The preliminary exit polls published just minutes after the first round of presidential elections surely gave some people in Poland a proper scare. As for me: being a pessimist again paid off. My prediction turned out to be correct again. The most stressed must be those who believed that those elections were to be just […]
Like everyone else, I have been watching and waiting to see what Donald Trump will do next. I have been shocked at his apparently soft approach to Russia and hostility towards Ukraine. I have been amazed at his absurd demands to annex Greenland and make Canada the fifty-first state. I have been appalled and staggered […]
Dear Editor, Does anyone else wonder where our diplomats in the US have been over the past six months? All this madness keeps being presented as if it came out literally yesterday. Yet another way of isolating the UK, making Brexit even worse. It’s sobering to think that almost US $5tn [now $9.3tn] has been […]
“Wherever it is found, hunger highlights the fault lines of inequality that run through that society.” In our society, that could indicate the effects of political austerity measures, including the latest benefit cuts. On a global level, it could point to the people in the world’s poorest nations whose crops are being destroyed by the […]
The Anglo-German Family History Society (AGFHS) is a well-established group for all those who are interested in researching their roots among people from the German speaking parts of Europe, who have emigrated over centuries and settled in Great Britain or Ireland. We have developed considerable expertise and resources, and new members are always welcome. Here […]
Set against so much worrying and negative news, the situation in Spain is very encouraging! We’ve just come back from two weeks there, and as so often in recent years we’ve observed a country that’s going places – in a very positive direction! A spate of articles recently, such as in the Independent, The Week […]
Sometimes I hate being right. A year ago, my article in West Country Voices described some of my concerns about the possible election of Donald Trump as US president. With the new President in office, with Elon Musk in power and with the Handmaid’s Tale as the working agenda, I confess that my worst fears […]
I am an American. I wake up each morning to a country I barely recognize, gripped by a fear that no longer fades with the dawn. The streets aren’t filled with tanks, yet we are under siege. The attack is quieter, but just as ruthless. It marches with every presidential executive order that tears at […]
It has been more than three years since we first wrote about the dramatic humanitarian crisis at the Polish border with Belarus. After a year of the new government, you might be wondering what has changed there. To quote our new minister of justice: “We have the paradoxical situation that all the critics are being […]
Tomorrow, Americans may elect a fascist president. Tom Scott explores the disastrous impacts this would have on the world beyond the US. Last month the astute American commentator and expert on authoritarian kleptocracies Sarah Kendzior posted a hauntingly brilliant essay to her Substack. It included this memorable passage, which may well prove – like much […]
It starts with a flicker, almost imperceptible—a creeping shadow stretching across the soul of a nation. Books burned quietly at first, pages curling to ash in bonfires of so-called “unpatriotic” ideas, just as they did nearly a century ago, when German citizens watched words by Hemingway, Einstein, Freud—voices of the free mind—disintegrate into smoke. And […]
Our first parallel text…which only really works on a PC! Translation of Beatriz Cebreros Baeza’s text by Mike Zollo. Seems to us that we would do well to copy this initiative to build the bonds of friendship across the nations. Let us know if you live somewhere this already happens! In the 14 years we […]
When you wake up on the morning of 5 November, you can reasonably expect fireworks during the evening. This year, they may arrive somewhat earlier, if it turns out that the United States has just elected Donald Trump for a second spell as president. Add to the mix that the UK may also be in […]
Dear Editor, I suspect I am not alone in being very distressed by the dreadful situation in Gaza, in which the Israeli government seems to be using the outrageous terror attack by Hamas as an excuse to eradicate (by accident or design) the civilian population. I had hoped that the British government would, by now, […]
Media all over the world are writing about the stand-off in the headquarters of TVP, Polish public broadcaster. As some voices try to frame it as an assault on democracy and freedom of speech, I thought I might need to write a small explainer. 1. Background. TVP and Polish Radio are an equivalent of the […]
