Tag Archives: Ukraine

News: DeSantis Launches 2024 Campaign, Hungary Democracy, Le Pen Faulted

Thursday, May 25, 2023: Florida governor Ron DeSantis launches his presidential bid, we examine the state of Hungarian democracy and French far-right politician Marine Le Pen is hauled over the coals at a hearing investigating Russian influence in the National Rally party.

Plus: the latest transport news with Monocle’s Gabriel Leigh. 

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Politics: The Guardian Weekly – May 26, 2023

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The Guardian Weekly (May 26, 2023) – Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s surprise turn at last weekend’s G7 meeting in Hiroshima was the climax of a round of shuttle diplomacy in which the Ukrainian president secured yet more funds and equipment from western nations. 

Patrick Wintour ponders the complex wider issues at stake for western leaders who realise that more constructive relations with the global south could also be the key to containing an increasingly belligerent China.

E-cigarettes have been seen as useful and less health-damaging devices for weaning smokers off tobacco. But there are growing international fears at the rise of disposable e-cigarettes, which are fuelling a boom in vaping among children. Michael Safi looks at how different countries are responding, from sales curbs to outright bans.

News: Crisis In Lebanon, U.S. & India In The Pacific Islands, South Korea

Wednesday, May 24, 2023: Political and financial instability in Lebanon; the US and India vie for influence in the Pacific Islands as China looms large; and South Korea’s Nuri rocket is set to launch from the Naro Space Center.

Plus: the biggest news coming out of the 2023 European Business Aviation Convention and Exhibition (EBACE). 

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War Scenarios: Ukraine’s Four Counteroffensives

Wall Street Journal (May 23, 2023) – Ukraine is on the brink of launching its counteroffensive against Russia. Russia now occupies 17% of Ukrainian territory, a stretch of landmass roughly equivalent to the size of Iceland with 900 miles of frontline.

Video timeline: 0:00 The stakes for the counteroffensive 0:53 The current Russia-Ukraine War situation 4:09 Ukraine’s counteroffensive scenarios 6:42 Potential results from the counteroffensive

Ukrainian troops’ current offensives have been limited to the Donbas region. WSJ spoke to retired Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt, who breaks down four likely scenarios that the Ukrainian forces might attempt to kick off their counteroffensive.

Previews: The New Yorker Magazine – May 29, 2023

Marcellus Hall's “Open House” | The New Yorker

The New Yorker – May 29, 2023 issue:

Stephen Satterfield Puts Black Cuisine at the Center of U.S. History

A portrait of Stephen Satterfield.

The host of Netflix’s “High on the Hog” draws seductive stories from a bittersweet legacy.

By Dorothy Wickenden

Stephen Satterfield, the host of the Netflix food-history series “High on the Hog,” was bent over the stove in his parents’ kitchen, near Atlanta. It was one o’clock on a February afternoon, and he was preparing Sunday dinner for the family. Most of the meal was canonical Black Southern food: turnip greens simmered for hours, cheese grits, biscuits baked in a cast-iron skillet. 

What We Owe Our Trees

A black and white photograph of a dense forest.

Forests fed us, housed us, and made our way of life possible. But they can’t save us if we can’t save them.


By Jill Lepore

The woods I know best, love best, are made of Northern hardwoods, sugar maple and white ash, timber-tall; black and yellow birch, tiger-skinned; seedlings and saplings of blighted beech and striped maple creeping up, knock-kneed, from a forest floor of princess pine and Christmas fern, shag-rugged. White-tailed deer dart through softwood stands of pine and hemlock, bucks and does, the last leaping fawn, leaving tracks that look like tiny human lungs, trails that people can only ever see in the snow, even though, long after snowmelt, dogs can smell them, tracking, snuffling, shuddering with the thrill of the hunt and noshing on deer scat for dog treats. 

Two Weeks at the Front in Ukraine

A Ukrainian sniper positioned in a trench aims a rifle.

In the trenches in the Donbas, infantrymen face unrelenting horrors, from missiles to grenades to helicopter fire.

