RAPE: Russian soldiers today systematically use sexualized violence. And these abuses are not just due to 'bad discipline' or abuse of power. Commanders can also use sexualized violence as a kind of reward for their soldiers. Internationally, Russian officials categorically deny that soldiers have committed sexual crimes
EQUIPMENT: That the rest of the world, apart from the West, does not stand on the side of Norway, the USA and NATO when it comes to Ukraine today, is not surprising when we know the centuries of looting and colonial times, followed by imperialist wars and Western-backed coups. It is still "war and weapons that create peace" that is the narrative. Stop the race to a possible world war!
PROPAGANDA: Leaked classified intelligence documents from the White House revealed in April that Ukraine was soon facing a dramatic defeat – quite different from the propaganda we had all long heard. In this essay, our regular writer, John Y. Jones, looks at the many sides of propaganda – as we are today increasingly surrounded by fake news, unsubstantiated claims and politically biased information.
NORD STREAM: Does NRK allow itself to be led into propaganda? In the Shadow War about the blowing up of the Nord Stream, key information about the strong presence of Western ships is omitted, in order to direct suspicion towards two Russian ships.
LIBYA: The book Strictly confidential refers to a gloomy experience for Norwegian diplomacy in Libya. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton decided to go to war against the country – against Defense Secretary Robert Gates' wishes. Clinton must have played a brutal double game against the Norwegians. The threat against the people of Benghazi was pure propaganda.
INTERNET: Johann Hari points out in the book that the 'focus crisis' is directly dangerous for democracy and can contribute to forming totalitarian regimes.
ETHICS: 'Secondary experiences' train us to empathize with people who are in situations we ourselves have no experience with. Martha Nussbaum believes that fiction such as Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky can do this.
HOLDERLIN: Giorgio Agamben makes a loose juxtaposition between Goethe and Hölderlin, between madness and reason. Did the latter allow himself to be pushed psychologically to the limit?
AFRICA: Russia has been very keen on the principle of non-interference and has allowed authoritarian regimes to pursue their own policies without making any political demands for their trade or aid. But they gave debt relief to a number of African countries at the same time as signing several military-technical agreements.
PHILOSOPHY: How could Hans Skjervheim know that choices, which he himself believes to be free, are not already programmed by the unconscious, by fate, or precisely by heredity or environment?
NATURE: At a time when national nature goals and international nature agreements have finally made it onto the agenda, problem formulations and value concepts such as those in this book by Sigurd Hverven are very important.
NEOLIBERALISM: Capitalist realism is a term for the late capitalist world, where it is not possible to imagine a different and better world – it is what it is. Did neoliberal capital take the form of a wall-to-wall ideology and constitute an affective regime? And was the 'end of history' nothing more than a class project?
PROSPERITY: Is there even a way back to our society as it was before? According to Stephan Lessenich, capitalism and prosperity in the West is a result of the exploitation of colonized peoples. But according to him, to abolish capitalism would be to abolish our democracy at the same time.
AFGHANISTAN: Zarifa Ghafari is on the BBC's list of the world's 100 most influential women. This Afghan mayor knows very well that she is a symbol – but perhaps most of all an attraction.
UKRAINE/RUSSIA: The authors of this book believe that the European countries should loosen their ties with the United States in order to achieve constructive results in what can be considered a European security problem. Two parties can only achieve security together with the other party – not at the expense of it.
PENSIONERS: More of us are getting older, and there are fewer people to take care of them. In Norway, there are now over one million old-age pensioners. And what happens when the caring roles are reversed?
COMPETITION: The weapons are sanctions, subsidies, dumping, hostile takeovers and theft of industrial secrets. The goal is simple: to weaken a country's economy so that it cannot offer political, economic or military resistance.
THE WEST: European culture is "characterized by a melancholy feeling due to its alienation or inferiority to a source that evokes a nostalgic feeling". Really?
