5 h. ago How space exploration can improve life on Earth | Leigh Phillips

There is a cynical, ‘anti-space’ ideology emerging, especially on some parts of the left. But this is misguidedJohn F Kennedy once called space-faring “the most hazardous and dangerous and greatest adventure on which Man has ever embarked”. We go to space because, he said – like George Mallory said of his reason to conquer Everest – “it is there.”While it is truer to say that the race for space between Washington and Moscow was driven as much by cold war competition as by humanity’s pioneering spirit and the imperatives of scientific exploration, billions of ordinary people around the world recognized as much at the time and still were able to marvel at our species’ accomplishments in the heavens regardless of the flag under which they were achieved, from Sputnik to the moon landing. Continue reading...

Politics

9 h. ago Cold War bunker on the edge of Sandringham could be yours... for just £20,000

The Dersingham Royal Observer Corps post was once part of a large network of observation posts up and down the country.

Economics

24 h. ago Stunned resignation and foreboding: a week in Trump’s shadow at IMF

Few policymakers mention US president by name, but his tariffs dominate IMF-World Bank meetingBusiness live – latest updatesKristalina Georgieva’s favourite film, the International Monetary Fund boss told the audience at a packed panel event in Washington on Thursday, is Tom Hanks’s cold war romp Bridge of Spies.In one of the stranger digressions in a frequently strange week, Georgieva recalled the moment when Hanks’s character, a US lawyer, tells the Soviet spy he has been appointed to defend that he will probably be executed. “You don’t seem alarmed,” Hanks says to him; to which the spy – played by Mark Rylance – replies, “Would it help?” Continue reading...

Politics

45 h. ago We went hunting for Chinese spies in the park as new Cold War arrives in UK

The Second Cold War is well underway, and while the first was all nukes and Moon landings and massive walls, this one is tiny mics under park benches listening to yuppies talk about what they had for lunch

Events

4 d. ago Experts warn Trump’s trade war with China could erupt into a cold war

Earlier this month, Trump temporarily paused most tariffs while ratcheting up rates on China

Events

7 d. ago US releases thousands of files related to Robert F Kennedy assassination

Release of files, ordered by Trump, includes notes from killer, who said presidential candidate ‘must be disposed of’About 10,000 pages of records related to the 1968 assassination of Robert F Kennedy, including handwritten notes by the assassin, who said the US senator and Democratic presidential candidate “must be disposed of” and acknowledged an obsession with killing him.The release continued the disclosure of national secrets ordered by Donald Trump after he began his second presidency in January. It comes a month after unredacted files related to the 1963 assassination of president John F Kennedy were disclosed. The earlier documents gave curious readers more details about cold- war era covert US operations in other nations but did not initially lend credence to long-circulating conspiracy theories about who killed JFK, RFK’s brother. Continue reading...

Politics

1 week ago CIA files detail Cold War UFO encounter where 'aliens turned Soviet troops to stone'

The KGB report claims Soviet soldiers fired and shot down a flying saucer, but were then killed when the aliens onboard fired upon them with a weapon that turned them to stone

Events

1 week ago Soviet soldiers ‘turned to stone’ by aliens in bonkers Cold War UFO clash, CIA documents reveal

Newly declassified intelligence files explain a Cold War incident involving unexplained phenoma, with humaoids and UFOs, that allegedly turned cold war soldiers to stone

Events

1 week ago The Guardian view on Donald Trump’s Congo deal: mineral riches for protection | Editorial

Faced with regional chaos and shrinking options, Kinshasa seeks terms of trade that echo the old extractive order in modern disguise“The vilest scramble for loot that has ever disfigured the history of human conscience” is how Joseph Conrad described colonial-era concessions granted to private companies for Congo’s natural resources in Heart of Darkness. Under Donald Trump, that scramble may be back. If news reports are right, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is offering the US a blunt deal: minerals for military help – a slice of sovereignty traded for a shot at stability.The concern is this isn’t a return, it’s a sequel. For three decades, Washington supported Joseph-Désiré Mobutu, a cold war ally and brutal dictator who looted the Congo until his 1997 fall. That history of power politics still casts a long shadow. The Trump administration openly favours muscle over diplomacy. Fadhel Kaboub, an associate professor of economics at Denison University, notes that Biden-era ...

Politics

1 week ago Cold war! Ice cream van owner banned from park he has sold at for 15 years after cafe installs its own machine

Frank Cannata, who runs Frank's Ices, was banned from Wisbech Park, Cambridgeshire, after new tenants took over the café - and installed an ice cream machine.

Events

1 week ago Ice cream man launches cold war against rival business in row over van pitch

Frank Cannata, 67, was booted out of his spot of 15 years in a park after a café owned by the local council installed its own ice cream machine - he is now giving away ice creams every weekend

Economics

2 w. ago The Determined Spy: Frank Wisner, the CIA and a covert career cut short

New biography tells story of operative who directed coups in Iran and Guatemala and grappled with mental illnessFrank Wisner was a leading light of the early CIA, a director of clandestine operations who came of age in the second world war then fought the cold war by fair means or foul, from funding American cultural outreach to orchestrating coups in Iran and Guatemala.Before becoming a biographer, Douglas Waller reported for Newsweek and Time. His new book, The Determined Spy, is about Wisner, a man who lived an extraordinary life but came to be buried at Arlington national cemetery, under a simple headstone, identified merely as a commander in the US naval reserve. Continue reading...

Politics

2 w. ago The last grand strategists: what Brzezinski and Kissinger could teach Trump

Living parallel lives, they counselled presidents and changed the course of the cold war. How would they steer America today?

Politics

2 w. ago Donald Trump has transformed the American story | Osita Nwanevu

A decade ago, it was easy to believe US identity was a settled question. Now, as our institutions acquiesce to barbarism, the US’s promise has been traded for chaosMaking America great again was never a promise Donald Trump could deliver on, nor one that he intended to. That said, he has undoubtedly thrust the US back into history – and not just through his assault, in recent days, on the global economic order.About 50 years ago, the tumults of the late 1960s and early 1970s began giving way to a quietude that would carry us through the end of the cold war. Tested as we may have been by conflict, scandals and crises economic and not, we entered this new century – and met the uncertainties of a new world we’d forced into being – surer of ourselves than ever before. The towers fell, yes, but the US’s sense of purpose was as much of a settled fact in the world as American power. The American people were divided, true, but for all but an impertinent and implacable few, the major questio...

Politics

3 w. ago Top secret Nuked Blood documents to be opened after campaigners demand access

Nearly one million pages of evidence about Britain's Cold War radiation experiments involving its own troops will finally be made public as a minister has ordered their release

Events

3 w. ago Lammy to urge allies to boost defence spending to make Nato ‘more lethal’

It comes after the UK announced the largest sustained increase to defence spending since the Cold War.

Politics

3 w. ago The US men’s national team aren’t just underachievers; they’re unlikeable | Beau Dure

As the 2026 World Cup approaches, the USMNT lack the charisma, underdog charm and striking victories of their predecessorsImagine the 1980 Miracle on Ice, but with the USA on the other side.In this scenario, the US men’s hockey team aren’t a scrappy band of outmatched amateurs playing for the country perceived as the good guys in the cold war. The opponents aren’t an aloof, brutally effective Soviet Union team expected to steamroll their way to a gold medal just as their military were attempting to steamroll their way through Afghanistan. Continue reading...

Politics