• OPINION

  Brexit parade is in the EU's favour

  News, Leonid Bershidsky, Published on 03/05/2017

  » Leaked details of a dinner conversation between UK Prime Minister Theresa May and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker suggest that the Brexit talks won't just be contentious -- they'll be brutal. At this point, the perception helps Ms May as much as it does the EU leaders. After the June election in the UK, however, Ms May will be at a disadvantage.

• OPINION

  Secretive Russian billionaire vents to US conservatives

  News, Leonid Bershidsky, Published on 13/03/2018

  » It's not every day that a Russian billionaire submits a op-ed piece to the Daily Caller, the conservative US website. When the billionaire in question is as media-shy as Oleg Deripaska, something extraordinary is going on. As the unfortunate recipient of an oversized role in the "Trump-Russia" scandal, he has had enough and is not quite sure how to defend himself.

• OPINION

  The Cambridge Analytica red herring

  News, Leonid Bershidsky, Published on 21/03/2018

  » Facebook is being hammered for allowing the data firm Cambridge Analytica to acquire 50 million user profiles in the US, which it may or may not have used to help the Trump campaign. But the outrage misses the target: There's nothing Cambridge Analytica could have done that Facebook itself doesn't offer political clients.

• OPINION

  Coup against Mugabe is really nothing to celebrate

  News, Leonid Bershidsky, Published on 17/11/2017

  » As leader of Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe has survived longer than Stalin in the Soviet Union and Mao in China. If it's coming to an end -- which seems likely given his apparent inability to emerge from house arrest after the military took charge -- it's worth reflecting on the mistakes he made to end such a remarkable run.

• OPINION

  Putin lacks the clout to cut isles deal with Abe

  News, Leonid Bershidsky, Published on 24/01/2019

  » The window of opportunity for Russia and Japan to officially end World War II with a peace treaty narrowed again after Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's visit to Moscow on Tuesday failed to end in a breakthrough. There's still time for Mr Abe to secure his legacy, but a lot depends on President Vladimir Putin's increasingly shaky domestic standing.

• OPINION

  The year of the woeful world leaders

  News, Leonid Bershidsky, Published on 28/12/2018

  » The dictionaries have decided on their 2018 words of the year. Oxford picked "toxic". Merriam-Webster went for "justice". Collins chose "single-use". However, I'd zero in on "misgovernment". Surely, 2018 saw a number of countries misruled by the worst crop of world leaders in recent memory.

• OPINION

  Yes, Russia abused Facebook. But did it actually work?

  News, Leonid Bershidsky, Published on 20/12/2018

  » Russia's propaganda operations during the 2016 US presidential election were broader than previously thought, according to two recently published studies. But they don't provide proof the influence campaign was as effective as the Kremlin may have hoped. Both reports, based on data provided by social networks, combine a distrust of the companies' disclosures and a naive trust in the metrics they tout.

• OPINION

  Don't write off Merkel prematurely

  News, Leonid Bershidsky, Published on 31/10/2018

  » I have warned repeatedly against writing off German Chancellor Angela Merkel as she faced challenge after challenge in recent years. I'm going to issue another such warning now, even though it might seem counter-intuitive given her announcement on Monday that she will give up the leadership of her Christian Democratic Union (CDU) in December and not run for a parliamentary seat in 2021.

• OPINION

  Merkel tries not to go out with a bang

  News, Leonid Bershidsky, Published on 16/11/2018

  » It could have been a call for decisive action by a leader no longer tethered by domestic politics. But German Chancellor Angela Merkel's appearance at the European Parliament on Tuesday was nothing of the sort: Ms Merkel unbound is the same cautious, gradualist Merkel.

• OPINION

  What's scary about Facebook's new troll findings

  News, Leonid Bershidsky, Published on 03/08/2018

  » Facebook's widely publicised discovery of a possible influence operation through "inauthentic" accounts warrants some scrutiny -- and some reflection about the difference between a genuine political debate on social networks versus its simulated version.

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