Clik here to view.
Israel and Gaza: from war to politics
A short armed conflict highlights vital longer-term shifts both in the military confrontation between Israel and Hamas, and in the balance of forces in the wider region.The concentrated week-long...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Lobbyists and the Day of Rage
On the day that millions of anti-austerity demonstrators took to the streets across Europe, an official EU event took place on ‘engaging Europe’s citizens’. A troubled participant tells her story.All...
View ArticleBeyond Synod: Church and state need to be set free
The recent Church of England vote against women bishops underlines the urgent need to keep religion independent of the state. If there is one thing that might pleasantly surprise the Church of England...
View ArticleReal justice, not ephemeral ceasefires
Mohammed Suliman's interview on CNN was abruptly interrupted by an Israeli missile exploding nearby. In a piece originally published in Ceasefire, he reflects on the experience and analyses the...
View ArticleWomen bishops in the Church of England: No or not yet?
The vote against women bishops raises many questions, including whether Church of England bishops should continue to sit in the House of Lords.Voting in the House of Bishops: in favour 44; against 3;...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Shoigu gets his epaulettes
Traditionally, Soviet and Russian Defence Ministers have carried the military rank of General. