Raphael Stevens

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    New Zealand's new leader Hipkins cuts many contentious plans

    For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails New Zealand’s new Prime Minister Chris Hipkins on Wednesday said he was axing or delaying many of his government’s more contentious policy plans as he looked to refocus […] More

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    EU plans windfall tax on energy firms to curb soaring prices

    For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails The European Commission is to propose a windfall tax on energy firms across the EU to help shield citizens from surging energy prices. “In these times it is […] More

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    Gorbachev and Raisa: A love story

    The moment the West’s image of the Soviet Union began to change can be pinpointed with some exactitude: it was December 1984, when Mikhail Gorbachev, then second-in-command at the Kremlin, arrived in London for talks with Margaret Thatcher, which concluded with the British prime minister declaring: “I like Mr Gorbachev. We can do business together.”It was a triumphant visit, but the success was not Mr Gorbachev’s alone. At his side throughout was his wife Raisa: elegant, with warm eyes and a chic and ever-changing outfit and a coiffed helmet of auburn hair, she was like no top Communist the west had ever seen. The contrast with the last Soviet wife to venture abroad, the frumpish and rustic Nina Khrushchev, could not have been starker. The British tabloids had a ball: “The new Gucci comrades”, they called them; their joint appearance with the Thatchers was a case of “Chequers chic”; one excitable hack went so far as to dub Raisa “the Bo Derek of the Steppes”. “What a contrast to the previous glimpses we have had of other senior Russian wives in the past,” wrote a columnist in the Daily Mirror, “who looked as though they should be building dams in Siberia.”It was the international coming-out of a couple who were every bit as special as they appeared. Women’s emancipation had been a fundamental plank of the Bolshevik Revolution, as embodied by Vladimir Lenin’s wife Nadezhda Krupskaya, a fellow revolutionary and a minister in the government until her death. But it cut against the deeply conservative grain of Russian life, and Stalin reversed direction. Women ended up with the worst of all worlds: bearing equal responsibility to work, whether teaching or driving a tractor, but with none of the status or power of men. More

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    Support for EU membership highest in 15 years, survey finds

    Support for membership of the European Union is at its highest level in 15 years, according to a survey by the bloc’s parliament.Nearly two-thirds of Europeans consider membership of the EU a “good thing”, the results, published on Wednesday, revealed.Most countries showed significantly more positive attitudes towards EU membership compared to a survey conducted at the end of last year, the European Parliament said in a statement, notably in the Baltic States of Lithuania and Estonia.Roberta Metsola, president of the European Parliament, said: “With war returning to our continent, Europeans feel reassured to be part of the European Union.”The survey showed only one in 10 respondents saw Russia positively, compared to one in three in 2018.Attitudes to China also deteriorated, though Europeans reported a more positive image of the UK and United States.Almost 60 per cent considered defence of “common European values” a priority, even if it were to affect prices and costs of living, which have further shot up since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.Another EU-backed survey published last week had shown 80 per cent support for economic sanctions again Russia and a common security and defence policy.EU leaders will seek to offer support this week to six Western Balkan countries that have long been knocking at the bloc’s doors.The two-day summit starting Thursday in Brussels is expected to approve the European Commission’s proposal to give Ukraine and Moldova candidate EU membership status – the beginning of a long process that the Western Balkan Six started years ago – although Kyiv would likely take years to become a member, if at all.The EC has repeatedly told Albania, Bosnia, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia that their future lies within the 27-nation bloc. But progress has stalled — for all sorts of reasons. The countries are at different levels of negotiations and fulfilling numerous membership requirements, with Montenegro leading the pack and Kosovo not even starting the talks.The European Parliament poll surveyed nearly 27,000 people across the bloc’s 27 member states between April and May.Additional reporting by Reuters More