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James Forsyth – 2017: Europe’s year of rage

After the tumult of 2016, Europe could do with a year of calm. It won’t get one. Elections are to be held in four of the six founder members of the European project, and populist Eurosceptic forces are on the march in each one. There will be at least one regime change: François Hollande has accepted that he is too …

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Putin’s Real Long Game

A little over a year ago, on a pleasant late fall evening, I was sitting on my front porch with a friend best described as a Ukrainian freedom fighter. He was smoking a cigarette while we watched Southeast DC hipsters bustle by and talked about ‘the war’ — the big war, being waged by Russia against all of us, which …

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Ellen Brown – The Italian Banking Crisis: No Free Lunch – Or Is There?

It has been called “a bigger risk than Brexit”– the Italian banking crisis that could take down the eurozone. Handwringing officials say “there is no free lunch” and “no magic bullet.” But UK Prof. Richard Werner says the magic bullet is just being ignored. On December 4, 2016, Italian voters rejected a referendum to amend their constitution to give the …

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ROBBIE GRAMER – India Overtakes Britain as the World’s Sixth-Largest Economy

Score one for the post-colonial underdog. India’s economy has reportedly overtaken the United Kingdom’s for the first time in over 100 years, now standing as the world’s sixth-largest economy by GDP after the United States, China, Japan, Germany, and France. The milestone is a symbol of India’s rapid economic growth and, conversely, the U.K.’s post-Brexit slump. Economically, it’s been a …

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Nafeez Ahmed – The UK’s ‘national security’ plan? It’s a blueprint for a police state

In early December, the British government released its first annual report on the National Security Strategy and Strategic Defence and Security Review. Despite the total media blackout, the document reveals in stark detail the Conservative government’s plans to expand Britain’s military activities around the world. In the name of defending “national security”, Britain is building a “permanent” military presence in …

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JOHN GRAY – Europe’s states of disorder

It is too early to gauge the full impact of the Austrian election and the Italian constitutional referendum. The increased majority for the Green-backed candidate in Austria shows a European electorate refusing to elect a president from an organisation that was founded by a former SS officer. But Norbert Hofer’s Freiheitliche Partei Öster­reichs (Austrian Freedom Party) managed to command nearly …

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We are entering a new epoch: the century of the migrant

Today there are more than 1 billion regional and international migrants, and the number continues to rise: within 40 years, it might double due to climate change. While many of these migrants might not cross a regional or international border, people change residences and jobs more often, while commuting longer and farther to work. This increase in human mobility and expulsion …

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SMALL IS STILL BEAUTIFUL

Paul Kingsnorth argues that ‘progressive’ green thinkers have been seduced by the EU and bypassed by a modern-day Peasants’ Revolt. In his introduction to the 1979 edition of his novel Pig Earth – the first in a trilogy chronicling the decline of peasant life in Europe in the 20th century – John Berger makes a distinction between what he calls …