Poll: Germany is the world's 'most popular' country

According to a new BBC poll of more than 26,000 people in 22 countries, Germany is viewed more positively than any other country tracked -- a surprise to anyone who has followed the painful bailout negotiations in Spain, Greece and Cyprus, where aggrieved observers have repeatedly compared Chancellor Angela Merkel to Hitler and condemned Germany as a "thief" and an "empire." Read full article >

Obama's case for drones

President Obama's speech Thursday detailing a new approach to counterterrorism focused heavily on the use of unmanned aerial vehicles, better known as drones. Though he explained new policies to curtail their use, bolster oversight and institutionalize rules and norms for how and when to target enemies abroad, Obama also defended his administration's practice of using drones in Africa, the Middl

Obama outlines future of counterterrorism efforts

President Obama outlined the future of his counterterrorism polices Thursday in a wide-ranging speech that sought to more clearly define the American enemy, make lethal government actions more accountable to Congress and signal that the nation’s long war against al-Qaeda will one day end. Read full article >>

A surprising map of where the world's atheists live

Pope Francis's pronouncement that God has "redeemed all of us even the atheists" Wednesday surprised both believers and nonbelievers around the world, who are used to stricter edicts from the Catholic church. It also got us wondering where the world's atheists live. Read full article >>

In Iran, Rafsanjani reacts to ejection from presidential race with relief, warnings

TEHRAN — Two days after being disqualified from running in Iran’s upcoming presidential election, former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani broke his silence Thursday, saying that difficult days loom for the country. Read full article >>

Early Putin biography gives insight into dark mood of distrust in president’s inner circle

PARIS — At a cafe on the Place des Vosges, Natalia Gevorkyan is picking at a salade verte and thinking about betrayal.It’s a central theme in the worldview of Vladimir Putin, the Russian president and a man who once spent many hours telling her of his life and his credo. It was natural for a KGB officer to suspect betrayal all around him, she says, and though Putin left the agency nearly two

British soldier slain in London had served in Afghanistan

LONDON — A day after two alleged Islamic extremists brutally killed a British soldier, Prime Minister David Cameron vowed that his nation would not succumb to fear and promised a vigorous investigation into what appears to be this city’s first successfully executed terror attack since the coordinated transit system bombings in 2005. Read full article >>

London knife attack boosts British far-right groups on social media

The suspects in Wednesday's brutal knife attack on a British soldier told a bystander that they wanted "to start a war in London tonight" -- and in some circles, they certainly have brought tensions to the surface. Britain's right-wing English Defense League, a controversial, anti-Islamic organization, is enjoying an unusual level of social media exposure in the wake of the attacks, and is using

'A society discovering itself': The amazing, subversive rise of Chinese documentary film

Documentary filmmaking isn't always easy in China; like many forms of journalism, it is political by its very coexistence with state controls that the filmmakers may or may not accept. But, like so many forms of cultural expression in China, it's been growing rapidly over the last few years, reflecting a society undergoing tremendous change. Read full article >>

Kerry shuttles between Jerusalem, Ramallah in effort to relaunch peace talks

JERUSALEM — Working against what Palestinians say is an early June deadline to show progress in a renewed bid for Mideast peace, Secretary of State John F. Kerry said Thursday he is trying to overcome understandable skepticism after many previous failed attempts. Read full article >>

New Coca-Cola ad campaign mired in sensitive Israeli identity politics

JERUSALEM -- Whatever you think of Coca-Cola's new marketing campaign here, it's certainly getting attention.In launching the campaign earlier this month, the soft drink company has identified roughly 150 of the most popular Israeli first names and printed them up on bottles and cans of Coke, Diet Coke and Coke Zero. Read full article >>

Should the U.S. allow companies to 'hack back' against foreign cyber spies?

Foreign hackers do remarkable damage by breaking into American companies, stealing intellectual property worth enormous amounts of money, swiping proprietary secrets for military technology or other uses and, in the case of some recent Chinese attacks, even exposing U.S. counterintelligence efforts. The Obama administration has made clear that it takes the threat seriously and is escalating effo

An audacious plan at the Western Wall

In a city where three major faiths guard their holy places with quarrelsome zeal and where moving a single stone can have deep religious and geopolitical implications, a proposal to double the area for Jewish prayer along the iconic Western Wall represents dramatic change for a place that does not easily embrace it. Read full article >>

IMF chief called to testify in French court about role in arbitration case

PARIS — Christine Lagarde, managing director of the International Monetary Fund, was summoned to testify Thursday about her role in the settlement of a multimillion-dollar business dispute when she was France’s finance minister in 2008. Read full article >>

Iranian presidential candidates announced; Rafsanjani disqualified

TEHRAN — A former president supported by Iran’s moderates and considered a founding member of the Islamic republic was disqualified Tuesday from running in the coming election, generating surprise and tension. Read full article >>

