Politics (Page 107)

When Russian troops invaded Ukraine in February 2022, much of the political left across the western world were faced with a dilemma. Unlike in 2003 – when US oil interests seemed to explain the invasion of Iraq all too neatly – this time it was much more difficult to put a Marxist spin on things. The left, sections of which have traditionally been critical of the US-led Nato alliance, was presented with an unpalatable choice: either to back a state propped up by Nato, the world’s most powerful military alliance, or to end up excusing a war of aggression. The tension was in effect resolved by a split. A small group, including the influential socialist commentator Noam Chomsky and theContinue Reading

Shutterstock Food is a hot issue in today’s activism. Last year, UK climate group Just Stop Oil hurled tomato soup at Vincent Van Gogh’s Sunflowers at the National Gallery in London. Later they smeared cake on a Madame Tussauds waxwork of King Charles. Protesters affiliated with the German group Letzte Generation (Last Generation) threw mashed potatoes on Claude Monet’s Grainstacks at the Barberini Museum in Potsdam, Germany. An activist targeted Leonardo Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa with cake at the Louvre Museum in Paris. All were intended as wake-up calls about the anthropogenic climate catastrophe. Food has a long history of being a weapon of protest. Historian E.P. Thompson proposed in 1971 that food was part of the “moral economy” ofContinue Reading

Guilt and innocence are rarely clear-cut, even in the most heinous of crimes. The recent appeal of Dominic Ongwen, former commander in the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), shines a light on the complexity of defence in international criminal law. In December, the International Criminal Court (ICC) refused Ongwen’s appeal, cementing his conviction and 25-year prison sentence for numerous charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Ongwen was convicted of some of the most egregious crimes in international law: rape, sexual slavery, torture, recruitment of child soldiers, and various crimes against people living in camps for those internally displaced. During his trial, Ongwen admitted that he had carried out the acts, but did not admit guilt. Instead, he relied uponContinue Reading

The sacking of the three buildings comprising the seat of government in Brasilia on January 8 was a reminder of an unresolved tension in the heart of the Brazilian state: the role of the armed forces. As in many other democracies, Brazil’s armed forces are supposed to be apolitical servants of the executive branch and subordinate to their civilian commander-in-chief, the president. But the Brazilian officer corps sometimes behaves and speaks as the saviour of the nation. It claims to be the “moderating power”, a role some argue is granted to them by article 142 of the 1988 constitution, which describes the military as the defender of “law and order”. This belief is shared by a significant portion of theContinue Reading

An 89-year-old widower who was killed following a violent attack by a fellow patient at a Cork hospital has been named locally as Matthew Healy, a farmer from Berrings in Co Cork. The attack on Mr Healy occurred in a general ward at Mercy University Hospital (MUH) shortly after 5am on Sunday. It is understood the pensioner was assaulted with a walking frame. Staff intervened in a bid to bring the assault to a halt. The Armed Support Unit also attended at the scene and assisted in the arrest of a male patient. Mr Healy was pronounced dead at the scene. The area where the assault took place was cordoned off to allow for a full forensic and technical examinationContinue Reading

Amid the many salacious revelations in Prince Harry’s memoir, Spare, one of the most concerning was not about his family. Harry revealed that he killed 25 members of the Taliban while serving in Afghanistan, and that he viewed them like pieces on a chessboard. His comments sparked criticism from top military figures and prompted Afghan families to call for his prosecution. Harry’s comments suggest that military technology has advanced such that a soldier can say with certainty the number of kills they have made. But it also reveals how much “gamification” of warfare could become part of the military mindset. Advancements in technology have allowed warfare to become more remote and operators more distant from their targets. Some argue thatContinue Reading

4kclips | Shutterstock National census data is the best tool – the gold standard – for obtaining the full, detailed picture of how the UK’s population is changing at the local level. In November 2022, publication of 2021 census data on ethnic groups presented an unrivalled opportunity to gain insights into the changing ethnic mosaic of England and Wales. Many media reports on the data focused on the growth of minority ethnic populations in cities including London, Birmingham, and Leicester. Local authority districts where white people no longer formed a majority of the population – so-called “minority-majority” places – drew special attention. We have published the first peer-reviewed analysis of the geographies of ethnic diversity and residential segregation using dataContinue Reading

After US state department counsellor Derek Chollet recently visited Kosovo in a bid to calm tensions flaring in the north of the country, he said Washington’s priority was to prevent “violence metastasising” (spreading) between Serbs and Albanians. “The last thing any of us wants right now is a crisis in this part of the world given that we have the biggest crisis since the second world war not too far away,” Chollet told journalists. He added that: “We don’t want to be in a crisis diplomacy. First, licence plates, then barricades, we don’t want something else next week.” The US diplomat was referring to a crisis late last year over car license plates in north Kosovo, which borders Serbia. MoreContinue Reading

Matteo Messina Denaro, one of the leaders of the Sicilian mafia, the Cosa Nostra, has finally been detained after 30 years on the run. His arrest came as around 100 police officers surrounded the private Maddalena clinic in Palermo where they had discovered he was receiving treatment. Rumours had been rife for weeks that Denaro was ill and having chemotherapy – but it came as a surprise to the public that Italy’s most wanted man was having treatment in a Palermo clinic alongside ordinary citizens. He was in the queue for tests when a police officer approached him to ask him who he was. An associate standing with him made a run for it but he came forward and simplyContinue Reading