Airplane hijacking, like the mode of transport itself, became common in the 1960s. A practice largely confined to the United States, it was invariably a means for ordinary criminals to extort ransom money or flee to Cuba. In 1968, the hijacking of an El Al flight by the left-wing Popular Front for the Liberation of
His new tome offers both detail and verve
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Finland’s entry into Nato in 2023 dealt a major blow to Russia in the Baltics. For years, President Putin had warned his Finnish counterparts that a decision to join the alliance would be met with an appropriate response, but the implicit threat has been slow to materialise. In February, Russia reconstituted its Leningrad Military District,
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This week Balazs Orban, the bespectacled political director to the Hungarian Prime Minister (and of no relation to him), has found himself in trouble after a podcast interview he gave on Wednesday. He seemed to imply that Ukraine should not have resisted the Russian onslaught – and that if Hungary had been in a similar
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In 2017, the Polish government set out to build one of the largest airports in Europe on the outskirts of Warsaw. The project, known as the Central Communication Port, or CPK, was meant to combine a new international airport with a high speed railway network, connecting the Polish capital and the country’s peripheral regions. With
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Bulgaria has rarely been the master of its own fate. Throughout history, neighbouring powers have often succeeded in imposing their will upon it. Nevertheless, Bulgaria has endured. There are few who can attest this with greater authority than Simeon II, who reigned as Bulgaria’s last Tsar from 1943 to 1946 and returned, after five decades
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After narrowly losing power in October’s parliamentary elections, Poland’s conservative Law and Justice Party (PiS) has spent the last four months battling the reforms of Donald Tusk’s ruling coalition. Jaroslaw Kaczynski, who co-founded PiS in 2001 and has served as its chairman since 2003, must now adapt to his role in opposition. On Saturday, Kaczynski
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Donald Tusk’s return to power in Poland’s autumn election was interpreted by many as the victory of centrism over populism. The rogue right-wing Law and Justice party (PiS) had been cast out and decency prevailed once more: this was, at least, the narrative presented to the world’s media. In Warsaw, things looked very different. On
