View this email in your browser Insights, analysis and must reads from CNN's Fareed Zakaria and the Global Public Square team, compiled by Global Briefing editor Chris Good.   January 24, 2019 The World Takes Sides on Venezuela With a political crisis unfolding in Venezuela, the world is taking sides: The US, EU, Canada, and a group of Latin American countries have supported opposition leader Juan Guaido; China, Cuba, Bolivia, Iran, Mexico, Turkey, Russia, and Syria have backed President Nicolas Maduro. To some degree, it has split the world along old lines of socialism and capitalism, and it highlights a trend in diplomatic communication: Some leaders (Trump included) have chosen Twitter as their platform to back or un-recognize a foreign government. The UN, for its part, has called for "lower[ing] tensions." Macron Talks. Will the Yellow Vests Listen? Faced with a simmering political revolt, French President Emmanuel Macron has embarked on a tour of town-hall events to spark a "grand national debate." Adam Nossiter at The New York Times reports it may be working, as his mastery of policy impressed (or at least filibustered) some small-town mayors at a recent gathering. While Europe looks to France as a bellwether of populism and reform, Macron has learned a lesson, Philip Stephens writes at the Financial Times: "Listening and, more importantly, being seen to listen, is a good start." He's encountering a long list of grievances, and the gilets-jaunes have pushed his reform agenda off course, but it's a step down for the Jupiterian president and a change in course. The World's Most Powerful General? It's not every day that a (former) top US military commander writes with some admiration of a bitter adversary, but that's what Gen. Stanley McChrystal did in Foreign Policy, in an essay on Qassem Suleimani, leader of Iran's Quds Force who is said by some, McChrystal writes, to be running Syria's war singlehandedly. "His brilliance, effectiveness, and commitment to his country have been revered by his allies and denounced by his critics in equal measure," McChrystal writes. Suleimani was dubbed "the shadow commander" in a 2013 Dexter Filkins New Yorker profile of his outsized role in the region, and despite initial "jealousy" of Suleimani's free hand, McChrystal concludes the US is better off with a political system that wouldn't produce a military leader with such longstanding influence. Trump's 'Unusual' Overture to Kim North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un has praised President Trump's "unusual determination and will" to come to an agreement, and while Kim was speaking highly of Trump, we might not expect much to come of their second meeting next month. Not only do outstanding issues remain, but Brookings fellow Mira Rapp-Hooper writes in The Washington Post's Monkey Cage blog that there's something else unusual about the process: a lack of traditional diplomatic planning and no real roadmap toward agreement.  However, in the Trump era, those aberrations from how the US used to conduct its foreign policy are quickly becoming standard operating procedure. Nuclear Armageddon Is (Still) Almost Here The nuclear "Doomsday Clock" is still set at a symbolic two minutes before midnight, as the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists unveiled their latest projection of proximity to nuclear Armageddon today.  The organization justifies the setting (unchanged from last year) by citing as risks America's withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal and US/Russian disputes over intermediate-range missiles. Of potential concern: Russian President Vladimir Putin's increasing use of nuclear-apocalyptic rhetoric, as noted by Dina Khapaeva in Project Syndicate, and tensions between Iran and Europe that could endanger efforts to save the nuclear deal, as Frida Ghitis points out in the World Politics Review. Share Tweet Fwd unsubscribe from this list update subscription preferences  Copyright © 2019 Cable News Network, Inc. A WarnerMedia Company., All rights reserved. You are receiving this email because you subscribed to CNN newsletters. Our mailing address is: Cable News Network, Inc. A WarnerMedia Company. One CNN Center Atlanta, GA 30303 Add us to your address book What did you like about today's Global Briefing? What did we miss? Let us know what you think: GlobalBriefing@cnn.com Sign up to get updates on your favorite CNN Original Series, special CNN news coverage and other newsletters.​   Sign Up for Fareed's Global Briefing