Derzhavnost and ‘Respect’
The Russian word ‘derzhavnost’ is usually translated as ‘great power status’, but the real meaning is closer to the gangland concept of ‘respect’. The word was beyond the reach of ...
From embargoes to strategic partnerships
The recent lifting by the US and Norway of the long-standing arms embargoes on Cyprus is not about weapons. It is about strategy. It is about recognition that Cyprus has ...
Character matters for the survival of democracy
The above headline was the subtitle of my column of December 1, 2024. In it, I argued that Donald Trump was unfit for the role of President of the United States. Events ...
BBC lawsuit could sink US special relationship
Defamation is a niche branch of the law for the rich and powerful but the $5 billion claim by President Trump against the BBC for defaming him is off the scale. ...
Geoengineering for grown-ups
A few days ago the European Union’s Earth Observation programme, ‘Copernicus’, made a special announcement at the end of its monthly report on the state of the climate. It ...
‘I don’t care!’
Two of my favourite actors Tommy Lee Jones and Harrison Ford starred in The Fugitive. Ford’s character falsely accused of murdering his wife; Jones the lawman sent to catch ...
Venezuela: Performative murder
“If you’re on a boat full of cocaine or fentanyl or whatever, headed to the United States, you’re an immediate threat to the United States,” said US Secretary ...
Musk’s Starship: if it sounds too good to be true…
Elon Musk promised to build a spaceship that would put people and cargo into Earth orbit at one-hundredth of the current cost per kilo and even enable human beings to ...
Urgent need to overhaul tax reform
Members of the House of Representatives should not rush to approve the questionable ‘tax reform’ proposed by the government. This is because its contents are largely not compatible with achieving ...
What a trial without jury in England means
The UK justice minister, David Lammy, told parliament last Tuesday that the government is minded to remove the right to jury trial for all offences for which the sentence was ...
Poland in the spotlight over same-sex unions
The country does not recognise same-sex marriages or civil unions
Poland is a devoutly Catholic country and its laws on same sex marriage are less tolerant of homosexuality than other ...
Iran: drought, incompetence, and maybe revolution
Twenty years of strict sanctions on Iran by both the United States and the United Nations did not bring down the regime of the ayatollahs. Half a dozen major waves ...
Cyprus: questions on deficient budgets
It has been business as usual with the preparation of the Cyprus government budgets for 2026 to 2028 with little attention being paid to addressing current and future policy challenges, including narrowing ...
UK’s Labour gets tough on refugees
The UK government’s new interior minister Shabana Mahmood was asked rhetorically whether she would be applying to join the anti-immigration populist party Reform UK as a backhanded compliment after ...
COP30 heads into a final showdown
A fire late on Thursday near the East Africa pavilion at COP30 in Belem, Brazil forced mass evacuations from the climate summit, just as negotiations were reaching their end. A ‘...
Greece at the centre of American plans for the region
The US has developed a comprehensive energy policy that includes southeast Europe and the Mediterranean. This was the subject at the two-day high level meeting of the Partnership for Transatlantic ...
Italy and France: a role reversal in the eurozone?
Following the global financial crisis of 2008, several European countries – Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece and Spain – faced high public debt, weak economic growth and fragile banking sectors.
These vulnerabilities led to ...
How the BBC blunder must have happened
I have spent thousands of hours sitting alongside video editors working on productions quite similar to the Panorama documentary that has landed the British Broadcasting Corporation with the threat of ...
The BBC and an ironic twist to its impartial legacy
President Donald Trump told reporters aboard Airforce One on Friday that he will sue the BBC for between $1 and $5 billion for cheating and putting words in his mouth in a ...
What an odd species we are
I’ve known a man for years, in great shape, great life, his own home, children settled, housed, grandchildren highly educated, he sailed through life. Yet he rattles on about ...
Cyprus’ focus should be on demilitarisation
Are Cypriots sleepwalking into another tragedy, one that could match or even exceed those of 1963–64 and 1974, which resulted in so many deaths, displacements and destitution?
In the south of the ...
Cyprus: wasteful and irresponsible use of financial resources
The Cyprus government is generating large surpluses and accumulating deposits at banks reaching €6.8 billion at the end of September 2025.
And Cyprus banks held cash and cash balances totaling €19.6 billion or ...
EU presidency to benefit all Cypriots
Cyprus’ stint at the helm of the rotating presidency a lesson in political equality
“The Cypriots know they cannot become a world power; but they have succeeded in becoming a ...
Arab nadir and clueless hegemons
“This is the way the world ends, not with a bang but a whimper,” wrote TS Eliot in 1925, probably responding to the profoundly unsatisfactory aftermath of the First World War (...