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Ideas

The Putin Method: How He’s Built His Popularity, And The Risks Of Losing It

Support among the Russian public has increased for both Putin and his war in Ukraine. Russia’s is a different kind of autocracy, dubbed an “Information Technocracy,” where power is held through propaganda and popular support. But this requires Putin to maintain his popularity — and that can only happen if the war succeeds.

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Dottoré!

Bygone Tips: My Not So Great Depression

“Dottoré, the reason why I am depressed is simple. But to explain it, I need an answer first. How much did you use to pay for a coffee?” “Over the last few years, it was 80 cents, then 90 cents, and now one euro.” “And what did you use to do with the 10 or […]

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Geopolitics Ideas

What’s Happening In Ukraine Is Madness — And Should Surprise Nobody

There are instructive, and dismally repetitive, precedents for the war in Ukraine in the histories of imperial Russia and the Soviet Union, but also U.S. aggression from Vietnam to Iraq.

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Ideas Society

The Ventilator Question: ICU Doctors Struggle With End-Of-Life Ethics

Instead of ending ICU treatment and allowing relatives to say goodbye peacefully, doctors often keep patients alive for too long. The pandemic has forced us to revisit eternal dilemmas and shown that Intensive Care Units are often unprepared to confront tough ethical questions.

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In The News

Dymer Diary: My Month Under Russian Occupation

This is the story of Olga Simonova from Dymer, 50 kilometers north of Kyiv, which was occupied by the Russian army as a base for their assaults to the south. It was a time of great fear and uncertainty, as Simonova is still assessing the damage and searching for those who have disappeared.

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Geopolitics Ideas Russia-Ukraine War

Why Beijing Isn’t Happy About The Crimes Of Bucha

The revelations of the alleged war crimes in Bucha are making Russia’s war more complicated for the leaders of China, who could have supported a victorious Moscow without hesitation, but a humiliated Moscow is a different matter. Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin’s shared ambitions of a new world order is at stake.

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LGBTQ Plus Society

How A Dutch Clinic Pioneered Pediatric Transgender Healthcare, Through 40 Years Of Criticism

Since its founding in the 1970s, the Amsterdam-based Center of Expertise on Gender Dysphoria has been working with often very young children and their parents to address gender identity issues. Their model has been both adopted and widely criticized around the world.

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Ideas Russia-Ukraine War

Putin’s Big Lie: Why Russia Is Doubling Down On The “Denazification” Of Ukraine

Even as the Russian army shifts in its original invasion objectives, the country’s state media is busy fueling pro-war sentiment with what remains a central talking point, the supposed “denazification,” of Ukraine, which some warn is a recipe for genocide

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Ideas Russia-Ukraine War

Why The Battle For Donbas Could Decide The War In Ukraine

Vladimir Putin badly needs a victory, and may be ready to unleash Russia’s deadliest assault to date. But Ukraine has its best fighters in the eastern region, fighting a war there since 2014, and may have several key tactical advantages.

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Green Ideas

Biophilia Or Bust? Ecology Is Not About Empathy For Other Living Creatures

When humans care about the natural world, it means revising our place in it and acting accordingly, not giving nature “rights and concessions” that are figments of our self-serving imagination.

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Russia-Ukraine War Society

Marina Ovsyannikova: What’s Changed Since My Protest On Live Russian TV

Ever since journalist Marina Ovsyannikova protested on live Russian television against the war in Ukraine, her life has changed radically. Now that includes writing for leading German daily Die Welt. In her first article, Ovsyannikova explains what drove her action, how police have targeted her and why the Kremlin’s propaganda works on so many of her fellow Russians.

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Ideas

Why Western Outrage At War In Europe Never Makes It To Africa

The way armed conflicts have been represented in fiction for decades could explain the racism that has been revealed in Western media coverage of the war in Ukraine compared to multiple conflicts over the years in Africa.

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Society

Kyiv Homework: Write What You’ll Do When The War Is Over

Excerpts from essays by young Ukrainians, aged 15 to 17, yearning for peace in the middle of war.

