Section: The Guardian (The United Kingdom)
How peaches and propaganda are helping to shape the new world order | Paul Mason
Trade sanctions are just the latest weapon in the diplomatic wars threatening global stabilityItaly is back in recession and approaching deflation; Germany’s economy has shrunk and France stagnates. In Britain, we have a record number of jobs but plummeting real wages. Only the US which borrowed massively, restructured its banks and printed...
Europes lack of growth could lead to Japanese-style stagnation | Adam Tooze
The punishing austerity Germany demanded for rescuing the eurozone is creating a vicious cycle in which no one winsAngela Merkels summer could hardly have started better: the world cup win; the eurozone crisis contained; Germanys federal budget heading into surplus; her personal popularity at unassailable highs.Six weeks later, as Europe returns...
Russia and Ukraine ministers to meet in Berlin for ceasefire talks
Pavlo Klimkin and Sergey Lavrov will be joined by German counterparts in latest attempt to negotiate an end to fightingRussian and Ukrainian foreign ministers are meeting in Berlin for the first time in weeks for talks aimed at ending the conflict in eastern Ukraine, where there was heavy fighting over the weekend for control of the city of...
David Bezmozgis: Ukraine is a broken country that’s what attracted me to writing about it
The author’s new novel is set in the Crimea and its main character is an Israeli politician. How could it be more topical?David Bezmozgis was born in Riga, Latvia, in 1973 and moved to Toronto with his parents seven years later. He is the author of a novel, The Free World, and Natasha and Other Stories, which was shortlisted for the...
Ukraine Diaries: Dispatches from Kiev review an invaluable guide to the present crisis
Andrey Kurkov, the author of Death and the Penguin, is ideally placed to guide us through the Ukrainian revolution as it unfoldsUkraine, previously a place most foreigners happily ignored, has forced itself on the world’s attention this year.The fact that Vladimir Putin stole Crimea would have been enough on its own. It was the first...
Ukrainian fighter plane shot down by pro-Russia rebels
Foreign ministers of Russia, Ukraine, Germany and France due to meet in Berlin, and 10 civilians killed in shelling in DonetskPro-Russia rebels shot down a Ukrainian fighter jet on Sunday, before Kiev and Moscow’s top diplomats were due to hold urgent talks to defuse tensions over fighting in the east of the ex-Soviet nation.Ukraine’s...
Glasgow’s offer of sanctuary gives the rest of Scotland a lesson in compassion | Kevin McKenna
The first city in the world to stand beside Nelson Mandela has long opened its doors to victims of the world’s worst conflictsRunning alongside the contrived culture of Edinburgh in August is Just Festival. To quote directly from its programme of events: “Just Festival celebrates that peace is not only an absence of conflict; it is a...
Ukraine rebel says he has 1,200 fighters ‘trained in Russia’ under his command
Prime minister of the self-declared Donetsk People’s Republic posts speech to YouTube saying they have 30 tanksOne of the top rebel leaders in eastern Ukraine claims that his forces have recently received 1,200 fighters who had undergone training in Russia. The claim came during a speech to leading rebels, apparently recorded on Friday and...
Russian food embargo leaves Europe with glut of fruit, pork and mackerel
Producers across EU race to shift perishable items, with concern that surplus will further push down pricesA glut of French pears, warehouses full of German sausage, rotting Polish peppers and unwanted Scottish mackerel: Russia’s move to ban European food imports in retaliation for EU sanctions is having a telling effect across a continent...
Kiev claims the partial destruction of a Russian military convoy video
Ukraine’s national security and defence council spokesperson, Andriy Lysenko, says a Russian armoured convoy was followed as it it entered Ukrainian territory and then partly destroyed. Lysenko says alll Russian military activity on the Ukraine border is closely monitored by Kiev … …read more Source: The...