EU: Europe has never become an adult and responsible player in a multipolar world. And a common foreign and security policy has never gone beyond the sketch plane. Will it happen now?
FREEDOM: 'University' was a code word for prison, completing the exam meant serving a prison sentence. Albania's transformation was thorny. On the altar of freedom, factories went bankrupt, jobs disappeared, thousands fled to Italy on overcrowded ships.
AFRICA: In Norway, interest in the Sahel is growing: With the fall of Gaddafi in 2011, both the strength and the number of rebel groups in the Sahel increased. After the start of the global war on terror in 2001, more and more countries have taken an interest in this large area. But aren't the Islamists fighting here primarily against the West?
PHILOSOPHY: Both the outer and the inner world are today being 'colonised'. What is the connection between the destruction of the mental landscape and the natural landscape, of the inner and outer environment? We look at this in the light of Jonathan Crary and philosophy – including Martin Heidegger.
FEMINISM: In the attempt to align identity politics with the teachings of the Catholic Church, the Italian writer and feminist Michele Murgia envisions an opportunity for renewal – for the church. Here, The Holy Spirit opens for something different and non-gendered, for queerness.
SUBJECTS: How should art stand out in a time when artistic work has come to resemble modern working life with its constant demands for communication, networking and visibility? Appearance and staging have become more important than content. Can we today actually rediscover our relationship with time, the experience of duration, practice doing less? Not being a means to an end?
UKRAINE: MODERN TIMES' regular commentator, John Y. Jones, gives us here in this essay (via Jacques Baud) an overview of the balance of power, the progression of the Ukraine war, the propaganda threat, the Russians' intentions and Western reactions, the Nazi accusations and lies campaigns.
MAFIA: This is a collection of anecdotal testimonies about a self-destructive social machinery with the mafia as its cornerstone. It deals with the mafia in Sicily, but also the war in Vietnam, Palestinian rights, environmental protection, class society, legal abortion and women's liberation.
iDEOLOGY: By agreeing on a suitable 'enemy', a disintegrated society finds coherence, energy and meaning. A totalitarian propaganda has led to the conclusion that Ukraine will now be allowed to use F-16 jets against the nuclear power Russia – with the major consequences this may entail.
THE SHORT FILM FESTIVAL IN OBERHAUSEN: 'Machinima' – films made through computer games – reflect and illuminate the digital worlds we are moving ever further into. It is also reasonable to believe that artificial intelligence will make a significant impact on this field in the future.
PUBLIC: What we could previously describe as realpolitik possible is today not even possible to write about. Propaganda dominates the Norwegian public perhaps more than in any other country. The Norwegian authorities have been fooled around. The speech space has frozen.
EUROPE: The Lord's people not only had the world's best weapons, they also had the world's best religion. It was the whites and their self-imposed right to do whatever they wanted at the expense of others.
ARAB MOVIE DAYS: "Boy from Heaven" is first and foremost a well-composed suspense film, but at the same time gives an exciting insight into religious environments and political lines of conflict in today's Egypt.
ENVIRONMENT: "It's about changing people's mindset," says Volker Schlöndorff (83) to MODERN TIMES. The veteran German director himself describes his film about agronomist Tony Rinaudo's reconstruction of forests in Africa as propaganda.
Urbanism: MODERN TIMES has asked five urbanists – all known to Norwegian urban developers – about some of the main themes in this supplement: global urbanization and the feminization of poverty, driving forces and counter-forces, new technology, and organization in the fight for a safer and more secure society.
50 YEARS AGO: It is obvious that whoever has come the farthest in terms of weapons technology also has the right God and the right religion – white colonizers had the only true faith.
BOOK: Queer icons deals with a generation that lived with the fear of AIDS, exclusion and criminalization – and not least with the pain from the lack of role models.
PHOTO: It would be almost fifty years before Paolo di Paolo's daughter found the pictures his father had taken, and confronted him with his hitherto unknown past as a (Italian) celebrity photographer.