Howard LaFranchi

Boston

Diplomatic Correspondent at The Christian Science Monitor

journalist

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Articles

As China’s influence grows in the Americas, Trump hints at a Monroe Doctrine 2.0

1 week ago | csmonitor.com | Howard LaFranchi

It’s the festival of Semana Santa in Peru, the Holy Week leading up to Easter and a major national holiday. Normally, the narrow road above Chorrillos Beach in Chancay would be clogged with visitors – as well as vendors trying to entice them with Inca Kola and roasted corn kernels, or boogie boards and beach towels.
US-Iran nuclear talks benefit from Trump’s desire for a peace deal

1 week ago | csmonitor.com | Howard LaFranchi

Donald Trump has long pledged that in his second term he would be the “peace president,” resolving quickly the wars and international security crises threatening world peace. But with a ceasefire in Ukraine looking as far off as ever, and Israel intensifying its war in Gaza, Mr. Trump appears to be shifting his attention to a third arena for securing his reputation: Iran and its steadily advancing nuclear program.
In Mideast, Trump finds his comfort zone: Business first, then policy

3 weeks ago | csmonitor.com | Howard LaFranchi

On his first international trip of his second term, President Donald Trump has indeed spent some of his four-day visit to Gulf Arab countries on diplomatic matters. He met Wednesday in Saudi Arabia with Syria’s post-Assad-era President (and former Islamist rebel leader) Ahmed al-Sharaa, a day after pledging to lift punishing U.S. sanctions on the civil-war-devastated country.
As war with Russia drags on, Ukrainians wage parallel ‘revolution of dignity’

1 month ago | csmonitor.com | Howard LaFranchi

As Tetiana Heienko stood before the seated Russian officer who had summoned her for questioning, she felt something shift inside her. A member of the town council in her village outside her beloved city of Melitopol in eastern Ukraine, Mrs. Heienko was a figure of modest local authority. So not long after Russian forces occupied the city during the full-scale invasion in 2022, she was summoned for questioning.
What USAID cuts mean for Peru as it battles cartels on coca, gold trade

1 month ago | csmonitor.com | Howard LaFranchi

In Peru’s Amazon region, drug gangs running the coca trade in cooperation with Mexican cartels have over recent years expanded into illegal mining, especially for gold. In response, the U.S. Agency for International Development shifted some counternarcotics and development resources in Peru to buttress nongovernmental organizations combating illegal mining through environmental and sustainable-development initiatives.
Nobel laureate Mario Vargas Llosa captured the world's imagination

1 month ago | csmonitor.com | Howard LaFranchi

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In Ukraine mining region, a US minerals deal raises hopes and doubts

2 months ago | csmonitor.com | Howard LaFranchi

As he watches over the iron ore and graphite production site’s aging equipment arrayed around him, Volodymyr Moroz recalls the glory days of the now-silent Zavalivskiy Mine in central Ukraine. “At one time you could count on getting a job at this mine,” he says. “People moved here” from other mining regions “because the pay and the schools were better.”The former mining equipment operator and truck driver now gets by on a few hours a week as a security guard.
Ukraine measures impact of US military aid cut, fears for civilians

2 months ago | csmonitor.com | Howard LaFranchi

Nataliia Karpenko and her husband have farmed the rich soil of Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region for nearly four decades, raising a son and a daughter as season upon season they planted and harvested wheat, sunflower, and barley. Then, last Jan. 7 – Mrs. Karpenko says she will never forget that date – a glide bomb crashed into their town of Novopavlivka, signaling Russia’s advancing offensive out of the territory it occupies to the southeast.
Ukrainians flock to Zelenskyy’s banner, but hope for solution with US

Mar 3, 2025 | csmonitor.com | Howard LaFranchi

Yulia Koliadynska did not vote for Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Ukraine’s presidential election in 2019. But when the owner of a central Kyiv paper goods and restaurant supply shop watched President Zelenskyy spar Friday with the U.S. president and vice president, she suddenly felt in her heart that Ukraine has the leader it needs for these very difficult times.
Trump and Zelenskyy clash, clouding the path to peace in Ukraine

Feb 28, 2025 | csmonitor.com | Howard LaFranchi

A White House meeting between President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy that was meant to set terms for bilateral cooperation collapsed Friday into anger and recriminations in full view of the world. The stunning clash left a deep sense of foreboding for the embattled Ukraine’s future, and hinted loudly at the U.S. shift away from an alliance-based foreign policy toward one of big-power politics.