Category

Checkpoint

London’s messy e-bike rules mean ‘every bridge is Checkpoint Charlie’ Checkpoint

London’s messy e-bike rules mean ‘every bridge is Checkpoint Charlie’

London’s irregular electric hire bike rules have created a “Checkpoint Charlie” situation at bridges, according to a top comedian. Dara Ó Briain took to social media to complain that e-bikes are “stacking up” at river crossings between the boroughs of Hounslow and Richmond in the west of the capital. Lime,…
bubmag
August 19, 2025
North Korea starts removing border loudspeakers after South Korea ends propaganda broadcasts Checkpoint

North Korea starts removing border loudspeakers after South Korea ends propaganda broadcasts

The loudspeaker exchanges have been a longstanding element of Cold War-style psychological warfare between the two countries. South Korea’s military says North Korea has started removing some of its loudspeakers from the Korean border, just days after Seoul took down its own equipment used for anti-Pyongyang broadcasts. The Joint Chiefs…
bubmag
August 10, 2025
As the world hurtles ever closer to nuclear oblivion, where is the opposition? | Simon Tisdall Checkpoint

As the world hurtles ever closer to nuclear oblivion, where is the opposition? | Simon Tisdall

Nuclear weapons – their lethal menace, dark history and future spread – are back in the headlines again and, as usual, the news is worrying, bordering on desperate. Russia’s decision last week to formally abandon the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty banning medium- and short-range nuclear missiles completes the…
bubmag
August 10, 2025
Tariff tirade to Cold War: Trump risks undoing 3 decades of India-US partnership Checkpoint

Tariff tirade to Cold War: Trump risks undoing 3 decades of India-US partnership

For more than three decades, Indian and American leaders pursued a mutually beneficial relationship that built upon common grounds and sought middle grounds in case of divergences. But the principle of mutuality that underpinned the India-US relationship has now ended. With 50 per cent tariffs, unending verbal attacks, unleashing his…
bubmag
August 9, 2025
FT: Zbigniew Brzezinski: Cold War mastermind, Carter’s hawk, and prophet of today’s chaos Checkpoint

FT: Zbigniew Brzezinski: Cold War mastermind, Carter’s hawk, and prophet of today’s chaos

Zbigniew Brzezinski—Washington hawk, Soviet Union doom prophet, and the intellectual Cold Warrior behind Jimmy Carter’s foreign policy—is the focus of this episode of the Rachman Review, featuring FT columnist Edward Luce. Drawing from his newly published biography, Luce explores how "Zbig" armed the mujahideen, opened the door to China, and…
bubmag
August 8, 2025
US Eyes Aleutian Military Revival As Russia, China Expand Operations Near Alaska Checkpoint

US Eyes Aleutian Military Revival As Russia, China Expand Operations Near Alaska

In October 2024, the US Coast Guard spotted two Chinese maritime enforcement vessels operating alongside a pair of Russian border patrol boats as they transited the Bering Sea, just kilometers from Alaskan waters. It was the third consecutive year that a joint Russian-Chinese military convoy sailed through the strategic waterway.…
bubmag
May 2, 2025
A lesson buried in the Mediterranean: How a mid-air collision dropped four US nuclear bombs on Spain in 1966 Checkpoint

A lesson buried in the Mediterranean: How a mid-air collision dropped four US nuclear bombs on Spain in 1966

On April 7, 1966, after an exhaustive 80-day search, the US military finally recovered a missing hydrogen bomb from the depths of the Mediterranean Sea. Weighing heavily with a destructive force nearly 100 times that of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, the warhead was delicately lifted from 2,850 feet…
bubmag
April 8, 2025