Category Archives: UK -Britain

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A fresh wave of hard-right populism is stalking Europe

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In Germany, the AfD are weaponising climate change

The Economist — Sep 14th 2023
A spectre is haunting Europe: the spectre of a rising hard right. In Germany the overtly xenophobic Alternative for Germany (afd) has surged to become the country’s second-most popular party.
Its success is polarising domestic politics and it seems poised to triumph in state elections in the east next year. In Poland the ruling Law and Justice party is leading the polls ahead of a general election on October 15th, and it is being drawn further to the right by an extreme new party, Confederation.

Continue reading A fresh wave of hard-right populism is stalking Europe →

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U. S. & China are new Competitors in an old, obscure, but important island dispute

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A tug of war between China and America in the Indian Ocean

Saltwire: Atlantic Canada News Service — Sept. 6, 2023

The Chagos islands, with Diego Garcia, Indian Ocean

Most of the international community regards the Chagos Islands as belonging to Mauritius, from which they were detached in 1965.
Henry Srebrnik, a professor of political science at the University of Prince Edward Island, provided the following opinion article.

Is the sun about to set on Britain’s control of the Chagos Islands? This archipelago of around 60 islands can be found halfway between East Africa and Southeast Asia. They are over 1,500 kilometres south of India, and even further from Mauritius, from which they were detached in 1965.

The Chagos group is currently governed by London as the British Indian Ocean Territory, but most of the international community regards it as belonging to Mauritius.

Also at stake is the future of the indigenous population, the Chagossians, who were expelled from their homes in the 1960s and 1970s. For decades, Britain has blocked them from returning to their islands. For what reason? And why has this become the centre of a power struggle between the United States and China?

Unlawful occupation Continue reading U. S. & China are new Competitors in an old, obscure, but important island dispute →

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Cluster Bombs to Ukraine? They Say No.

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Here’s why supplying Ukraine with cluster munitions would be a terrible mistake

Left, Jeff Merkley, former Sen. Pat Leahy

Opinion by Patrick Leahy and Jeff Merkley

Patrick Leahy, a Democrat, is a former U.S. senator from Vermont. Jeff Merkley, a Democrat, is a U.S. senator from Oregon who serves on the Foreign Relations Committee.

A few weeks after the Kremlin launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year, reports from the battlefield revealed that Russian troops were using cluster munitions against Ukrainian targets.
This news prompted a top U.S. official, as well as observers from dozens of other countries and humanitarian organizations, to denounce Moscow’s use of a weapon widely recognized as causing disproportionate civilian casualties. Continue reading Cluster Bombs to Ukraine? They Say No. →

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Gwynne Dyer: The Northern Irish “Troubles” Are Over. Will they Stay Over?

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[NOTE: I once seriously considered retiring in Ireland. It was 2010 and, closing in on 70, I wondered if there were any peaceable options to the ongoing mess and mass shootings in the USA.

Initially, Ireland seemed to be several positives: ancestral ties (O’Brien was my mother’s maiden name); a similar language; a reported friendliness to writers;  Quakers had been there for 300+ years; and after a decade of intensive peace work amid seemingly endless stupid wars, the fact that Ireland was neutral, not even in NATO, sounded good to me. Continue reading Gwynne Dyer: The Northern Irish “Troubles” Are Over. Will they Stay Over? →

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Likely the Only Post Here About Prince Harry’s Book “Spare” – by Gwynne Dyer

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[NOTE: I have no strong opinions about Harry & his book & the surrounding soap opera. I wish him & Meghan and their kids a happily ever after, which I expect to ignore. If they shake up the UK monarchy along the way, so much the better. But as usual, I find the reactions of renegade independent Canadian journalist Gwynne Dyer informative & intriguing.]

A Shocking Disclosure
By Gwynne Dyer — 8 January 2023


Where do you look when somebody says: “In the age of Apaches and laptops, everything I did in the course of two combat tours was recorded, time-stamped. I could always say precisely how many enemy combatants I’d killed. And I felt it vital never to shy away from that number.

“So, my number: Twenty-five. It wasn’t a number that gave me any satisfaction. But neither was it a number that made me feel ashamed.” Continue reading Likely the Only Post Here About Prince Harry’s Book “Spare” – by Gwynne Dyer →