Thirty years after 1968, Czechoslovak dissident and Charter 77 signatory Petr Uhl challenges both official narratives of the Prague Spring now circulating in the Czech Republic: dismissal of the whole period as factional manoeuvring within the Communist Party, and a nostalgic account crediting the Party leadership with genuinely leading the country towards democracy. Uhl argues instead that a five-year liberalisation begun in 1963 was overtaken by self-organising students, trade unionists (…)

- USSR, Soviet Bloc, Russian Empire (history) / 1968, 1989, 1956, URSS, 1963, Czechoslovakia, KSČ/CCP (Czechoslovakia), 1969, BARTOSEK Karel , Prague Spring (1968)

Khalil Al-Hayya is a known pragmatist. But the group's militant wing aided his election — and it won't accept Israel's deliberately unworkable demands. “Don't be surprised if you see Al-Hayya entering an alliance with Dahlan and reestablishing Hamas' relations with the Emirates,” a knowledgeable source in Gaza told me two weeks ago — referring to the newly elected leader of Hamas, Khalil Al-Hayya, and the exiled former Fatah leader, Mohammed Dahlan. Khalil Al-Hayya at the funeral of (…)

- Palestine & Israel / Hamas (Palestine), Fatah (Palestine), DAHLAN Mohammed, United Arab Emirates (UAE), Egypt (Eng), SINWAR Yahya / SINOUAR Yahya, Gaza, MESHAAL Khaled, Al-HAYYA Khalil, 7-8 October 2023 (Israel and Palestine), HANIYEH Ismail, Peace process , NETANYAHU / NETANYAHOU Benyamin, Board of Peace (Gaza), NCAG (Gaza)

When we were asked to investigate Russia's indoctrination and militarisation of children living in the Ukrainian territories occupied by Moscow since 2014, we had a general idea of the Kremlin's occupation policies. Two of us grew up in what was then Soviet-occupied Latvia and East Germany. We were already familiar with the Soviet approach to “upbringing”. But when we went to Ukraine, what we found still shocked us. There was plenty of evidence of the systematic and coercive nature of the (…)

- Russia / Ukraine (eng), OSCE (Europe), Children, teenagers, Violence (child, teenage), Conscription, Indoctrination, Movement of the First (Russia), Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine, Language / Terms (eng), Militarism / Militarisation / Militarization / Demilitarization, Program (schools)