| Reporter's notebook: Watching as the world watches Trump Posted: 28 Sep 2018 12:54 PM PDT ![Reporter's notebook: Watching as the world watches Trump]( "Reporter's notebook: Watching as the world watches Trump") When President Trump this week regaled a fancy New York hotel ballroom full of journalists with a tale of how China's leaders respect him for his "very, very large brain," it rang a bell with me. Ah yes, I thought, as I observed the ripple of laughter the president's remark elicited: Mr. Trump's NATO summit press conference, just a few weeks earlier in Brussels. In that case, hundreds of mostly foreign journalists had assembled in a large press conference tent to glean any clues as to the US leader's intentions for the transatlantic alliance.
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| Macedonians vote on their country's name. Will they follow heart or head? Posted: 28 Sep 2018 11:51 AM PDT ![Macedonians vote on their country's name. Will they follow heart or head?]( "Macedonians vote on their country's name. Will they follow heart or head?") It is a display of muscular nationalism, built in the last decade, that has long antagonized Greece, Macedonia's southern neighbor, which claims Alexander and many of the other historical figures as its own. For the Greeks, ancient Macedonia was Hellenistic and any attempt to muscle in on its past glories is cultural appropriation by modern-day Macedonians, most of whom are Slavs. In the most important vote in the short history of the former Yugoslav republic, which became independent in 1991, Macedonians will vote in a referendum on Sunday to change the name of their country to North Macedonia.
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| One reporter's fascination with Siberia leaves readers asking for more Posted: 28 Sep 2018 10:42 AM PDT ![One reporter's fascination with Siberia leaves readers asking for more]( "One reporter's fascination with Siberia leaves readers asking for more") Fred Weir has the uncanny ability to help you understand the ideas and values shaping this complex, diverse, and fascinating country. Earlier this summer, Fred proposed a reporting trip to the eastern Russian republic of Buryatia. The goal: provide a rare glimpse into the historical, political, religious, and environmental culture of this mountainous region of Siberia. Five stories later, we were thrilled that Monitor subscribers devoured Fred's Siberian Crossroads dispatches at an impressive clip. What's it like to cover Russia when you've lived there for more than three decades.
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| The two Koreas eye a test zone for peace Posted: 28 Sep 2018 06:51 AM PDT ![The two Koreas eye a test zone for peace]( "The two Koreas eye a test zone for peace") One reason for a decline of armed conflicts in recent decades has been the use of an important tool in peacemaking: buffer zones between militaries. Most of the time, they maintain a temporary peace. Of all the buffer zones in the world, the most famous may be the one that has divided the two Koreas since a "temporary" truce ended a 1950-53 war.
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