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Geopolitics

Protests In Iran Risk Spreading As Ukraine War Triggers Global Food Crisis

After a break in late March, small protests have broken out all over Iran over wages and pensions. A higher cost of living caused by the war in Ukraine may be the final straw for exasperated Iranians.

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Living Abroad

Cities Where It’s (Not) Easy For Expats To Get Settled

Feeling at home abroad can be hard sometimes. But while expats in some cities face this challenge, those in Kuala Lumpur, Mexico City, and Málaga report few difficulties.

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Geopolitics Ideas

Macron v. Le Pen, Why It’s Different This Time

The replay of the 2017 duel accentuates the political divide in the country, but holds higher risks for Macron as Le Pen adjusts her approach. Two key unknowns: how will Le Pen’s past support of Vladimir Putin play out, and what left-wing voters will do?

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Geopolitics Ideas Russia-Ukraine War

The Surprise That May Finally Bury NATO: The Ukrainian Army

The system of post-World War II alliances has ultimately proven insufficient at the moment the Russian threat turned into actual war. Ukraine’s military has risen to the challenge in a way that may help reorder the system of security for decades to come.

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In The News

How Cycling Could Revolutionize Gender Equality In India

India is one of the most gender unequal countries in the world. But the humble bicycle is helping women reclaim space in cities, opening up job prospects, and even encouraging their education opportunities.

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Russia-Ukraine War Society

Ukraine Hopes These Surrogate Babies Will Stir The Conscience Of The West

BioTexCom is responsible for more than half of the 2,500 surrogate babies born annually in Ukraine. This is how, in the middle of the war, the surrogacy company continues to function.

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Geopolitics

A Visit To Zelensky’s Hometown, As Russians May Be Set To Attack Again

The 44-year-old’s parents still live in the same apartment in Kryvyi Rih, where Russian troops attacked in the early days of the war before retreating. But with Putin’s focus shifted eastward, the people who grew up with Zelensky brace for more attacks.

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In The News

The Club Of Tyrants: Putin And His Western Comrades, Past And Present

Russia’s President Putin may speak of denazifying Ukraine, but his words and actions — from the Mariupol maternity hospital to the atrocities of Bucha to Friday’s missile attack on the Kramatorsk railway station — show that he’s taken up the mantle of Europe’s line of fascist dictators. Take a look at those today who still lend him support.

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In The News

Why Iranians Are Burning Statues Of Khomeini And Soleimani, Heroes Of The Revolution

With increasing frequency, Iranians are destroying or defacing the monuments of revolutionary and clerical leaders that they have come to loathe as symbols of oppression. It is a dangerous act of protest against the regime, which has called the vandalism “vile.”

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Ideas Migrant Lives Russia-Ukraine War

Ukrainians In 2022 vs. Syrians In 2015, Why Some Refugees Get A Warmer Welcome

As people open their homes to Ukrainian refugees, some in Germany and elsewhere in Europe are criticizing the lack of a similar welcome for Syrians in 2015. Do we have a responsibility to offer the same level of help to all those in need — and are we even capable of that? The answer might just be found in philosophy.

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Geopolitics Russia-Ukraine War

Ukraine Night Patrol: Elite Forces Hunt Russian Spies — And House Parties

A reporter in Kharkiv joins the Ukrainian Special Forces patrolling the streets in search of pro-Russian saboteurs. But the military police teams also have to deal with those violating the curfew, which can become a deadly offense during war.

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In The News

Really, The Nerve Of These Women

If I were running a company I would never hire women. At least once a month they are sick, and in the days leading up to it, there are endless complaints. If they’re nearing their thirties, they want to find a husband and have children. Then when they do, the real disaster begins. Hysterical and […]

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Society

Indigenous Tribes Use High-Tech Tools To Unearth Buried Crimes Of The Past

Indigenous groups in the U.S. and Canada are using ground-penetrating radar to look for burial sites at former schools. The technology has the potential to help a reckoning with a dark chapter in the countries’ histories.

