Author: Wire Service

No longer just pawns: How the war in Ukraine is shifting the balance of power to Eastern Europe

As 2022 is coming to a close, the war in Ukraine rages unabated. Russian President Vladimir Putin sees what he still calls a “special military operation” as a life-or-death contest with the United States and its allies in NATO. The West, for its part, considers the war a threat to its own security and has thrown its weight behind the defense of Ukraine’s sovereignty. But there is an inherent problem with framing the war as a clash between the U.S. and Russia. It underplays the spirit, resilience and daily sacrifices of Ukrainians in resisting their mighty neighbor bent on...

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Years of investigating Holocaust atrocities are helping unearth Russian war crimes in Ukraine

“Everywhere, when we liberate our land, we see one thing … Russia leaves behind torture chambers and mass burials of murdered people. This was the case in Bucha and other cities in the north of the country after the occupation. This was the case in the Kharkiv region. The same we observe now in the Kherson region.” – Volodymyr Zelenskyy, President of Ukraine On the eve of Russia’s February 24 invasion of Ukraine two organizations, one French and the other Ukrainian, began one of their regular meetings in Paris to discuss plans for a Holocaust memorial complex at Babyn...

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Undermining Equality: Why right-wing attacks on “wokeness” are really targeted against social justice

In late August, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis made headlines with a dubious declaration. “Florida is the state where ‘woke’ goes to die,” he said at a Republican Party event in his US state, celebrating a slate of conservative victories in school board elections. Given the governor’s policies over the last few years – including hostility to anti-COVID measures such as vaccines and masking – DeSantis’s Florida is indeed a prime destination for anyone with a death wish. But this declaration represents more than just a snappy sound bite. Rather, it is a willful distortion of the reality of “woke”...

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200th Day of War: Putin’s military forces suffer worst strategic defeat since the failed attack on Kyiv

Moscow has abandoned its main bastion in northeastern Ukraine, in a sudden collapse of one of the war’s principal front lines after Ukrainian forces made a rapid advance. The swift fall of Izyum in Kharkiv province on Saturday was Moscow’s worst defeat since its troops were forced back from the capital Kyiv in March. This could prove a pivotal moment in the six-month-old war, with thousands of Russian soldiers abandoning ammunition stockpiles and equipment as they fled. Russian forces used Izyum as the logistics base for one of their main campaigns – a months-long assault from the north on...

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Market Uncertainty: Economists outline what to watch for as America drifts into next housing crisis

As real estate in the United States remains strong despite rising interest rates, market analysts predict that the next housing crisis will center around Americans locked out of homeownership. “That’s our big problem going forward,” Mark Zandi, said chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, a research firm based in New York City. “It’s not going to be a crash in house prices; it’s going to be getting people into homeownership so they can build wealth. I think younger people are going to have a great deal of difficulty.” The coronavirus pandemic sparked a home-buying frenzy as millions of Americans across...

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Maks Levin: Report finds that celebrated Ukrainian photojournalist was executed by Russian troops

A Ukrainian photojournalist and a soldier accompanying him who were killed in the first weeks of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine appear to have been “coldly executed” by Russian troops, Reporters Without Borders has concluded following an investigation into the killings. The bodies of Maks Levin and serviceman Oleksiy Chernyshov were found on April 1 in a forest near Huta-Mezhyhirska, a village 30km (19 miles) north of the capital, Kyiv. The press freedom group speculated that Levin may have been searching Russian-occupied woodlands for his missing image-taking drone. Reporters Without Borders said the journalist was wearing a blue armband similar...

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