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Who takes care of the salmon?

ISLAND:Salmon farming is an expanding industry that is fed by several Norwegian investors, and Iceland's biodiversity is in the pot. In scenic Iceland, there is a bitter battle between the farming industry and local activists. The open cages are a ticking bomb for both the environment and animal welfare.

When the truth becomes threatening

JULIAN ASSANGE: Aftenposten had learned from Julian Assange and sucked what they could from his WikiLeaks data universe, and millions of secrets, before quickly throwing him under the bus. Assange created the whistleblowers' perpetuum mobile, WikiLeaks, an unlimited infinity machine of truth where truth whistleblowers all over the world were given the opportunity to reach out – and lift the blankets that hide the lies of power, their war crimes, corruption, tax fraud, hidden bank accounts, fortunes and conspiracies. What now?

'Put peace before victory'

MEMORIAL WORDS: Johan Galtung. Could the 21st century see the abolition of war – just as slavery was abolished in the 19th century and colonialism in the 20th?

What changed Sweden's attitude towards NATO?

ESSAY: Russia's war and the scare campaign that it will be extended to other countries turns out to be just a cover for a policy that, in the long term, intends to tie Sweden more strongly to the US's military geostrategy – primarily through NATO. We take a closer look at one of the people primarily responsible for this development – ​​Defense Minister Pål Jonson.

Death – more or less real

THE REALITY: We perceive reality very differently. Let me therefore suggest three areas where reality is real, strong and direct for all of us. But also what a new translated book by Pier Paolo Pasolini says about the film's contact with reality.

Gaza: Right to defend itself?

AVERAGE: What about Gaza and the media? WikiLeaks was early on an important source for revelations about Israel. The dream of driving all non-Jews out of ancient Palestine governed Israel's policy long before there was a Hamas.
ETHNICITY: Maimonides is considered one of the most important Jewish thinkers ever. In his time, the relationship between the Muslim, the Arab and the Jewish was mutually enriching. Rather than viewing the relationship between Jews and Arabs in a polarized way, Maimonides' example shows that their enmity is redundant and intellectually debilitating. The conflict is not about religion, because Judaism and Islam have far too many central similarities.
AFRICA: Disruption opens up for the capitalists a new display of power and new income: People, society and nature are reduced to raw material. The author Achille Mbembe's horizon is always the widest possible – the cosmic, earth-historical and planetary. Africa, despite all harrowing problems, is being called forth as a vibrant world center that still has powers in reserve, a teeming wildlife and a wealth of cultures.
SUBJECTS: Hartmut Rosa points out that today's late modern people react to the flood of information without "developing a stable understanding of what is relevant, of direction and prioritization". But does the well-educated academic here become an ideologue with religion as a weapon against an increasingly purpose-rational world where the economy colonizes the social?
POWER: Is it possible to explain why the resurgence of free market ideas has resulted in persistent unemployment, rising inequality and financial crises? According to Philip Ther, the corona pandemic and Russia's invasion of Ukraine have led to the end of an era – the world as imagined after 1989.
RUSSIA: Mikhail Khodorkovsky discusses Russia's future after Putin and advocates revolution, democracy and fair distribution of resources. It is about achieving a new, open and fair country that can reclaim its place in the international community...
POETRY: The social criticism of poet Angkarn Kalayanapong can be so caustic that he is said to repel Thai readers, where he rages against Western influence, against prostitution, destruction of nature, substandard urban planning, greed and corruption.
PEACE WORK: War is contempt for life came at a time when peace thinking and oppositional thoughts are in worse shape than they have been for a long time.
FRED: Linn Stalsberg identifies in his new book that accepting war as a human normal state is one of the great danger signals today. We have become accustomed to the idea that war is a necessity, and that war can be morally required on top of that. At the same time, religion is often used cynically as a tool to promote a warlike development – ​​this extends from Pope Urban to Putin and Netanyahu to Hamas.
ŽIŽEK: Despite the fact that he has been a public intellectual for at least 30 years, there has never before been such a multifaceted and nuanced discussion of Slavoj Žižek's thinking as the one we see in the current anthology. But does Žižek recognize the revolutionary potential of desire?
ANIMALS: Ethically speaking, we are way overtime with our treatment of the non-human animals. Many of these have emotions such as fear, pity and sadness. We shouldn't eat animals, but what if we get sick from not doing so?
LITERATURE: The informal contexts where one could try and fail without having to stand up for every careless word have shrunk. In Eirik Vassenden's 229-page book about the critic, there are no fewer than 317 question marks. We also ask: Do literary scholars necessarily have any advantage when it comes to human knowledge, life experience or social understanding?
NIETZSCHE: Once it was faith in a God or a political party, today it is faith in work, consumption and the economy – that is, myself. According to Gilles Deleuze, what can one learn from Nietzsche?
ANTHROPOCEN: The combined effects of our environmental impact have become a force on a par with volcanoes, earthquakes, hurricanes, ice ages, floods and droughts. Can the 'anthropocene' as a concept, time phase and reality be interpreted at the intersection between (natural) science and politics today?
NATURE:How the world has looked from the animals' point of view – how mammals, reptiles, insects, birds and fish have reacted to us – has been absent from our imaginary world. When nature seemed threatening, it had to be fought.
IDENTITY: Do we all have a form of doppelganger that expresses our most extreme thoughts and attitudes? In this book, Naomi Klein takes a special stand with her own people group: the Jews.
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: Sci-fi could help us see our own times, but now we are sci-fi. Computer screens are icons of our time. Inga Strümke just received the Brage prize for this year's non-fiction book.
POETRY: Kosmos' baby by Gunnar Wærness, and Collection by Erling Kittelsen are two books that have a similarity in how they extend away from the personal (author) self and borrow voices from the environment. The latter makes fun of the cultural tourist and New Age consumer who attends evening classes in Sufism one month and shamanic drumming the next.
CAPITALISM: 'Techno-feudalism' is a global expansion with an all-consuming, limitless development of non-material phenomena. Here, social democracy can no longer make any difference, according to Yanis Varoufakis in this book.
PHILLIPINES: Economist JC Punongbayan debunks many of the myths that allowed the Marcos dynasty to retake the presidential palace in the Philippines 50 years after former dictator Ferdinand Marcos Sr. – a regime at least as brutal as Pinochet's Chile. For example, systematic use of disappearances, political executions, and widespread torture of activists and dissidents.
PHILOSOPHY: In this book, cosmic gratitude is related to the attitude of humility. Because we live in the age of the demanded, the scorned, the translated, the misunderstood, the violated and the oppressed.
OLD AGE: To be in life. Really be. It is Danish Jørgen Leth's contribution to the rest of us. And this book cements that way of being in life. But, our reviewer asks: «Are we humans never satisfied?»
RUSSIA: Anna Politkovskaya's daughter: "My greatest wish is to experience Russia as a flourishing, free and developed country, not desolate, poor and militarized."
PHOTO/BOOK: The importance of being human in the Anthropocene has never been more decisive for an understanding of how humans will survive in the future. Photographer Gauri Gill: “I have followed the agricultural cycle, migration, Food for Work programs, nomadic journeys, epidemics, cerebral malaria, tuberculosis, overcrowded hospitals – and death from snakebites, from accidents, from being burned alive for providing an inadequate dowry – and births, marriages, child marriages or moneylenders."
INTELLIGENCE COOPERATION: Contrary to Norwegian law, Norway is heavily involved in preparations for war in space, and Norwegian satellites and radar systems are used in the US space war. Bård Wormdal's third book reveals the extensive e-service cooperation between the USA and Norway outside NATO cooperation, authorized in secret agreements, outside the Storting's control. The revelations are startling. The spy war is a factual thriller about Norwegian security policy.

