Articles in English

Some time in April this year India will become the world’s most populous country according to the United Nations population forecasts. By some calculations, such as those of the World Population Review and Macrotrends, that transition has…

Renewed attention to Africa’s demographics has emerged over the past few years. Its 1.4 billion people make it the second most populated continent on the planet; its median age is the youngest in the world at 18.8 years; and, most notably,…

Ethnic jokes were very popular during Soviet times. Russians used to laugh at “minor” nations of the Empire, expressing a sense of superiority. In the book Taking penguins to the movies (1998), Emil Draitser gives an account of Russian…

Responding to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, European states have broken a series of taboos in ways unthinkable until February 23, 2022, the day before the aggression. Many of these taboos were about defense: countries and European publics…

Two features of President Joe Biden’s latest State of the Union Address (February 7) should be worrisome to foreign audiences. One was the surprising lack of attention paid to international affairs generally – an aspect that drew adverse…