Lazo Letters

Articles

A view of the Middle East from Europe.

6 days ago | lazoletters.substack.com | Cristina Maza

It’s been a strange week to tour around the Brussels bubble and visit NATO headquarters. As interesting as our meetings were, they seemed oddly disconnected from current events, given that what appears to be a full-scale war is breaking out across the Middle East. I was at the European Commission on the day the European High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy gave a brief press conference about the latest events between Israel and Iran.
On my way to Brussels.

1 week ago | lazoletters.substack.com | Cristina Maza

By the time you read this, I will be arriving in Brussels for a reporting trip. French President Emmanuel Macron, meanwhile, is on his way to Greenland to help reinforce “European sovereignty” over the island. Other world leaders (I’m not implying that I'm a leader of any world other than my own) are headed to Canada today for the G7 Summit, where they will discuss the possibility of lowering the price cap on Russian oil from $60 a barrel to as low as $45.
It's my birthday.

2 weeks ago | lazoletters.substack.com | Cristina Maza

I never really believed that I’d reach this age. It’s not that I harbored long-held fantasies about dying young. Although death, including fear of a premature death, is something that regularly haunts me. Instead, I couldn’t quite imagine what life would look like at this age. Forty. It’s the age my parents were during my first formative memories. To my young mind, they seemed unfathomably old.
One week in Washington.

2 weeks ago | lazoletters.substack.com | Cristina Maza

There was so much hugely significant news this week (and no, I’m not talking about the Trump-Musk breakup, although that arguably madeTwitterfunnyagain) that I’ll keep the preamble short and recommend that you jump right to the weekly news roundup. Almost every link contains some bombshell story that gets lost in the noise when it’s all thrown together. The Dutch government collapsed. We have new casualty numbers from the Ukraine war. The right-wing won Poland’s election.
MAGA enters Poland's election.

3 weeks ago | lazoletters.substack.com | Cristina Maza

By the time you read this, people in Poland will be voting in the second round of the country’s presidential election. As I wrote last week, the results will reshape Poland’s relationship with the European Union and determine whether Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has an ally in the presidency, allowing him to implement his agenda. Poland is a hugely important country in Europe.
Can Europe breathe a sigh of relief?

1 month ago | lazoletters.substack.com | Cristina Maza

I’m back in the hallways of Capitol Hill after a very brief trip to Europe. For the new faces here, I recently wrote about how I afford transatlantic travel on a journalist’s salary. Since a re-elected Donald Trump began slashing foreign assistance over the last several months, many observers have wondered which country or group of countries will step in to promote democracy, human rights, development, and the free press worldwide.
I'm on the road again. šŖ©

1 month ago | lazoletters.substack.com | Cristina Maza

By the time you read this, Iāll be OOO, taking a ritual vacation with a group of my favorite people. I wrote a little essay for Lazo Magazine about the long weekend that this group and I spent together in November 2023. That weekend ultimately led to significant life changes for several of us. Its impact is still reverberating 18 months later, and almost nothing matters more to me than the time I get to spend with this group of friends.
Tell me about yourself š

1 month ago | lazoletters.substack.com | Cristina Maza

One thing that happens when you write a weekly newsletter is that you spend a little more time than youād like writing about yourself. Thereās a sense that everyone who opens these emails every week (and there are thousands of you!..Lazo Letters is now #97 in international news on Substack š¤Æ) gets a sometimes quite intimate insight into my life and thinking. I feel mostly OK about that. But Iād also like it to be a reciprocal relationship.
On El Salvador before smart phones

2 months ago | lazoletters.substack.com | Cristina Maza

Donald Trump seems to want to give Russian President Vladimir Putin almost everything he wants. This week, there was a lot of news about efforts to end the war in Ukraine. A source told CNN the Trump administration is ready to recognize Russian control of Crimea as part of the U.S. framework to end the war. The Telegraph reported that Trump is proposing that Putin keep large swathes of Ukrainian territory, with the U.S. to recognize Crimea as officially part of Russia.
Washington is lost.

2 months ago | lazoletters.substack.com | Cristina Maza

I’ve been overwhelmed this week by everything the Trump administration has done to crack down on domestic opposition to its agenda. The Department of Defense is stripping its library of books about diversity, and the administration is threatening to cut funding for primary schools if they don’t stop teaching about diversity and equality.