The political tremors of the 2022 local election results will be keenly felt for months and years to come across the United Kingdom with potentially severe consequences for the Union. As the ballots are counted and results are declared across...
In an article for Bloomberg, British historian Niall Ferguson expresses his strategic insight into the real motives of the Biden administration concerning the course of the war in Ukraine. Officially, the US claims to be acting in the interest of Ukraine’s defense in an effort to support democracy and reaffirm the principle of sovereignty that permits any country to join an antiquated military alliance directed by the United States, on...
Vladimir Putin has a very clear strategy for ending his war in Ukraine. He intends to wipe the country off the map. Initially, he’d hoped to do so by seizing Kyiv, replacing the government and absorbing as much of Ukrainian territory into Russia as he thought feasible. Now, after the resistance of the Ukrainians, he is looking to eliminate their country by a different method. He will bomb it into...
A decision to prosecute three journalists at Finland’s largest newspaper, Helsingin Sanomat, has called into question its status as one of the world’s leading countries for press freedom. Investigative journalists Laura Halminen and Tuomo Pietilainen, along with their supervisor, Kalle Silfverberg, are accused of disclosing and attempting to disclose state secrets. All three deny the charges. The case concerns a series of investigative articles about a military intelligence research center operated...
Most of the propaganda Western media is now mass-producing focuses on the very real belligerence and lies of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Print and broadcast media have thrown themselves into a propaganda game serving to cast them in the noble role of prosecutors of an evildoer and defenders of victimized Ukrainians. Some academic-style publications have begun to join the fray, in an attempt to refine the propagandizing strategies. One good...
The Russian invasion of Ukraine — an attempt to end the independence of a sovereign nation by force — would, if successful, set a precedent that might frighten smaller countries across the globe. It is an attack on the system of international law that has given us 80 years of relative peace in Europe and allowed international trade to develop, thereby raising living standards. The United Nations Charter established the...
Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, independent schools in Germany, particularly the Waldorf (also known as Steiner) schools attracted far-right conspiracy theorists and anti-vaxxers. Over the past two years, reported incidents of COVID-19 skepticism coupled with far-right conspiracy theories at Waldorf schools appear to be on the increase. Some COVID-19 deniers even attempted to establish their own schools in order to withdraw their children from government influence. Which far-right groups have...
Just days before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24, the chief commentator of the Turkish daily Sabah, Mehmet Barlas, summed up his assessment of the situation with the sentence, “If we had to reckon with a war, President Erdogan would not have left today for a four-day trip to Africa.” He added that Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish president, is in constant contact with Russia’s Vladimir Putin. Is Bosnia-Herzegovina Next...
