The ascent of Nigel Farage's right-wing populist party continues into the next round. Even before the final local election results came in, Nigel Farage stated triumphantly: “We are not just a protest party. People vote UKIP because of what we stand for." The right-wing populist “United Kingdom Independence Party” won 23 % of the vote in local council elections in England this week. The big losers were the governing coalition parties, the Tories and the LibDems. Labour won some seats – but most of the protest votes went to UKIP.

The unstoppable ascent of Nigel Farage thus continues. The jovial ex-commodities trader took UKIP over in 2006. His father worked in the City too – and both men are fond of a drink. The 49-year-old Farage likes to rub shoulders in pubs with potential voters, while calling for a halt to immigration. A successful model, it seems. And these elections were only the beginning. In the EU parliament elections next year, which use a system of proportional representation that favours smaller parties, UKIP could become the strongest party. The Eurosceptics now hold 11 of Britain's 73 Euro seats. There is more to come: in 2015's national parliamentary elections, UKIP could turn into the decisive third force after Labour and the Tories, replacing the totally discredited centrist LibDems. Today, UKIP has no MPs in the House of Commons.

In her new book “Vagina. A biography” US-star feminist Naomi Wolf deconstructs female sexual myths. A conversation about orgasm, creativity, Obama and new feminism.

You cannot help but notice Naomi Wolf.The US-star feminist cannot even go to a gala dinner in New York without getting arrested on the way for joing a peaceful protest on the way. When not in trouble the author writes another book, which is guaranteed to create controversy. The very attractive journalist became famous with “The Beauty Myth” in 1991. With “The End Of America” she attacked fascist tendencies in George W. Bushs United States. When she noticed reduced pleasure with her own orgasms, she had herself checked. After an operation at her spine, which fixed a squeezed nerve, she wrote the book about the “central organ of female power”: “The Vagina. A Biography” was heavily critized in 2012: “Shoddy research” was diagnosed and Wolf was called a “sexual prophet”.

Much has been said about the Boston bombers, about their possible motives, their origin, their upbringing and their thinking. We know quite a bit by now about Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. The older brother had links to radical circles and liked to watch extremist Chechen Islamist videos on Youtube; the FBI even interviewed him in 2011 after the Russian security apparatus showed concern. His younger brother seemed a nice enough chap without political affiliations, who was probably dragged into the radical abyss by his brother.

Margaret Thatcher’s bombastic funeral was less about grief than political calculation.

LONDON - Sweating soldiers carefully laid Margaret Thatcher’s coffin down under the cupola of St Paul’s Cathedral. Its stately procession up the stairs and along the aisle of the huge cathedral, past rows filled with bald heads and “fascinators” (as women’s headpieces are called here) had been long indeed. The entire funeral for the former prime minister altogether seemed too drawn-out, too pompous.

With Boris Beresovsky gone Putin is left with only loyal tycoons. The Russian president has turned the "Russia of the oligarchs" into a state oligarchy.

At the time of his self-chosen death Boris Berezovsky was what he probably detested most: an ex-oligarch. He had lost a super expensive court trial against his former partner Roman Abramovich last year in London. The internationally active business man Abramovich is worth 7.8 billion euros according to the 'Forbes' richest list 2013 *. Berezovsky on the other hand was broke. At the end he worried not to be able to feed his six children by three wives "sufficiently" any longer.

LONDON - One skips, the second muses sarcastically about life and the third moans: The “Three Sisters” are back. A brand-new Chekhov play just opened at London's Hampstead Theatre. “Longing” is the theatre sensation of this spring. And not only in London. The Chekhov-crazy Western world sees the premiere of an important new drama.

LONDON. The panic in Cyprus does not leave its neighbours unmoved: "Business and politics - it's all about mutual blackmail," says Greek journalist Kostas Vaxevanis. We are meeting in the "Free Word Centre" in East London, an office building of several international organizations fighting for the freedom of expression. The 45-year-old shakes his head. He has the distinct air of a man who would like to enjoy life a little more, but has been forced into the role of reluctant national whistleblower. "In Greece, it wasn’t about how to help the Greeks, but how to help the banks. In Cyprus, the EU and the Russians are arguing about money while the Cypriots fear for their savings."

Besides the largest yacht in the world, the English soccer club Chelsea and a private Boeing 767 Roman Abramovich could have owned also something really small but beautiful: a Cypriot citizenship. Cyprus likes to thank big investors with a passport - after all, an EU passport. But Abramovich let his partner go first and so Alexander Abramov became a Cypriot for his services to the island in 2010. Abramovich & Abramov have brought Cyprus in fact a lot: They keep their shares of the international steel giant “Evraz” via investment firm "Lanebrook Limited", which was founded in 2006 in Cyprus.

Dror Moreh

LONDON. He is proud of himself. "It was a clean operation", says Carmi Gillon, "elegant". He smiles like a small boy, who is almost embarrassed to be so proud. Maybe deep down he knows that not everybody will praise him for killing Palestinian bomb maker Yahya Ayyash per remote-controlled mobile phone in 1996. "Only he died. No one else. And on the ground floor they did not even hear the explosion."

LONDON - Edmund de Waal is sitting on the floor next to the piano in the “Austrian Cultural Forum” looking up at his father Victor. The old man thanks his son for helping publish the novel of Edmund’s grandmother. “The Exiles Return” is a largely autobiographical account of her own visit to Vienna in the Fifties. A poet, Elisabeth de Waal was exiled after the “Anschluss”, when her family was thrown out of Austria. Victor and Edmund de Waal are both visibly moved that Elisabeth’s book has finally got published - 75 years after the “Anschluss”.

On March 12th 1938, German troops crossed the border into Austria. On March 13th, Austria’s integration into Nazi Germany was proclaimed. “Much to the pleasure of many Austrians”, as Elisabeth Kögler, director of the Austrian Cultural Forum said in her speech. Edmund de Waal wanted to arrange the presentation of his grandmother’s book on precisely this date. Although he is Professor of Ceramics at Westminister University, the author of “The Hare With The Amber Eyes” is really a historian.