Articles

Ukraine faces its greatest diplomatic challenge yet, as the Trump administration succumbs to disinformation and blames them for the Russian aggression. How can they navigate the storm?

In this edition of the Gagarin podcast, we talk with Per Nyholm, a seasoned journalist whose multiple visits to Ukraine’s front line provide stark, first-hand insights, critical of Trump’s bullish intervention. The Danish reporter also holds strong views on the US President’s land-grabbing plans for Greenland.

Provocative far-right calls for Germany to ‘move on’ from historical guilt miss the point: politics of memory and its practices may transition from contrition to responsible forgetting, but there is no end date to remembering that should accommodate diverse members of society.

Does Europe’s vaunted ‘post-heroic mentality’ render it indifferent to the self-sacrifice of Ukrainians in defending their country – and would it prevent Europeans from doing the same in the event of Russian aggression?

For those watching closely, Musk’s ‘Roman salute’ at the inauguration parade wasn’t the only portent of America’s imminent descent into tyranny. Art historian Konstantin Akinsha on Trump’s tawdry imperialism.

Ritual as anti-art: for Jay Jordan, ecological activism is a form of ritual whose reciprocal nature distinguishes it from the individualism of the ‘extractivist’, gallery-based artwork.

Some governments use legal restrictions to battle social media use; others leave families and individuals to self-regulate. Who’s responsible for young people’s addiction problems?

With anti-feminist tech executives now at the heart of US government, an already under-regulated IT sector may soon be able to pass medical data to law enforcement agencies prosecuting women under anti-abortion laws.

Political failures after independence allowed Belarusian society to become captive to the pro-Russian state. As Lukashenka enters his seventh term, five years after crushing the peaceful revolution, what lessons can the opposition take?

From regular TV coverage to constant online streaming, war imagery is so profuse it makes for compulsive viewing that appears to have already reached a pinnacle of disassociation. Meanwhile, the imaging technologies behind war have developed to the point of supposedly ‘predicting’ violence, threatening to occupy the future. And what is left of the real world in their wake?

The technological link between the rifle and the film camera, the medial links between the Gulf War and Star Wars, the colonial history of bombs – piecing together historical and contemporary fragments reveals an image of Kurdistan as a testing ground for military technology unleashed without responsibility for its consequences.

The conglomerate publishing industry sets conservative parameters on what it considers will sell. Repeating a winning ‘trending’ formula is high up on its list. But blobby, multi-coloured book covers lining supermarket shelves aren’t the only result of industry homogenization – independent presses are negotiating gaps in the market, spearheading literary excellence.

Competitive labour markets, whether private or public, often set profit margins over employment rights. Job insecurity and new forms of exploitation are on the rise. As is the Far Right, cashing in on resultant worker anxieties. Is there a way out of this ‘precarity’, tormenting the overworked and underpaid?

The ceasefire between Hamas and Israel has brought a sigh of relief to the international community – not least because we love to avoid discussing, even thinking about this conflict. Why is that? In this Standard Time episode we talk about anti-muslim racism and how to understand what’s happened in Gaza. 

Trump’s imperial ambitions are forcing the EU to rethink its global position. And European far-right parties, swollen on fears of diminishing world power, are paradoxically flogging the ethnic nation as a place of shelter. But finding unity in scapegoating migrants blatantly fails to recognize the need for a common purpose in times of worldwide uncertainty.

Momentous news for Gaza: a ceasefire agreement between the Israeli government and Hamas. Palestinian war artists speak about their creative responses to documenting loss; their digital artwork reaching out beyond the confines of war, received by those who support their resilience.