How Russia’s opposition learned to stop worrying and love Crimea

Even by Russian standards, Ksenia Sobchak is a rather contradictory public figure. Having launched her television career as an announcer on Russia’s remake of ‘Big Brother’ (‘Dom-2’), Sobchak became a political talk show host on TV Rain, one of Russia’s few independent news channels. The daughter of the late Anatoly Sobchak, the former mayor of …

Multilateral nuclear disarmament: it would be a nice idea

The nuclear-weapons states have been coming in for a beating at the Review Conference of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), in session at the UN headquarters in New York. The Non-aligned Movement said these states had made no progress on disarmament and urged them to stop modernising their arsenals. And a joint statement by 159 states …

Washington's wars: in a fix

President Trump greets National Security Advisor Michael Flynn and Gen. Joseph F. Dunford to discuss current operations. D. Myles Cullen/Flickr. Some rights reserved.Donald Trump's election campaign made much of his predecessor Barack Obama’s failure to control and defeat ISIS, contrasting this with his own determination to destroy the movement if and when he became the …

Photo Shows What A Nativity Scene Would Look Like Without Jews, Arabs, Or Africans

There’s no better time for spitting truths than in the days leading up to Christmas. With nativity scenes cropping up on fireplace mantels and snow-dusted lawns, it’s important to remember one key fact, if only for the sake of historical accuracy. Excluding Jews, Arabs, and Africans from your classic nativity scene would leave you with …

Mourning the Mediterranean dead and locking up survivors

Click:slot milling 24 Libyan bodies brought to Malta, April 20. Demotix/ Christian Mangion.All rights reserved.Loss of life in the Mediterranean during the last few weeks brings the death toll this year to 1,776. 2015 is on course to be the deadliest year on record. The avoidable loss of life is all the more devastating in …

Knitting Store Owner Bans Customers Who Marched, Then Doubles Down In The Face Of Outrage

As you could imagine, the iconic pink “pussy hats” that adorned the heads of many protesting men and women caused quite a run on pink yarn in the days preceding the Women’s Marches around the world last week.  Even the most oblivious shop owners would have to noticed that something was afoot given the spike …

Surreptitious symbiosis: the relationship between NGO’s and movement activists

Protest against TTIP. Demotix/Rachel Megawatt.All rights reserved.The emergence in 2011 of the pro-democracy movements of the Arab Spring and the anti-austerity and anti-capitalist movements captured the public’s imagination the world over. From April-September 2013 we conducted research in Athens, Cairo, London and Yerevan and our aim was to build on and expand the existing research …

HDP: focus of left-wing opposition beyond pro-Kurdish mobilization

2015 Legislative Elections in Turkey. Cuma Çiçek. All rights reserved.Turkey left behind it a thirteen-year-long period of single-party majority governments in the June 7 election. AK Party (Justice and Development Party) lost its parliamentary majority as a result of HDP (Peoples’s Democratic Party) success in overcoming the 10 percent election threshold. It is obvious that …