Articles

Much as the media like to call Barack Obama a “lame duck President”, he’s begun to look pretty agile of late. So says George Blecher. A portrait of Obama, the most consistent US president in decades, dispatched from inside the land of the free.

In December 2014, the American film director Oliver Stone interviewed the former president of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych; and then argued that events on the Maidan last winter were the product of CIA involvement. Historian Stephen Velychenko responds.

On Wednesday 7 January, several of our colleagues were killed in an abominable attack on the editorial offices of the magazine “Charlie Hebdo” in Paris. Meanwhile, Eurozine partners have responded in various ways.

Had journalists and artists and political activists taken a more robust view on free speech over the past 20 years then we may never have come to this, writes Kenan Malik. After all, what nurtures the reactionaries, both within Muslim communities and outside it? It’s this: the unwillingness of many so-called liberals to stand up for basic liberal principles, and their readiness to betray the progressives within minority communities.

In a climate where the voices of genuine journalists risk being drowned out amid a plethora of agents of propaganda, what is the best media strategy for small states? Wojciech Przybylski leads a discussion on the robustness of media models in conditions of information warfare. He is joined by Janis Karklins, director of the NATO Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence (NATO StratCom COE) in Riga, and Raul Rebane, an Estonian journalist and communications consultant.

On 15 June 1215, King John cut a deal with the barons at Runnymede, near Windsor. 800 years later, the thirteenth century document known as the Magna Carta is of global significance where the nurturing of democratic ideals is concerned. John Crace explains why.

From the Eurozine archive | In the context of renewed disquiet with Facebook and the data security of its users, we republish this prescient analysis by media scientist Ramón Reichert of how the big data generated by social networks is creating a meta-knowledge based upon an asymmetry of informational power.

The convergence of online policing and security with customer profiling and traffic filtering means that rights of privacy need to be seen in connection with freedom of communication and information. The principle of net neutrality serves this composite claim, explains the director of European Digital Rights Joe McNamee.

The US is exerting heavy pressure on the EU in its negotiations on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) to waive legislation placing restrictions on data-sharing with third countries. The Trade in Services Agreement (TiSA), which would succeed the GATS agreement, goes even further in hollowing out EU privacy law. To abandon localized data protection arrangements in the EU would be to surrender fundamental rights to economic interest. Political scientist Ralf Bendrath explains.

The worldwide spying operation is about more than security and counter-terrorism; rather, it is a part of a broader strategy aimed at controlling global information, writes political scientist Elmar Altvater. Opposition needs to grasp the geological significance of the planetary data theft.

“The Old Turkey is behind us, and its doors are now closed”, said Recep Tayyip Erdogan this summer, standing before a banner that read, “On the Road to the New Turkey”. A month later he was president. But what now? Kaya Genç wonders if in fact two countries continue to live alongside one another.

Go out to your local bookshop, advises Enda O’Doherty, and get in close with those Books You Haven’t Read, the Books To Read Next Summer and The Books To Fill Out Those Small Gaps That Are Still There On Your Shelves. Don’t come away empty-handed. They may not be there forever.