Kirill Martynov writes: Vladimir Putin was born seven years after the end of the second world war, and raised on the Brezhnev-era myth of the great victory. A man of no great education, he loved to quote Soviet films and old stories. The history books portrayed the “great patriotic war” as a magical fable in which the hero – the Russian people – vanquishes a monster, to the envy of the whole world. In this myth there was no room…
The Washington Post reports: President Biden signed into law Monday afternoon a bill that will expedite the process of sending military aid to Ukraine, as the Eastern European country presses into its third month of fighting off a Russian invasion. Flanked by Vice President Harris and members of Congress from both sides of the aisle, Biden vowed the United States would continue to support Ukraine “in their fight to defend their country and their democracy” against Russian President Vladimir Putin’s…
Heljä Ossa and Tommi Koivula write: Finland doesn’t often make it into international headlines. When it does, it is usually because of the country’s world-renowned education system or for yet again being named the happiest country in the world. Even rarer are international discussions over Finnish security issues. That changed when Russia invaded Ukraine (again) and Europe’s security landscape transformed overnight. Suddenly, Finland and its possible NATO membership is a hot topic around the world. Finland will likely make a…
Jonathan Powell writes: Twenty four years ago, after the signing of the Good Friday Agreement, the Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble told me that he expected Northern Irish politics to become less sectarian and more normal with traditional left and right parties replacing the old Green and Orange parties. That has not happened yet, but this week’s elections in Northern Ireland might just mark the beginning of the normalisation of politics in the province. Sinn Fein’s victory, gaining the most…
Elizabeth Pennisi writes: The red, orange, and spotted mushrooms that sprout up after it rains are doing more than adding color to the landscape. The fungi that produce them could be keeping the natural world productive and stable, according to a new study. Indeed, they may be critical to the health of Earth’s ecosystems, says Matthias Rillig, a soil ecologist at the Free University Berlin who was not involved with the work. There are 70,000 known kinds of fungi. These…
The brain’s neural network, which includes both gray and white matter. Pasieka/Science Photo Library via Getty Images By Christopher Filley, University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus Who has not contemplated how a memory is formed, a sentence generated, a sunset appreciated, a creative act performed or a heinous crime committed? The human brain is a three-pound organ that remains largely an enigma. But most people have heard of the brain’s gray matter, which is needed for cognitive functions such as…
Nick Cohen writes: If the west could find the courage, it would order an immediate freeze of Rupert Murdoch’s assets. His Fox News presenters and Russia’s propagandists are so intermeshed that separating the two is as impossible as unbaking a cake. On Russian state news, as on Fox, bawling ideologues scream threats then whine about their victimhood as they incite anger and self-pity in equal measures. Its arguments range from the appropriation of anti-fascism by Greater Russian imperialists – the…
The Washington Post reports: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky outlined his conditions Friday for entering peace talks with Russia, demanding a restoration of preinvasion borders, the return of more than 5 million refugees, membership in the European Union and accountability from Russian military leaders before Kyiv would consider laying down its arms. Zelensky’s slate of requirements, which he listed during an online forum organized by Chatham House, are in direct conflict with the military objectives Russian leaders have articulated as they…
i reports: Thousands of Ukrainians have been sent to remote camps up to 5,500 miles from their homes as Vladimir Putin’s officials follow Kremlin orders to disperse them across Russia, i can reveal. They include survivors from the besieged port city of Mariupol, where civilians remain trapped at the Azovstal steel plant as Russian forces make a final push to subdue to city’s last defenders. An investigation by i analysing Russian local news reports has identified 66 camps in a…
Margaret Atwood writes: Nobody likes abortion, even when safe and legal. It’s not what any woman would choose for a happy time on Saturday night. But nobody likes women bleeding to death on the bathroom floor from illegal abortions either. What to do? Perhaps a different way of approaching the question would be to ask: What kind of country do you want to live in? One in which every individual is free to make decisions concerning his or her health…
Ezra Klein writes: A few weeks ago, I gave a lecture at a Presbyterian college in South Carolina, and asked some of the students where they liked to get their news. Almost every one said TikTok. TikTok is owned by ByteDance, a Chinese company. And Chinese companies are vulnerable to the whims and the will of the Chinese government. There is no possible ambiguity on this point: The Chinese Communist Party spent much of the last year cracking down on…
Sujata Gupta writes: When Igor de Almeida moved to Japan from Brazil nine years ago, the transition should have been relatively easy. Both Japan and Brazil are collectivist nations, where people tend to value the group’s needs over their own. And research shows that immigrants adapt more easily when the home and new country’s cultures match. But to de Almeida, a cultural psychologist now at Kyoto University, the countries’ cultural differences were striking. Japanese people prioritize formal relationships, such as…
Benjamin Ehrlich writes: In 1914, when World War I broke out, Santiago Ramón y Cajal, the most influential neuroscientist in the world—the man who discovered brain cells, later termed neurons— published only one article, by far his lowest output ever. “The horrendous European war of 1914 was for my scientific activity a very rude blow,” Cajal recalled. “It altered my health, already somewhat disturbed, and it cooled, for the first time, my enthusiasm for investigation.” Cajal’s tertulia, or café social…
The New York Times reports: The solicitation to commit treason came to Oleksandr Vilkul on the second day of the war, in a phone call from an old colleague. Mr. Vilkul, the scion of a powerful political family in southeastern Ukraine that was long seen as harboring pro-Russian views, took the call as Russian troops were advancing to within a few miles of his hometown, Kryvyi Rih. “He said, ‘Oleksandr Yurivich, you are looking at the map, you see the…