“Did you see them? Aurora Borealis? The Northern Lights?” I hesitate: “Yes, and no.” “How does that work?” I will explain, but first things first. We don’t ‘do’ cruises, but we made an exception for this holiday, on the basis that to see the Norwegian fjords up close, you probably need to be on a […]
The issue of a blockade of the border crossings into Ukraine carried out by Polish haulage companies made mainstream news. The disagreement between Poland and Ukraine has been going on for nearly a year now, but Ukraine is winning the PR war, so the reports in both mainstream and social media are very unfavourable for […]
Hamas are winning in this latest appalling round of conflict in Israel-Palestine, whilst innocent Palestinians are losing their lives. Yes, their monstrous attacks on innocent civilians in southern Israel have been condemned by almost every country in the world, but they have surely reinforced their standing amongst extremists and bolstered their recruiting. What does a Hamas commander care […]
Dear Editor, All war is terrible. For me, it’s all the worse when, in the face of human suffering, we stand by silently. As Bob Dylan said long ago, “Pretend that we do not see”. But then in this case, we know only too well that Gaza is under siege, with the debris and casualties […]
Proportional representation delivers the right kind of Donald! “Poland won! Democracy won! We removed them from power! […] This is the end of bad times.” Donald Tusk, 15 Oct 2023 When we put out Tomasz Oryński’s piece setting out the significance of Sunday’s vote outcome for his country, we shared his anxiety about a further […]
This Sunday, when driving past Polish consulate or cultural centres, you might see queues of people. It’s because Poles are going to the polls in the most important elections since 1989. Depending on the results on Sunday, Poland will either sail back to the bright side – the world of European, democratic values and rule […]
The social media platform has become a fully weaponised promotional tool for far-right content, toxic conspiracy theories and cryptocurrency scams. And Putin’s regime is loving it, writes Tom Scott. Like millions of other Twitter users, I logged on to my account a couple of days ago to find that the familiar blue bird logo on […]
“It’s the most controversial World Cup in history and a ball hasn’t even been kicked.” Ever since FIFA chose Qatar back in 2010, the smallest nation to have hosted football’s greatest competition has faced some big questions. From accusations of corruption in the bidding process to the treatment of migrant workers who built the stadiums, […]
As US midterm election results are still coming in overnight, a myriad of thoughts/feelings are cascading in my brain right now…Did the democracy-defending Democratic party pull a rabbit out of hat throughout the US? I was imagining a decisive landslide, unlike the US mainstream and Murdoch-funded media. So many purple (mixed red Republican and blue […]
This is controversial, I know. I may have to take cover for posting this. However, in my view, some USA ‘rights’ are topsy-turvy. There is the right to bear arms, under the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution. Citizens have the right carry a gun that only has one mechanical function: to kill or maim. Consequently, […]
O beautiful for RemingtonFor Smith & Wesson, ColtFor rapid-fire assault weaponFor barrel, stock and bolt America! America!God gave thy guns to theeTo spill the blood that spreads its floodFrom sea to shining sea! O beautiful for massacreSo swiftly carried outBy terrorist or teenagerBy godless or devout America! America!God gave thy guns to theeTo spill the […]
I wrote to President Obama, in 2012, when the Sandy Hook elementary school massacre in Newtown CT was fresh in the news. My outrage and suggestions were all about gun control laws then. Second Amendment stuff. How can we allow these obstructionist lawmakers to continue? Stuff. I didn’t write again though. Not when shootings kept […]
Tomasz is our ‘resident’ Polish writer. We preserve his unique voice in this challenging, thought-provoking piece on the reality of Putin’s Russia and the implacability of evil. In the first days of this war I was really hoping it’s true, that this is just a madness of one man, that those poor boys were lied […]
The partner of one of our readers has gone to Poland to help with the effort to rescue refugees from Ukraine. He’s a field/trauma medic with extensive experience having served in Iraq and Afghanistan. He had intended to go straight into Ukraine to join extraction efforts, but the attack on the Ukraine military base has […]
As a Russian-speaking person of colour who was born and raised in Ukraine, I believe that I am in a position to speak on the issue of nationalism and neo-Nazism in Ukraine. To talk about Ukrainian nationalism, we first have to establish the context of the relationship between Ukraine and Russia. These are not just […]