The reunification of Germany in 1990 after the fall of the Berlin wall is celebrated every year on 3 October. The promise of the time by Chancellor Helmut Kohl was to transform East Germany, a drab Soviet Union client state, home to 16 million people, into a ‘blooming landscape.’ With a further declaration to allay … Read more
Revelations about Boris Johnson’s childhood and messy romantic life in Tom Bower’s biography “Boris Johnson: The Gambler” have filled in a graphic background to what was already known or suspected. And it helps flesh out and give a context to his birth chart. His father Stanley – a Sun Mars in Leo square Uranus … Read more
China is ramping up the pressure on Taiwan, conducting military exercises off the coast and summarily removing an agreed median line in the Taiwan Straits which helped prevent military accidents. Opinion is divided as to whether Beijing is trying to provoke a reaction or to shake Taiwan’s morale and indicate displeasure about closer contacts between … Read more
Amy Coney Barrett has been nominated and will almost certainly be confirmed as the Supreme Court replacement for Ruth Ginsberg. Barrett is reckoned extremely intelligent and capable though tainted by her association with a charismatic Christian, essentially Roman Catholic though also ecumenical, group known as People of Praise. It excludes women from its higher leadership … Read more
Juliette Greco, the singer who became the muse of bohemian postwar Paris, the musical embodiment of the existentialist movement, has died aged 93. She was the darling of philosophers, poets, intellectuals and critics – Albert Camus, Simone de Beauvoir and others. Jean Paul Sartre, who composed lyrics for her, said “Gréco has a million poems … Read more
A rollicking political diary described as “a merciless memoir“ has been slicing through the pervading gloom as a former minister’s wife took payback for being ignored by the Cameron clique. Sasha Swire, heretofore unknown to all but few, is now a household word for indiscretion and betrayal. One reviewer said her “diaries are treacherous, socially … Read more
Anger has erupted in Louisville, Kentucky which is under a state of emergency after a grand jury decision not to charge any police officers over the killing of Breonna Taylor. A black hospital worker, she was shot multiple times as three officers raided her home on 13 March without knocking and her boyfriend thinking they … Read more
A stinker of a week for Boris Johnson saw him accused by the normally supportive right-wing Spectator magazine as presiding over “disorder, debacle, rebellion, U-turn and confusion”. “He’s no longer fit to be prime minister.” Matthew Parris added for good measure: “his zing has well and truly zung. The fun has gone and with it … Read more
Ruth Bader Ginsberg, a liberal voice on the Supreme Court, has died which has thrown a fireball into the run up to the US Presidential election. The process of selecting her replacement is likely to raise rancour considerably with the Republicans aiming to railroad the Senate vote through quickly in contrast to 2016 when they … Read more
The Israel Bahrain and UAE deal has been hailed as a “new dawn of peace” in the Middle East which, according to Trump, will change the course of history. The portentously named Abraham Accords has met a mixed reception though with less raucous laughter than Jared Kushner’s first effort. Trump, Netanyahu, Kushner and Tony Blair … Read more