Newsletter Archive

A little something for everyone? Two days before the polls open in Germany, Angela Merkel appears to be cruising to her fourth term as the country’s chancellor. With Germans aghast at the Brexit vote and Donald Trump’s election in the United States, Merkel has lived up to her ‘mutti’ image on the campaign trail, appealing to cautious voters who are in no mood to gamble.

Time’s up for President Trump’s 90-day travel ban on citizens from six Muslim-majority countries who don’t have ties to the US. A portion of the ban ends Sunday, and while the White House is expected to announce new measures to replace it, the Supreme Court has already put limits on how far the president can go.

VIDEO: Journalists are struggling to get an accurate account of the growing crisis in Myanmar, despite limited access to, and false reports from, the area. More than 400,000 Rohingya Muslims have been driven out of the country as evidence mounts of ethnic cleansing, a charge Myanmar denies. The government recently allowed a group of journalists to visit Hindu villagers who claimed they were attacked by Muslim terrorists, but the reality didn’t turn out to be as advertised.

Go big or… China, the world’s second largest economy has been expanding its global influence with initiatives such as the Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank and the Belt and Road trade program, as it seeks to play a more prominent role in international affairs. Beijing’s foreign policy achievements are expected to be a key focus when the Communist Party hosts a crucial leadership meeting next month, but here’s why some believe China’s efforts have backfired.

Twelve million people were displaced and another half-million killed after Britain’s division of the Indian subcontinent 70 years ago. A new museum dedicated to the traumatic birth of India and Pakistan in 1947 recalls a time when slaughtering mobs and bloody riots ravaged both sides of the newly created border, where countless ordinary people paid a heavy price for independence.

VIDEO: Doing it up in royal style. A butler who once worked for the queen at Buckingham Palace is now showing colonials on this side of the pond how to run their households. Chris Ely, who trains house managers, butlers, valets and housekeepers, also makes house calls.