It\u2019s no surprise some analysts say we are already in the midst of the third world war, but ordinary people have more power than we think <\/p>\n
Don\u2019t look up! The world is a mess. The sky could fall in any day. Unending wars, expanding humanitarian crises, rising authoritarianism, dysfunctional democracies, rampant racial and religious extremism, and unchecked lawlessness cast a dark cloud as the west\u2019s new political year begins. Set all that against a backdrop of staggering global economic inequality, corporate and individual greed, irresponsible government indebtedness, dangerous AI gambles, climate breakdown and proliferating nuclear weapons, and a truly apocalyptic global outlook<\/a> begins to take shape. It\u2019s enough to make anyone shut their eyes, cover their ears and utter a Munch-like scream. And it\u2019s only getting worse.<\/p>\n Democratic leaders who promise a better, safer, more optimistic future \u2013 what Britain\u2019s freshly arrived prime minister, Andy Burnham, calls a \u201cnew era of possibility<\/a>\u201d \u2013 cannot escape this wider international context. Last week\u2019s global bond market upheaval<\/a>, sparked by external factors, left Burnham\u2019s cash-strapped government struggling with sharply increased borrowing costs before he barely got started. The fact he chose Ukraine<\/a> for his first overseas trip, while symbolically important, highlighted another grim reality. As a lead opponent of Vladimir Putin\u2019s invasion, Britain now finds itself in a de facto state of war with Russia \u2013 and facing attack. Argentina, too, is eyeing UK defence vulnerabilities<\/a>. These are not the sort of possibilities Burnham envisaged.<\/p>\n Continue reading…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It\u2019s no surprise some analysts say we are already in the midst of the third world war, but ordinary people have more power than we think Don\u2019t look up! The world is a mess. The sky could fall in any day. Unending wars, expanding humanitarian crises, rising authoritarianism, dysfunctional democracies, rampant racial and religious extremism, … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-78332","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78332","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78332"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78332\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78332"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78332"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78332"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}