Saudi Arabia’s apparent assassination of Jamal Khashoggi might have taken inspiration from Russia and North Korea — or Israel and the United States.
Assassins Without Borders
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Bulgaria
NATO’s Expiration Date
If the number of eager applicants on a waiting list determines the strength of a club, then the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is in fine fettle. At its most recent gathering in July, NATO welcomed its 29th member — Montenegro — which means that the...
East-Central Europe’s Goldilocks Generation
Cross-posted from JohnFeffer.com. If you were of a certain age and with certain skills, the changes that took place in 1989 in East-Central Europe created an enormous world of opportunity. Those young enough to change with the times could suddenly rise to the...
Islamophobia in East-Central Europe
Cross-posted from JohnFeffer.com. It’s often said that anti-Semitism continues to exist in Poland even in the absence of a large Jewish community. The recent Polish film Aftermath , about a farmer who uncovers the terrible truth about his village’s treatment of its...
NATO: Rebellion in the Ranks?
Vladimir Putin, the wily strategist of Russian revanchism, is well on his way to reconstructing the Warsaw Pact. That, at least, is what the pundits of The Washington Post are making it out to seem. Last week, Jackson Diehl penned a column on how Putin has driven a...
Ukrainian Unity Depends On…Bulgaria?!
Ukraine's war with pro-Russian separatists is not only being decided in the battlefields of eastern Ukraine. Oddly enough, the Ukrainian government’s recapture of Slavyansk and its advance on Donetsk were only made possible because of a decision of the Bulgarian...
The Greatest Threat to Europe
This year marks the 100th anniversary of the beginning of World War I. Today, Europe has left war behind. In place of jostling empires, there is the European Union, a modern family beset by the usual bickering but nothing that a smothering bureaucracy can’t handle....
Letter From Sofia: Old Tanks and Modern Mayhem
The military museum in Bulgaria's sprawling capital city consists of a tiny building and a huge outdoor display of weapons that look as if they had been wheeled in fresh from the battlefields and parked, higgledy piggledy: mountain howitzers that shelled Turks in 1912...
Bulgaria’s Ataka Party: An Unlikely Blend of Left and Right
Cross-posted from JohnFeffer.com. John is currently traveling in Eastern Europe and observing its transformations since 1989. Three items in Volen Siderov’s office reflect his current image. The religious icons on the wall speak to his embrace of traditional Bulgarian...
The 13 Imams and Religious Freedom in Bulgaria
Cross-posted from JohnFeffer.com. John is currently traveling in Eastern Europe and observing its transformations since 1989. The “case of the 13 imams” sounds almost mythic. But the current case the Bulgarian government is prosecuting against 13 imams from the area...