge-worthy diet of highly satisfying drama. Whether your tastes run [...]

Byline: Serge Schmemann The new report in The New York Times that Russia is quietly signaling a readiness to freeze the war in Ukraine is both suspicious and tantalizing. The [...]

There was a time when road trips I took invariably included picking up local papers. I'd read from Page 1 through to the editorials and sports. They offered a screenshot [...]

Byline: Serge Schmemann There was a time when road trips I took invariably included picking up local papers. I'd read from Page 1 through to the editorials and sports. They [...]

Byline: Serge Schmemann After the well over 1,000 Israelis killed on Oct. 7, and the thousands more Palestinians in Gaza killed in the war against Hamas, it may appear unseemly [...]

Byline: Serge Schmemann A few days after Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated on Nov. 4, 1995, I remember an Israeli acquaintance telling me that however terrible the circumstances of [...]

The hopes briefly raised by a handshake 30 years ago can be more than a sad footnote to history. A few days after Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated on [...]

Russians have always had a penchant for rumor and conspiracies, underpinned by the presumption that official news is deeply doctored by the Kremlin. So it is not surprising that within [...]