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Geopolitics Russia-Ukraine War

Blitzkrieg To Salami Tactics: A Closer Look At Russia’s Pivot To The East

Vladimir Putin’s original plans for conquest of Ukraine have not changed. By pulling back from Kyiv and flirting with negotiations, he is trying to buy time to reorganize for a longer war that require Ukrainian forces to hold their ground in the eastern Donbas region.

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Economy Geopolitics

Ukraine War, North African Food Shortages And Whiff Of A New Arab Spring

Rising tensions in wheat productions, explosion of oil prices, fear of the unknown, could the Ukraine war lead to a popular Arab uprising similar to the one in 2011?

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In The News

Why Japan’s Auto Industry Can’t Keep Pace With The Electric Vehicle Revolution

The “Made in Japan” label used to be a mark of progress, but Japanese manufacturing has declined rapidly. Now, the automobile industry, the last bastion of the country’s technology, has fallen behind in the transition to electric vehicles.

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In The News

Sri Lanka’s President Was A Hero – But Now He’s Got To Go

Gotabaya may blame the ongoing Ukraine-Russia war or the earlier COVID-19 pandemic for much of the mess, but there is widespread unanimity that the problems are a product of bad governance for more than a decade.

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OneShot Russia-Ukraine War

Photo Of The Week: This Happened In Bucha

We have chosen a single image to tell the story of what happened in Bucha, Ukraine, though there are many others worth looking at. We bear witness to face the present reality, and help document for posterity and war crimes trials that the world now demands.

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Geopolitics Ideas Russia-Ukraine War

Time To Put NATO Military Intervention In Ukraine On The Table

The gruesome images from Bucha are shocking. But how many more massacred Ukrainian civilians will it take before the West and NATO say enough? The West’s constant fear of escalation makes things easy for Putin.

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Geopolitics Ideas

How France’s Presidential Election Could Trigger A “Democratic Accident”

After the surprising arrival of Emmanuel Macron five years ago, followed by protest movements, COVID-19 and now Ukraine, a sense of indifference has spread among voters. This could lead to a surprise victory of the far-right candidate, Marine Le Pen.

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In The News

Bucha Happened: Testimony Of A Siege, Witnesses To A Massacre

Adding evidence of war crimes against civilians emerging in Bucha, an Italian reporter gathers new details and chilling first-hand testimony of the past three weeks of Russian occupation and murder of innocent civilians.

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In The News

How Putin’s Arctic Dreams May Crack Under The Weight Of Ukraine War

With its vast untapped resources up for grabs, the Arctic region is where the climate crisis is now inextricably linked to a new global arms race. Now Moscow finds itself shut out in the cold after invading Ukraine.

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In The News

Top Cities For Your Career Abroad

European cities dominate both the top and the bottom of the Urban Work Life Index, according to findings in the Expat Insider survey.

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Geopolitics Ideas

The Lesson Of Bucha: There’s Only One Way To Defeat A War Criminal

Western civilization, having experienced so many wars and acts of terrorism, has created elaborate schemes to protect the peace and civilian populations in particular. Vladimir Putin has shown that it is simply not enough. We must fight and die to protect what is most precious, says Ukrainian writer Anna Akage.

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Feed The Future Geopolitics

India Faces Monumental Challenge As War Chokes Agriculture Market

There is no country that has more hungry mouths to feed than India, which faces not just food inflation that is roiling the global markets but also vulnerability to fertilizer production costs.

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Geopolitics

How Putin “Lost” Kazakhstan, And Squashed His Own Soviet Revival

For Vladimir Putin, invading Ukraine was the first massive step in reviving the power of Soviet times. His war has done the opposite. Kazakhstan is the first former Soviet republic to distance itself from Russia and turn to the West. But the Central Asian country may not be able to free itself of Russian influence as quickly as it would like.

Categories
Society

It Takes Two To Tango, But One Pandemic Has Nearly Killed It

The pandemic has devastated Argentina’s tango culture — and the thousands of people who depend on it.

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