Articles
What a Murder by Mussolini Teaches Us About Khashoggi and M.B.S. (NY Times, Oct. 23, 2018)
The murder of Jamal Khashoggi by the Saudis has striking parallels with the murder of the Italian socialist leader Giacomo Matteotti by Fascist thugs. In the weeks after the murder of Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi agents in Istanbul, a question has been repeatedly asked: How could the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, be so…
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The Last Slaves of Mauritania, NY Review of Books, Nov 23, 2017
You can both see the desert and feel its presence in Nouakchott, the capital of Mauritania, which goes months at a time without rain. Although it is a city of one million people, rivulets of sand collect along the main paved thoroughfares of the city center, in front of a handful of government buildings and…
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The French Obsession with National Suicide, The New Yorker, Dec. 11, 2014
There are few things the French find more annoying than what they call “French bashing”—a term they use in English, despite their insistence on finding French equivalents for foreign words. When Jean Tirole was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics, Prime Minister Manuel Valls sent out a tweet of congratulations to “another Frenchman to…
Continue readingA BOMBSHELL DOCUMENT AT THE VATICAN SYNOD, New Yorker, October 13, 2014
Since Jorge Mario Bergoglio became Pope Francis, a little more than a year and a half ago, the Argentine has radically changed the tone and the mood surrounding the Catholic Church. But the question remained: How would he handle the difficult doctrinal issues of sexuality and family life that have divided the Catholic world? We are…
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