Europe

In Belgrade, Serbia, on 15 March, saw what was undoubtedly the largest protest in the history of Serbia. According to the Archive of Public Gatherings, it numbered around 300,000 people, with many estimating that it was even larger.

The French ruling class and its government are on the offensive. In addition to the tens of billions of euros in cuts to social spending and the civil service, employers are orchestrating a massive destruction of jobs: 300,000 direct or indirect industrial jobs are under threat.

The Battle of Stalingrad was a turning point in the Second World War, but it was with the Battle of Kursk in July 1943 that Germany's fate was definitively sealed. However, the fact that the war was effectively lost did not prevent the Nazi leadership from continuing to fight until the end, and the end took almost two years to arrive.

After the recent failure of coalition talks between Austria’s conservative People’s Party (ÖVP) and demagogic right-wing Freedom Party (FPÖ), the ÖVP again approached the Social Democrats (SPÖ) and the liberal Neos to revive talks of a three-way coalition, which had initially failed in early January after the elections late September. This coalition – which has aptly been formed just in time for Austria’s Carnival celebrations – has now been sworn in, with the ÖVP's Christian Stocker becoming the new Chancellor.

Today, Netflix has released a new series, The Leopard, based on the 1958 book of the same name by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, which follows the last days of a dying Sicilian prince in the time of Italian reunification. We publish below a review of that 1958 classic by Stan Laight. [Note: the following review contains spoilers.]

The Chinese have an old saying: the greatest misfortune that can befall a man is to live in interesting times. The truth of that ancient wisdom has now suddenly dawned on the rulers of the western world. 

Friedrich Merz, leader of the right-wing Christian Democrats (CDU), will be Germany’s next Chancellor. On election night, he declared that a government should be in place by Easter, claiming that his mission is to unite Europe and that everything depends on leadership from Germany. Merz wants to be the ‘European Chancellor’ who will stand up to the USA, Russia and China and, as Der Spiegel has demanded, make the EU into a ‘great power’.

Farage’s Reform UK recently overtook Labour and the Tories in the polls. Some on the left claim that Reform’s rising popularity is down to British workers becoming racist and far-right. But what is really behind the rise of right-wing populism?

A single phone call last week signalled the death of the so-called western alliance and the collapse of the system of world relations that has held sway since the Second World War. That phone call was, of course, between Trump and Putin.

In the 17th century, Swedish military might enabled its dominance over the Baltics, before they became a part of the Russian empire after Russia defeated Sweden at Poltava 1709. Today, Sweden has regained its dominance in the region – not through military power, but economic power.