Dr Oliver Hartwich: Trump’s Iran war is paying for Putin’s

Russian power has always sat on a contradiction. The country can put satellites into orbit and tanks across borders, but it cannot build a normal economy.

Helmut Schmidt caught the contradiction in the 1970s when he called the Soviet Union “Obervolta mit Raketen,” Upper Volta with rockets. The line was brutal then, and it has aged well (even though Upper Volta is now called Burkina Faso).

Damien Grant: Hug your kids today. They may be drafted tomorrow

I don’t often cite Karl Marx but the gentleman wasn’t without insight. In a letter to his colleague Frederick Engles in 1863 he wrote about decades that passed without incident “… though these may again [be] succeeded by days into which 20 years are compressed.”

This is the genesis of the saying that nothing happens for decades and then decades happen in a week. This past week seems one of those.

Dr Oliver Hartwich: Conflict resolution for dummies

Our esteemed Pontiff, Pope Francis, has once again had a brilliant epiphany. His solution to the Ukraine conflict is so obvious that one wonders why nobody thought of it earlier: Ukrainians just need to raise the white flag, and there will be peace on Earth.

Sounds simple? It is!