Ukraine: Unprovoked invasion?

AVERAGE: What about Ukraine and the media? Here, as with Assange, the point is that we must be assured that the authorities manage the truth.

Personal and impressionistic war pictures

NORWEGIAN GAME FILM: 83-year-old Knut Erik Jensen is back with Longing for the present. A film that does not fit neatly into the ranks of modern Norwegian blockbusters about the Second World War.

Samangan province has 438 inhabitants, spread over 000 communities that are without water, electricity or mobile coverage

AFGHANISTAN: We bring here Francesca Borri's reportage from Dara-i-Suf in Afghanistan – a land of families and alliances of families.

The art of moving

WITH HUMAN DOCUMENTARY FILM FESTIVAL: The Norwegian documentaries Ibelin and Ukjent landskap, both of which have made a strong international impression, tell moving stories about special individuals – but at the same time provide enriching perspectives on our social life. Both films give heartwarming portrayals of a person who is no longer alive, but who has left a strong imprint.

Respectful and lovingly humorous

DOCUMENTS: In well-composed black-and-white images, Øystein Mamen follows four men in Halden prison. All inmates have committed particularly serious crimes. He shows what recognition and charity can do to people.

"You can end up with the only peace being the graveyard peace."

MODERN TIMES CONVERSATIONS: We talk to the former Labor leader Jeremy Corbyn, the man who could have become Prime Minister of Great Britain, about current issues – such as military rearmament, Ukraine, Israel, climate justice and work, security, democracy, citizens' councils, and not least a hope for the future.

Minorities and mild anarchism

MODERN TIMES CONVERSATIONS: This time we met a fearless activist and anarchist. After a long life, he summarized a thoughtfulness in the areas of anarchism, minorities, fear/violence – and love. Audun Engh was ill when the conversation took place, and died a few months later.

Therefore, the Middle East became a powder keg

50 YEARS AGO: Why has the Middle East been a powder keg for 25 years? What is the background for the irreconcilable attitude between Israel and the Arab states? And what happened to the Palestinian Arabs when the state of Israel was established?

When the peace prize went to a Gestapo prisoner

PEACE PRIZE: MODERN TIMES has chosen to reprint this article about the Nobel Peace Prize from ORINTERING 50 years ago. There are 351 candidates nominated this year, of which Jens Stoltenberg (with 'weapons for peace') and Volodymyr Zelenskyj have been proposed for this award. Former laureate Carl von Ossietzky was one of German militarism's most uncompromising opponents. Here we see how the Norwegian right-wing press reacted to this.

MODERN TIMES: Elisabeth Hoff (WHO)