President Nicolas Sarkozy may have triumphed over the millions of protesters and strikers who opposed his effort to raise the retirement age in France by two years. But his law to keep people working longer and paying into the pension system longer won’t succeed unless he persuades French bosses to play along; they have a nasty habit of dumping employees older than 50.
Tag Archives: president
Syria: Can the President’s Concessions Pacify Protesters?
The Baathist regime that has ruled Syria for 48 years is on the ropes.
A Brief History Of: The Navy SEALs
As darkness fell on April 12, Captain Richard Phillips was bound at gunpoint on a lifeboat bobbing in the Indian Ocean, held hostage by a band of Somali pirates who had attacked his container ship five days earlier. Saving Phillips’ life meant taking out his three captors in as many shots–which the Navy SEAL snipers who rescued him managed to do from the swaying fantail of a destroyer 75 ft
Going into the Streets
As a parody of democracy, the scene had a certain dramatic charm.
Don’t Bet Against the United States
Poor U.S. of A., forever in decline.
Why Some People Will Pay $20,000 For a Date
There’s no upside to setting people up. At best, you’re stuck writing a speech for a wedding; at worst, you find out your friends cry during sex
Viewpoint: How Libya Became a French and British War
As the military action against Libya to give teeth to U.N. Security Resolution 1973 began, one question kept nagging away: Why, precisely, were the governments of Britain and France in the lead
Obama Goes to Rio: A Nod to Brazil’s Growing Power
In March 1961, Fidel Castro’s Cuban revolution was a three-alarm reminder that CIA-engineered coups weren’t enough to keep communism out of the western hemisphere. Living standards had to be raised in Latin America, then as now the world’s most inegalitarian region.
A Brief History of Antarctica
On Dec.
Afghanistan and NATO: Why Europe May Not Be Up to the Fight
Barack Obama arrived in Strasbourg on Friday for this weekend’s NATO summit enthusing about the military organization, which he described at a joint press conference with French President Nicolas Sarkozy as “the most successful alliance in modern history.” That it may have been. But Obama’s praise contrasts starkly with the scathing assessment of the state of NATO, now 60 years old, by European military analysts, who say that the gap in military capability between the United States and Europe has grown so big that in some places battlefield communication between NATO forces and their US allies has become difficult