Arkiv-Global View

Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich has accused pro-European opposition leaders of trying to seize power by force as violence in Independence Square reportedly left 25 people dead and many more injured following clashes between police and protesters.

"Without any mandate from the people, illegally and in breach of the constitution of Ukraine, these politicians - if I may use that term - have resorted to pogroms, arson and murder to try to seize power," the president said.

Moving testimony of how jihadi group the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (Isis) has imposed its own strict interpretation of sharia law has emerged in a series of video interviews smuggled out of the northern Syrian city of Raqqa.

The group – which operated under the auspices of al-Qaida until it recently severed the association – gained full control the city after lethal clashes with other brigades in the Syrian opposition left hundreds of dead.

A feature of the Obama presidency has been his campaign against the American public school system, eating way at the foundations of elementary education. That means the erosion of an institution that has been one of the keystones of the Republic. The project to remake it as a mixed public/private hybrid is inspired by a discredited dogma that charter schools perform better. This article of faith serves an alliance of interests -- ideological and commercial -- for whom the White House has been point man.

Siamo alle ultime 24 ore, quelle in cui - spiega Fabio Fazio - «ci si chiede “perché sono qui?”, “chi me l’ha fatto fare?” e non c’è risposta, se non cercare di recuperare la leggerezza necessaria alla conduzione di una gara di canzoni».

«Ci metterò tutta l’energia, l’entusiasmo e il coraggio che ho», ha detto Matteo Renzi, accettando l’incarico di formare il governo. Affermazione rassicurante, ma prevedibile: a 39 anni, energia ed entusiasmo non mancano; e il coraggio, siamo certi, si trova. Il nuovo presidente del Consiglio dovrà fare di più. Dovrà tirar fuori le sue qualità e vincere le proprie debolezze: perché la sua prima volta è forse la nostra ultima spiaggia.

The Obama doctrine in Syria does not seem to be working. The country has fallen apart. Matters have gone from bad to worse.

Pity poor Scotland. Within days it has been warned that if it has the temerity to vote for independence in September it can forget about a currency union with the pound and forget about becoming a member of the European Union, two ideas Scottish nationalist leaders have presented as entirely feasible.

Here are three facts about the fashion industry. It is worth $1.5tn a year. It is one of the most globalised trades of them all, and has been since at least the British empire. It is also one of the very few businesses allowed to present itself as not being wholly about commerce.

Fifteen years after winning a Turner Prize for his art, the film director Steve McQueen picked up the best film trophy at the EE British Academy Film Awards last night for his drama 12 Years A Slave, on a night where the big-budget British blockbuster Gravity was the other main winner.

Cate Blanchett was named best actress for her role in Woody Allen’s bittersweet comedy Blue Jasmine. She dedicated her win to the US actor Philip Seymour Hoffman, who died earlier this month.

What makes someone into a dissident? Why do some people give up everything — home, family, job — to embark on a career of protest? Or, to put it differently, why, on Feb. 21, 2012, did a group of young Russian women put on short dresses and colored tights, place neon-hued balaclavas over their faces, walk into the Cathedral of Christ the Savior and mount the altar? And why — although they knew that their compatriots would be indifferent and that arrest might follow — did they begin to sing: