Why Vladimir Putin is so confident in his Ukraine strategy – he has a trump card in China
Feb 23, 2022 22:12 pm UTC| Insights & Views
The Beijing Winter Olympics will be remembered not just for Chinas efforts to impress the world amid criticisms of its human rights record. The games were also held against the backdrop of the most dramatic escalation of...
Feb 23, 2022 22:10 pm UTC| Insights & Views
Russian President Vladimir Putin, in a provocative address that could be construed as a pretext to war, claimed on Feb. 21, 2022, that all of Ukraine belongs to Russia and formally recognized the independence of two...
Ukraine: what would a Russian invasion actually look like? These are the three most likely scenarios
Feb 18, 2022 08:13 am UTC| Politics
Despite suggestions to the contrary from the Kremlin, Ukraine remains surrounded by Russian troops, both along its long border with Russia and from within occupied Crimea. The Russian Federation has deployed land, air and...
What are false flag attacks – and could Russia make one work in the information age?
Feb 18, 2022 08:10 am UTC| Politics
In the past few weeks, U.S. officials have warned several times that Russia plans to create the appearance of an attack on its own forces and broadcast those images to the world. Such a false flag operation, they alleged,...
Russia and China's growing 'friendship' is more a public relations exercise than a new world order
Feb 08, 2022 03:37 am UTC| Politics
Against the backdrop of a western diplomatic boycott of the Beijing Winter Olympics, China and Russia have marked the occasion by showing off their increasingly close relationship. Russias president Vladimir Putin posed...
Sanctions: a brief history from Ancient Greece to Vladimir Putin's Russia
Feb 02, 2022 09:27 am UTC| Economy
Faced with the imminent possibility of a Russian invasion of Ukraine and what appears to be a deteriorating diplomatic stand-off, NATO and other western allies are again turning to sanctions in the absence of other viable...
Can the US find enough natural gas sources to neutralize Russia's energy leverage over Europe?
Feb 02, 2022 09:09 am UTC| Insights & Views
The prospect of conflict between Russia and NATO countries over Ukraine has raised fears of an energy crisis in Europe. Russia provides nearly half of Europes natural gas, and some leaders worry that Moscow could tighten...
Johannesburg in a time of darkness: Ivan Vladislavić’s new memoir reminds us of the city’s fragility
Economist Chris Richardson on an ‘ugly’ inflation result and the coming budget
Biden administration tells employers to stop shackling workers with ‘noncompete agreements’
IceCube researchers detect a rare type of energetic neutrino sent from powerful astronomical objects