Over the past few days you may have noticed a lot of friends in your Facebook feed checking in to a small location in North Dakota. North Dakota hasn’t suddenly become a top vacation destination point for millennial hipsters, though we’d gladly spend a day taking in the Plains Art Museum. But what’s actually going …
Fresh intrigue is afoot in the Transnistrian 'frozen' conflict. On 21 May, Ukraine's parliament the Verkhovna Rada revoked the agreement between Russia and Ukraine on the movement of Russian troops through Ukrainian territory to Transnistria, the unrecognised republic that is, from a legal point of view, considered part of Moldova. But that is far from …
The NBA pulled its All-Star Game from Charlotte due to North Carolina’s anti-LGBT laws regarding restroom access. The NCAA shifted multiple championship events away from North Carolina for the same reason. The NFL once pulled the Super Bowl from Arizona for that state’s failure to make Martin Luther King Jr. Day a state holiday (Arizona eventually …
President Xi Jinping, 2014. Demotix/Gregor Fischer. All rights reserved.In a new and important book, an eminent political scientist argues the case that the Chinese system is not only unique but also a morally justifiable alternative to democracy. He calls it a ‘political meritocracy’ and suggests that recent experience shows meritocracy to have so much promise …
I became a first responder by accident. I had planned to go to Indonesia so I could surf and do some charity work, handing out water filters to help people who had trouble accessing clean water. I had 10 filters with me. But while I was there, I was caught in the earthquake around Padang, Sumatra. It’s …
Call them ear candy or auditory delights or simply jams, songs about food have filled our ears for forever. Rap music only started in the 1970s, and already there are enough options on the menu to fill up a whole rap restaurant. We ranked the 10 choicest cuts. 10) Digital Underground featuring Del the Funkee Homosapien – “Food …
Ayman Odeh: conciliatory tone. Demotix / Mahmoud Illean. All rights reserved. Despite much pre-election euphoria among those hoping to bring down the prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, a democratic political upheaval towards a new progressive era in Israel remains a receding horizon. And yet one political novelty stands out: the increasing visibility of its Palestinian citizens. …
9 May was a blustery day in Kyiv – hot in the sun, bitingly cold in the shade. A day of sharp contrasts: ‘The kind of weather that makes my joints ache,’ joked Igor Nikolayevich, a local Second World War veteran who turned up in Park Vechnoi Slavy (Park of Eternal Glory) for celebrations commemorating …
Power projection: the inquiry by Sir John Chilcot into the lessons of UK involvement in the Iraq war has yet to be published. Flickr / UK Ministry of Defence. Some rights reserved. On 17 March the Commons Defence Committee released Rethinking Defence to meet New Threats, the third in a series of reports to inform …
In The New York Times op-ed published on Thursday, two high-ranking members of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists explained why they advanced the Doomsday Clock 30 seconds closer to midnight—the closest it has been since 1953. The reason the clock now sits two-and-a-half minutes to midnight has everything to do with—you guessed it—Donald Trump. “Never …
