By Rohan Chatterjee A year on from the death of Venezuela’s controversial socialist leader Hugo Chavez the country still find itself in the grip of political uncertainty (well, more so than usual). In recent months opposition groups have regularly taken to the streets in some cities to protest high inflation, insecurity and scarcity of basic goods, leaving 40 dead and many more injured. One unifying belief for many in this mobilisation is that of struggle against an authoritarian regime. But, is...

By Dani Schaefer Williams Cast your minds back to 2012, to the British event of the current decade. When all of the UK was bathed in glory and 15 year-old girls were frantically replacing posters of boy-bands with their favourite Olympic heroes. These champions were revered the world over for their skill, commitment and bravery, and none less than the Bladerunner himself, Oscar Pistorius. The combination of good looks and humility seemed too good to be true. Fast forward to...

By Simon Bartram The term BRIC was first imprinted on the investor's psychological map of the world in 2001 through an economic thesis by Jim O'Neill. It refers to the largest emerging economies (Brazil, Russia, India and China) which were responsible for most of the global economic growth seen from the early 2000s until the financial crisis. More than a decade later, there have been immense developments in the pace of change in each of these economies, and so it's...

By Josh Black  Does it matter whether the Co-Op saves its troubled bank? In 2011, Britain’s Co-Operative Group unveiled a new marketing campaign inviting consumers to “Join the Revolution” – a movement billed as “the most radical sustainability programme in UK corporate history” designed to “spearhead its membership drive and help build a more sustainable economy.” Coming as it did in the wake of a financial crisis, just months before the country’s first ‘double-dip’ recession since the 1970s, there was a...

By Dr Katy Shaw The UK miners’ strike of 1984-5 was a defining moment in the history of the United Kingdom, one that not only illuminates the country’s near-history, but functions as a prism through which to understand the social, political and economic challenges of the twenty-first century. Despite promises of reduction rather than extinction, the 1984-5 miners’ strike was the beginning of the end for British coal. As remaining mines continued to close, national demand for fuel was increasingly met...

By Ivana Kaz A Response: Propaganda and the Very Conventional Political War A recent article entitled “Propaganda and Russia’s Unconventional Political War” showed what I feel to be a very one-sided take on the issue of war and new media. I’ve taken it upon myself to try to counter this and at the very least show that the West uses similar, if not the same, tactics. It’s important to note that although it may seem like I lean anti-West or pro-Russia, that is...

By Valentina Magri In the 1950s a group of post-World War II writers came together to establish a youth movement known as The Beat Generation. They rejected standards and materialism and appreciated style, innovation, drugs and Eastern religion. In today’s world, the beat generation has been replaced by The Beaten Generation. According to ILO figures cited by IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde at Stanford University last February: There are over 200 million people looking for work across the globe, 75 ...

By Luca Foschi This time the news barely reached the front page. Last week a gas attack in Kfar Zeita, a small town near the Syrian city of Hama, killed two people and injured scores. Footage on YouTube shows a medical team trying to revive several young children. Damascus and the splintered rebel front blame each other for the poison assault, but there are bigger questions at hand. Wasn’t the Assad government supposed to hand out all its chemical warfare...

By Deiniol Jones In a recent article in the New Statesman, Brendan Simms argued that we have entered a new era in relations between the Russia and the West. The annexation of Crimea and the instability in the south-east of Ukraine are overturning the post-Cold War international order. Propaganda and the innovative use of social media is an integral feature of Russia’s ‘unconventional, political warfare’, which seeks the creation of a ‘New-Russia’, a gathering together of the Russian ethnic population...