The news that Lorna Slater and Patrick Harvie, Green Party co-leaders and Biodiversity and Active Travel Ministers respectively, are planning to join protests during the COP 26 appear simultaneously in and out of character, apt for one of the most politically radical parties, but out of character for government ministers. It perhaps reflects the strange […]
Germans. Reliable and organised. Meticulous and systematic. These are the people of superior engineering, punctual trains, Miele washing machines. But not, it seems, efficient elections. For the past 16 years, Angela Merkel has dominated politics, both within Germany and on the world stage. However, as she steps down as Chancellor, the German political landscape is […]
In the years just after World War One, a young university student in what was then Lwow, Poland (Lviv/Ukraine) read about the deportation of Armenians by the Ottoman Empire, an atrocity which had cost up to one and a half million lives. In 1921, a number of alleged perpetrators of the crimes were released from […]
There are lots of shows on at the Fringe dealing with the legacy of Nazi Germany over seventy years later, from Dr Korczak’s Example to Mengele. What makes Eleanor’s Story: An American Girl in Hitler’s Germany unique is that it is not only based on the fascinating true story of Eleanor Ramrath Garner, but it […]
Setting foot in Silk in the middle of the afternoon is an incredibly daunting experience at the best of times. However, doing so as eerie music plays accompanied by the noise of wind and rain, while a passage from the Bible –‘for he is a liar and the father of lies’ (John 8:44) – is […]
There is a saying that there are always two sides to every story. When it comes to politics, there are usually not only two opinions on a matter, but a whole array of them. Politicians such as Trump can divide a whole nation, his ‘alternative facts’ causing both hatred and apparently false hope for a […]
The German Interior Ministry’s recent decision to deport newly arrived migrants back to Greece by March puts further question marks over Europe’s response to the ongoing refugee crisis. Two years ago, ‘Human Rights Watch’ accused Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia of playing ‘human Ping-Pong’ with thousands of stranded Rohingya Muslims. Now European nations appear to be […]
After the German football team beat San Marino 8-0, striker Thomas Muller commented that he “didn’t see the point” of playing San Marino, going on to say that less successful teams (to put it nicely) “can only defend with tough tackling” and that this posed an unnecessary risk for more successful teams. After this drew […]