Mask-off outbursts by Maga insiders and most strikingly, the destruction and reconstruction of the presidential seat, with a huge new $300m ballroom, means Trump isn’t planning to leave the White House when his term ends, writes LINDA PENTZ GUNTER
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A new age of catastrophe?
We can no longer take peace for granted: until WWI there had not been a major war for 100 years. Ukraine is the first in decades that draws in so many different nations that we could be looking at a similar disaster to 1914, warns KEITH FLETT
At one level, the current hostilities in Ukraine are about that country seeking to protect its existence from Putin's aggression — but at another level, the involvement of Nato, controlled by the US suggests another conflict alarmingly similar to that which led to WWI.
BEN CHACKO speaks with Knesset member OFER CASSIF about rising political violence, the prospects for peace and his continuous ‘silencing by suspension’
The City is leaning on Rachel Reeves to cut welfare spending — when what’s needed is cuts to all the benefits given to the mega rich, corporations and banks to help them not pay or blatantly dodge their fair share of tax, explains BERNIE EVANS
The choice between two Blairites to revamp the tepid centrism of our ruling party doesn’t even come as cold comfort as we wander the city streets suffering from their third decade of austerity and the fifth of wage stagnation, writes MATT KERR
ANN HENDERSON looks at the trailblazers of the Women’s Trade Union League and their successful fight for female factory inspectors — a battle that echoes in today’s workplace campaigns
HENRY FOWLER puts the strike of public-sector workers in New Zealand in the wider context of deteriorating employment conditions throughout the world’s major economies
MAT COWARD looks back at a protest 105 years ago this month, whose reporting by the media bears uncomfortable similarities with demos today
A RECENT comment by Vladimir Putin that he was being cancelled in the same way that JK Rowling claims to be caused much social media comment. Of course neither individual is short of media outlets to carry their often controversial thoughts.
Putin’s main audience for the comment however was not Twitter users in Britain, but a domestic one. Russia under his leadership is hostile to any display of sexuality that is not heterosexual. It is unfortunately very far from the only country to take this approach but Putin was making a comparison with what he sees as a more tolerant Western Europe.
However, the reference to JK Rowling was interesting because it underlined the hypocrisy of Putin’s perspective. He contrasted Russia with a “decadent” West but he and the very wealthy men and women who support him are often to be found as significant players in property, business and Tory politics in London. The current focus on Russian “oligarchs” in Britain, which sometimes verges on Russophobia, reflects the point.
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In the first half of a two-part article, PETER MERTENS looks at how Nato’s €800 billion ‘Readiness 2030’ plan serves Washington’s pivot to the Pacific, forcing Europeans to dismantle social security and slash pensions to fund it
Speaking to a CND meeting in Cambridge this week, SIMON BRIGNELL traced how the alliance’s anti-communist machinery broke unions, diverted vital funds from public services, and turned workers into cannon fodder for profit
As Moscow celebrates the 80th anniversary of the Nazi defeat without Western allies in attendance, the EU even sanctions nations choosing to attend, revealing how completely the USSR's sacrifice of 27 million lives has been erased, argues KATE CLARK
Despite the US withdrawal from Ukraine and economic self-harm from sanctions, European centrists maintain their bellicosity to justify military spending and distract from neoliberalism's failures, writes PRABHAT PATNAIK