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May 21 - May 28, 2020
The idea had been that if we reminded one another of all the shortcomings of the twentieth century, maybe it would make us better at remembering and less inclined to make at least those mistakes again.
The average Romanian was not as philosophically inclined as those in power. He or she reasoned that those who stole should be locked up, no matter their title or position, and whether or not there was anywhere to lock them up.
The new view was that there was no reason to care about your neighbour; it was enough to tolerate him or her. And people did, until the winds of change blew once more.
On the one hand, he knew he was soon to die. On the other, he was in the company of a man who was possibly immortal.
Congo is the second-largest country in Africa and has always been rich in two particular things: natural resources and misery.
Young Kim proved to be a person not to be trifled with or herded about. The uncle was sentenced to death for, among other things, being unfaithful to his wife. Nowhere in the twelve-page verdict was there a word about the fact that young Kim’s father had had five children with three different women.
‘That everything has an explanation. Everything really does – don’t you sometimes think that too,
Kim Jong-un read it himself and drew his own conclusions. He had certain similarities to Trump in Washington in that he was reluctant to delegate tasks in his administration. With the possible difference that Trump drew conclusions without doing the actual reading.
Work there was led by a self-involved, unpleasant but capable male agent. For assistance he had a meek, depressed and slightly more capable woman.
Any charlatan worth his salt radiates a level of confidence that’s hard to defend oneself against.
he decided to allow Allan to continue saving their lives on his own. The hundred-and-one-year-old certainly had his issues, but if there was anything he was good at, it was surviving.
The Swedish manufacturer Volvo, outside Gothenburg, was full of celebration after the delivery of a thousand shiny new cars to Pyongyang.
To this day, Volvo hasn’t received a single North Korean won in return.
Margot Wallström took an extra large sip of her replenished wine to calm her nerves as she wondered what would happen if someone were to let Kim Jong-un and Benjamin Netanyahu into the same room. Monumental lack of humour and self-awareness against monumental lack of humour and self-awareness. All that would be missing was Donald Trump as a mediator.
In practice, it meant that fake news was anything Trump didn’t like reading, listening to or watching.
‘I’m not taking another step,’ he said. ‘I’m about to die of this blister.’ ‘It’s not that easy to die,’ said Allan. ‘I know from my own personal experience. You’ll just have to take a few more steps.’
Take, for one example, Swedish populists. They amplified existing problems or invented ones that didn’t exist, polarizing and making people fearful of one another. Then they pointed to what they’d created and said they were the only ones with solutions.
They scared people one day and came up with the solution the next. After all, fright demands might.
As long as the Sweden Democrats were the most extreme party Sweden had to offer, there would always be plenty of people who refrained from voting for them, even if those voters agreed with their platform.
If, however, he contributed to an alternative voice, to the right of those who were furthest right, two things would happen: first, the Sweden Democrats would point fingers at the neo-Nazis and say, ‘Look how terrible they are! We are certainly not like them!’ Second, people would agree. In one fell swoop, voting Sweden Democrat would become more socially acceptable.
And, above all, if the experiment worked in little Sweden, then in the future a person would only have to do the same thing where it would truly matter. Like in Germany.
One had to assume that the Nazi at least knew Sabine’s name: she was, after all, the firm’s frontwoman. Unless he was totally useless he would have found Allan as well, via the Companies Registration Office. But not Julius.
Surely Julius rather than Allam 101 year old man would be registered @ companjies house ?editing error
The point was to set American against American. A divided country was a weakened country, after all.
Putin wondered if it had all gone too well. Gena had even managed the impossible: placing the extreme divider Trump in the White House. Was it a Pyrrhic victory? Had they created a monster that could no longer be reined in?
Lately they’d had varying levels of success. With the help of 116,000 Twitter accounts, Aksakov and his army of internet soldiers had worked on the voters of Britain before the Brexit referendum. Only an amateur would allow all the accounts to be automated bots: people would notice that. The secret was a perfectly balanced mixture of fully automated, half-automated, and one hundred per cent human accounts. The message, however, was relatively uniform – namely, that the Brits should turn their backs on Europe.
Even Allan, who never allowed himself to be impressed, was impressed by what he saw.
