Great Britain is only a victorious European power when Jude Law is king. 

Henry V is not Shakespeare’s greatest play. But the British still love it, especially when Jude Law plays the main part. It’s sold out in the West End for weeks. (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-25200156) The title role shows a moral king – that doesn’t make for great drama and Shakespeare runs the risk of his character boring the audience. But Henry V conquers France during the Hundred Years War in 1415 and he also wins the heart and the hand of the French princess Catherine. It’s a simple plot but Jude Law fills the stage with such confident charm and playful joy that the work never collapses under the weight of even its dullest patriotic moments.

Ariel Sharon was better at war than peace.

Ariel Sharon never took it easy. After a stroke in January 2006 he clung on to life in a coma for eight years. The last days saw his organs shut down one by one. He died, aged 85, this Saturday.

The general and politician has played a huge role in Israeli public life for almost his entire career. For his fans he was the "King of Israel". His critics called him the "Butcher of Beirut". But even his political arch-enemy Uri Avnery, Israel's peace activist number one, respected Sharon as one of the big generals in this small country’s history. In this state of the jews, which was born out of the trauma of the Holocaust, the generals of the founding generation commanded special respect. Sharon or Yitzhak Rabin were the new type of jew: the Israeli, who does not go to his death without putting up a fight.

Different reactions from ex-oligarch Khodorkovsky and the PussyRiot activists to their release.

Mikhail Khodorkovsky's first press conference in the Berlin Wall Museum last Sunday had a bittersweet aftertaste. The ex-oligarch's shy smile was reminiscent of a reformed choir boy who had just heard from his priest that he did not have to do extra prayers. Putin's former adversary weighed his words very carefully. "Putin was fair to my family", he said without elaborating. The whole spectacle was clearly scripted by the Kremlin. Whatever Khodorkovsky had to sign to walk free, Putin can be happy with his tamed former challenger.

The Russian president shows his true face. Can’t he stop this? 

It happened overnight. The Kremlin announced on December 9^th that Russia’s giant state-owned news agency RIA Novosti would cease to exist. RIA was always close to the Kremlin but some respected journalists still worked there and because of its numerous foreign clients, RIA had some room for critical reporting.

Nuclear talks with Iran, a Kosovo agreement or mediation in Egypt – the constantly under-rated figure of Catherine Ashton is now emerging to shape Europe’s international standing.

Calendar week 49: first, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry passed by on his way to the Middle East. Then the Afghan and Turkish foreign ministers came in for a chat. King Abdullah of Jordan suddenly made an appearance, so a planned meeting with the prime ministers of Kosovo and Serbia had to be cut short. Then Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammed Jawad Zarif called; the negotiations about dismantling Iran’s nuclear program needed to get started.

A study of evil: Israeli choreographer Hofesh Shechter brings “Sun” to Austria.

The evening starts with a preview of the ending: “Everything will be fine”, the choreographer’s voice informs us before the show begins. But before the Happy End comes, his dancers go through hell.

Mayor Johnson got lost in the Golden Ghettos of his city. 

LONDON. The loose cannon has fired again: at the Margaret Thatcher Lecture on Wednesday night London mayor Boris Johnson established a rather bizarre connection between IQ and IG - income gap. “16 % of our species have an IQ below 85. Only 2 % above 130”, he said. “The harder you shake the pack, the easier it will be for some to get to the top of the pack.” And he continued: “The income gap between the top cornflakes and the bottom cornflakes is getting wider than ever.” And the mayor of the Golden Ghettos of London was quick to add: “Some measure of inequality is essential for the spirit of envy and keeping up.”

Andrej Tolokonnikov talks about his fears for his daughter Nadja.

Two weeks after Nadja Tolokonnikova disappeared from her prison camp Nr 14 in Mordvinia her family still doesn’t know where she is. The political activist and member of the feminist punk group “Pussy Riot” was sentenced in August 2012 to two years in a penal colony for singing a punk prayer in a Moscow cathedral in February 2012. The performance lasted 40 seconds and was judged “hooliganism out of religious hatred”.

How  EU Parlamentarian Hannes Swoboda made many enemies in the UK.

It was 11 pm on Sunday night two weeks ago when a group of Lithuanians broke down the door to a bedsit in Maidstone and beat up two Italians. Joele Leotta had just put on his pyjamas and was ready to go to sleep. Hours later he died in hospital from the wounds he suffered in the attack. His friend Alex Galbiati survived. Four alleged perpetrators - Aleksandes Zuravliovas, 26, Tomas Gelezinis, 30, Sualus Tamoliunas, 23, and Linas Zidonis, 21 - stand accused of murder. So far, so terrible.

600.000 Russians work like slaves in prison camps – former oligarch Michael Khodorkovsky and “Pussy Riot” activist Nadeshda Tolokonnikova among them. profil collected witness accounts of prisoners to document the conditions in penal colonies which are reminiscent of Stalin. 

Ten years ago, on October 25^th 2003, special commandos stormed the private jet of Russia’s then-richest man Mikhail Khodorkovsky and arrested him at gunpoint. A few months ago, the former oligarch celebrated his 50th birthday in his cell in prison colony Number 7 in Karelia on the Finnish border. One of Russia’s most capable managers has been turned into a slave labourer who produces plastic binders.