World Digest: May 22, 2013

Japan’s parliament on Wednesday approved joining an international child custody treaty amid foreign pressure for Tokyo to address concerns that Japanese mothers can take children away from foreign fathers without recourse. Read full article >>

U.S. acknowledges killing of four U.S. citizens in counterterrorism operations

The Obama administration acknowledged Wednesday that it has killed four Americans in overseas counterterrorism operations since 2009, the first time it has publicly taken responsibility for the deaths. Read full article >>

Young Lebanese fighters leaving Syria for battle closer to home

TRIPOLI, Lebanon — While the Syrian opposition urges more men to assist embattled rebels in the fight for the key town of Qusair, dozens of young Lebanese fighters are leaving Syria to join a battle closer to home Read full article >>

Deadly London attack could be act of terror, Prime Minister Cameron says

LONDON — Two assailants hacked a man to death on a busy southeast London street Wednesday afternoon before delivering a rant about Islam to bystanders, leading Prime Minister David Cameron to cut short a diplomatic trip to Paris to deal with what he described as a likely terrorist attack. Read full article >>

Kerry promises wider U.S. support for Syrian rebels if peace talks remain elusive

AMMAN, Jordan — The United States and its partners will widen support for Syrian rebels, potentially by sending more weapons or taking other measures short of sending American forces, if diplomacy fails to end a civil war that has killed “upwards of 100,000” people, Secretary of State John F. Kerry said Wednesday. Read full article >>

Boruch Spiegel, survivor of the 1943 Warsaw ghetto uprising, dies at 93

Boruch Spiegel, one of the last remaining survivors of the 1943 Warsaw ghetto uprising by poorly armed Jewish insurgents against the Nazi German force that occupied Poland, died May 9 in Montreal. He was 93. Read full article >>

Iran presidential campaign begins without two big names

TEHRAN — Iran’s conservatives, who on Tuesday saw the two main moderate threats to their dominance barred from running in next month’s presidential election, face a new challenge: persuading shocked and skeptical Iranians to turn out to vote. Read full article >>

Stockholm riots raise questions about immigration policy

The sight of burning cars in a dozen suburbs of Stockholm on Tuesday night has shocked Sweden and shaken its image of tolerance and equality. But the rioting is also raising a simple, devastating question: Is Sweden facing its own Paris or London moment when it is forced to confront long-simmering questions about the integration of immigrants? Read full article >>

British politician compares London machete attack to U.K. policy in Syria

This sickening atrocity in London is exactly what we are paying the same kind of people to do in Syria — George Galloway (@georgegalloway) May 22, 2013 A member of the U.K. parliament named George Galloway responded to the bizarre machete attack in London, which some reports say killed a British soldier, with a quip on Twitter about U.K. foreign policy. "This sickening atrocity in London is e

Chilling video of London attacker explaining machete attack on reported soldier

It's not clear how or why two men attacked a man believed to be a British soldier in the London neighborhood of Woolwich, but U.K. officials are already investigating it as a possible act of terrorism. Read full article >>

Iran paves over suspected nuclear-related testing site despite U.N. protests

Iran has begun paving over a former military site where its scientists are suspected to have conducted nuclear-weapons-related experiments, according to a new U.N. report, a move that could doom efforts to reconstruct a critical part of Iran’s nuclear history. Read full article >>

'If Imam Khomeini were alive and he registered [for president], he would be disqualified'

An Iranian legislator named Ali Motahari wrote an open letter this week to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei protesting the decision to bar former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani from running in the upcoming election. The letter, published on several Iranian outlets before being noted and translated by Al Monitor's Arash Karami, called the disqualification "unjustified" and warned that it would

Staunch anti-American Saeed Jalili an early favorite in Iran's presidential race

Now that Iranian authorities have disqualified former president Hasmei Rafsanjani from the coming presidential race, one of the candidates who appears to be emerging as an early favorite is Saeed Jalili, the country's lead nuclear negotiator. Inflexible, ideological and a close ally of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, he is far from a shoe-in but appears, at the moment, to be a potential front-runne

What our foreign correspondents are reading

Believe it or not, summer is here. If you're a voracious reader like some of us, you're most likely in need of a new (or a good, old) book to read. As we did last year, we asked our foreign correspondents to recommend a book they've read recently. Read full article >>

Video: A rare glimpse inside Tibet at a time of unwelcome change

_(Editor's note: Some images in the video may be disturbing to viewers.)_ Western reporters have had scant access to the Chinese province of Tibet since 2008, when a series of protests and riots calling for greater autonomy coincided with the Beijing Olympics. China, wanting to tamp down the protests and avoid more international criticism, shut down most foreign access to Tibet. The rise of