From the archive: The end of Atlanticism: has Trump killed the ideology that won the cold war? – podcast

We are raiding the Guardian Long Read archives to bring you some classic pieces from years past, with new introductions from the authors.

This week, from 2018: The foreign policy establishment has been lamenting its death for half a century. But Atlanticism has long been a convenient myth

By Madeleine Schwartz. Read by Kelly Burke

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Continue ReadingFrom the archive: The end of Atlanticism: has Trump killed the ideology that won the cold war? – podcast

Booze and bets in Benidorm: welcome to the Costa del Cheltenham

Standing room only in pubs and bars long before the action begins, thousands of British tourists now enjoy the festival in the Spanish hotspot

A bell rings for half past happy hour on Cheltenham festival eve in a city that has discarded time.

Not entirely, of course. Conventional clocks are required to determine the midday cut off between a cheap full English breakfast – available in a range of sizes, from large through to extra, extra large – and an ever so slightly pricier one. So, too, to distinguish between upcoming performances from Michael Jackson, Ed Sheeran, Coldplay and Queen, who, extraordinarily, have descended on the same Spanish bar, on the same night. Just as they will again tomorrow; at least, tribute acts of varying quality.

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Continue ReadingBooze and bets in Benidorm: welcome to the Costa del Cheltenham

‘I feel utter anger’: From Canada to Europe, a movement to boycott US goods is spreading

Tesla sales are falling and apps and online groups are springing up to help consumers choose non-US items

The renowned German classical violinist Christian Tetzlaff was blunt in explaining why he and his quartet have cancelled a summer tour of the US.

“There seems to be a quietness or denial about what’s going on,” Tetzlaff said, describing his horror at the authoritarian polices of Donald Trump and the response of US elites to the country’s growing democratic crisis.

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Continue Reading‘I feel utter anger’: From Canada to Europe, a movement to boycott US goods is spreading

‘We swept into Moscow in Gorbachev’s limousine’: Neil Tennant’s love affair with Russia – before the ‘cancer of Putin’

They played Red Square, launched MTV Russia and got driven home from a gay club by the police. But the freedoms witnessed by Pet Shop Boys have been crushed. Singer Neil Tennant relives those heady days – and calls for a revolution

The journalist Andrey Sapozhnikov of Novaya Gazeta Europe, the independent Russian newspaper that now operates from Latvia in order to avoid censorship by Putin’s regime, recently asked Neil Tennant of the Pet Shop Boys: “You have been actively commenting on Russian politics since 2013 and the Pussy Riot case, and you are arguably one of the most engaged western artists in relation to the Russian context today. Why do you care so deeply about what is happening specifically in Russia?” Here is his reply, which the Guardian is publishing in English.

I have been interested in Russia since reading a book when I was a young boy about the 1917 revolutions. It fascinated me that the Russian empire was replaced by another empire, the Soviet Union, which unleashed a lot of energy but rapidly became a brutal dictatorship under Stalin, a 20th-century Ivan the Terrible. Since then I have read a lot about Soviet culture, particularly the work and struggles of Shostakovich and Prokofiev and other artists, writers, musicians. This interest fed into the lyrics I wrote. For instance My October Symphony, or indeed our first hit single, West End Girls: “In every city, in every nation / From Lake Geneva to the Finland Station.”

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Continue Reading‘We swept into Moscow in Gorbachev’s limousine’: Neil Tennant’s love affair with Russia – before the ‘cancer of Putin’

Rodrigo Duterte in ICC custody after arrival in the Netherlands

Former Philippine president expected in court within days as daughter accuses Manila government of ‘kidnapping’

The former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte has landed in the Netherlands and been taken into the custody of the international criminal court (ICC) on allegations of overseeing death squads in his bloody “war on drugs”.

Duterte was arrested in Manila on Tuesday and placed on a private jet to Rotterdam by police. The plane landed on Wednesday afternoon and taxied into a hangar. An ambulance dropped medics nearby before they wheeled a gurney inside the aircraft.

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Continue ReadingRodrigo Duterte in ICC custody after arrival in the Netherlands