About a month ago I asked if Sweden would ever get a government. On Friday, we finally got one – just 131 days after the election that took place in September. In the end, Stefan Löfven, the leader of the Social Democrats, remains the prime minister and will govern together with the Greens. However, an […]
There are plenty of governments in crisis in the world today. The British government was found in contempt of Parliament earlier this week (and is generally in Brexit-related chaos), Italy’s populists are in a deep budget crisis and France has been in the grip of violent protests over fuel prices. Then again, at least those […]
Last week, Georgia held its second round of presidential elections and elected its first female president, the French-born ex-diplomat Salome Zurabishvili. Zurabishvili was born in Paris after her parents fled Georgia in 1921 following its annexation by Soviet forces. She took up a career in the French foreign service and was posted to the Georgian capital, […]
Five years ago yesterday, on 21 November 2013, mass protests broke out in Kiev — sparked by the Ukrainian government’s decision to withdraw from the Association Agreement with the European Union. Today, Ukraine is preparing for presidential elections in March and despite the reforms that have been carried out, many are disappointed with the direction […]
Eurasia is emerging as a distinct entity with great economic and strategic significance. Stretching from the Atlantic Ocean in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east, the vast region covers 35 per cent of the earth’s surface and is home to five billion people, living in over 90 different countries and producing 65 […]
From education and immigration to taxation and even road safety, there seems to be no end to the examples we Swedes offer the rest of the world. But what is it that is so uniquely fascinating about my homeland – and how relevant is the way Sweden is run to the rest of the world? […]
The internet was supposed to fragment audiences and make media monopolies impossible. Instead, behemoths like Google and Facebook now dominate the time we spend online — and grab all the profits from the attention economy. A timely new book explains the stunning rise of the digital giants and the online struggles of nearly everyone else. […]
The number of criminal cyberattacks keep rising and we are still fairly in the dark when it comes to how best to tackle them. AI is often seen as the holy grail that will save us from hackers and ransomware. But will it actually be able to improve cyber security? Last month, a North Korean […]
We gluttonous Westerners are being told to dramatically cut our meat consumption to reduce our carbon footprint, but it could well be that a pioneering new technology removes the need for any enforced vegetarianism. If we can resist the combined force of heavy-handed regulation and the farm lobby, this new innovation could well help save […]
