Muting criticism of US stand on Ukraine war encourages nuclear conflict, which Moscow is spoiling for
There is a disturbing aspect to the discourse in Washington DC and European capitals surrounding the war in Ukraine that seeks to quash any dissent from the official narrative surrounding Nato’s military support for Ukraine. As the world was thrust into Cold War 2.0, the Western commentariat dusted off the...
Ukraine reporter’s diary: When I visited Lidiia last she refused to move and vowed ‘I want to die in my bed’
The last time I visited Lidiia – an 85-year-old woman who lived alone in Mariinka, a town along the ‘line of contact’ that has been largely reduced to rubble – was in early February 2022, a couple of weeks before the full-scale invasion. The fighting around Mariinka was already intensifying,...
Russia’s ties to Africa are primarily military and its Wagner mercenaries’ presence is unlikely to silence the guns
As the world marks the first anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24, it has been suggested that Africa needs a common approach to the war. So far Russia’s aggression has elicited contrary responses across the continent, as evidenced by the equivocal votes on numerous resolutions at the...
Potter’s Blues: ‘Burning it all down and starting again makes sense if you’re Everton, but this is Chelsea’
Two wins in 14 matches across all competitions for Chelsea since the first week of November. A run of form even bleaker than the final weeks of Jose Mourinho’s second spell at the club in 2015-16, when a Premier League title defence came to resemble an unthinkable relegation battle amid...
While frustration with corruption or poverty fosters Islamist terrorism elsewhere, regime profiteers in Chad feed it
Since the rise of Boko Haram in Nigeria and the emergence of Islamist-Salafist groups in northern Mali in 2013, the Sahel has increasingly been caught in the maelstrom of Islamist terrorism. The region is now described as the new global epicentre of violent extremism. The population is suffering immensely, and...
Experts vouch for decentralised economies, fear totalitarian systems by central banks via digital currencies
“We must prevent the introduction of central bank digital currencies “because that is the epitome of a centralised, controlled, even totalitarian system,” economist Richard Werner has warned. Speaking in a recent episode of The Kim Iversen Show, Prof Werner said the current inflation crisis the world is currently facing is...
How a simple equation proves the US armed forces have triumphed in the war agaainst terror
4,000,000,029,057. Remember that number. It’s going to come up again later. But let’s begin with another number entirely: 145,000 – as in, 145,000 uniformed soldiers striding down Washington’s Pennsylvania Avenue. That’s the number of troops who marched down that very street in May 1865 after the United States defeated the...
China ‘spy balloon’ scare wakes up America and Big Tech conglomerates to new era of surveillance
A day of Biden administration briefings on the Chinese spy balloon that travelled across US airspace last week ended in predictably partisan fashion, with multiple Republicans airing frustration while most Democrats defended the incident’s handling. What was unmissable was a replay of scenes from the Cold War era and a...
Extremism: Human rights abuses like seeing a father arrested or brother taken away by military forces feed radicalism
A lack of job opportunities is the leading factor driving people to join fast-growing violent extremist groups in sub-Saharan Africa, according to a new report released by the UN Development Programme. The report titled Journey to Extremism in Africa: Pathways to Recruitment and Disengagement, underscores the importance of economic factors...
Zoom boom doom: Big Tech layoffs after making a killing when Covid pandemic ravaged the world
Layoffs continue to hit the tech industry, and this week they came for one of the pandemic’s biggest winners: Zoom. Yesterday, the video conferencing platform cut 15 per cent of its staff or about 1,300 people. That came after Zoom had tripled its head count in two years. “We didn’t...
