Non-State Actors

By Péter MARTON This recent ARD report about German gummy bear maker Haribo is a must watch for those interested in where components of different products that may be part of our lives are sourced from. Normally you find things once you search for them. Here the searching may come after the finding as the findings presented in the report may lead to some soul-searching in the end... All those cute little gummy bears you have eaten. They. Are. Not. Coming. Back. There are all sorts of issues here. Gummy bears being made of up to 46% sugar, to start with. And then. Dreadful conditions in a supplier's pig farm, inside Germany, so you don't need to go all inter- and transnational to run into first-rate horror along supply/value chains. The pigs are not simply held in dire conditions. These are conditions that make you wonder if the owner of the pig farm actually hates these animals. That's where at least some of the gelatin in the gummy bears is coming from. And...

By Péter MARTON The Google Doodle provided me with some instant inspiration for my scholarly work this morning. It is the late war and foreign affairs correspondent Clare Hollingworth's 106th birthday today. Sadly, she is not around to celebrate it, having passed away at the remarkable age of 105 this January. Among the achievements of her long career most prominently mentioned by people remembering her is her supposed discovery of Nazi Germany's force build-up along the Polish frontier. Time for some myth-busting! Back in January, writing her obituary, newspapers were happy to cite an anecdotal version of the story, copying details of the legendary reconnaissance feat from each other.  Some of these details may come originally from a biography by Patrick Garrett ("Of Fortunes and War"), as referenced and quoted here : "Driving alongside a valley, where a hessian screen that blocked the view had been pitched alongside the road, suddenly there wa...