By Luke Mogelson

A twenty-two-year-old Ukrainian sniper, code-named Student, stuffed candy wrappers into his ears before firing a rifle at the Russians’ tree line. He’d been discharged from the hospital two weeks earlier, after being shot in the thigh.Photographs by Maxim Dondyuk for The New Yorker

Politics: The Guardian Weekly – May 19, 2023

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The Guardian Weekly (May 19, 2023) – This week’s issue considered the end of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s long political career. But it soon became clear that predictions of the Turkish president’s demise had been greatly misjudged. A first-round victory over his secular opponent, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, did not come by a wide enough margin to prevent a runoff vote on 28 May. But, barring a remarkable swing back to Kılıçdaroğlu, the indications are that Erdoğan will further extend his 20-year authoritarian brand of rule over Turkey.

As Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, toured European capitals to drum up support this week, speculation continued over when and where Ukraine’s long-anticipated counteroffensive against Russian forces would begin – or if indeed it had already done so. From Kherson, Luke Harding hears from a frontline commander why Kyiv is happy to bide its time, while defence editor Dan Sabbagh outlines four possible scenarios in which a Ukrainian counterattack might develop.

Two environmentally slanted features bring fascinating insights into very different parts of the world. From Kenya there’s the uplifting story of the waste picker who is lobbying for his colleagues’ working rights to be enshrined in a UN treaty. Then, John Bartlett reports from Antarctica on how the climate crisis, geopolitical tensions and booming tourism are straining relations at a remote scientific research station.

Culture/Politics: Harper’s Magazine — June 2023 Issue

June 2023

Harper’s Magazine – June 2023 issue:

Why Are We in Ukraine?

On the dangers of American hubris by Benjamin SchwarzChristopher Layne

From Murmansk in the Arctic to Varna on the Black Sea, the armed camps of NATO and the Russian Federation menace each other across a new Iron Curtain. Unlike the long twilight struggle that characterized the Cold War, the current confrontation is running decidedly hot. As former secretary of state Condoleezza Rice and former secretary of defense Robert Gates acknowledge approvingly, the United States is fighting a proxy war with Russia. 

Seeing Through Maps

by Madeline ffitch

I was splitting wood at sunset when the cat jumped up on the chopping block in front of me, arched her back, and took a long piss. My axe hung in the sky. The cat stared at me, tail up. I put my axe down and squatted before her. I hitched my gown to my waist. 

News: China ‘Peace Envoy’ In Ukraine, South Africa Ships Weapons To Russia

The Globalist, May 16, 2023: A Chinese ‘peace’ envoy arrives in Ukraine as Volodomyr Zelensky pushes for military supplies abroad, South Africa sticks to its controversial stance on Russia and the EU plans to build internet cables under the Black Sea.

Plus: we check in with film critic Karen Krizanovich as the Cannes Film Festival begins, and Monocle’s Fiona Wilson talks food diplomacy, as carbonara pancakes are on the menu in Hiroshima ahead of the G7 summit.

News: Turkey Elections Head Into Runoff, Ukraine Advances, China-Australia

The Globalist, May 15, 2023: Monocle’s Istanbul correspondent, Hannah Lucinda Smith, and the editor of Free Turkish Press, Yavuz Baydar, join Emma Nelson to discuss Turkey’s elections.

Also in the programme: Ukraine pushes ahead in its counteroffensive and Andrew Mueller explains China and Australia’s complex relationship. Plus, Eurovision’s winners celebrate in style with Fernando Augusto Pacheco. 

News: Turkey Election Analysis, UK Sends Long-Range Missiles To Ukraine

The Globalist, May 12, 2023: Monocle’s Istanbul correspondent, Hannah Lucinda Smith, gives us the latest on Turkey’s elections, which will take place on Sunday.

Also in the programme: the UK agrees to send long-range missiles to Ukraine and Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, heads to the US. Plus: Andrew Mueller reflects on Donald Trump’s sexual-assault verdict and Liverpool welcomes Ukraine for the Eurovision Song Contest.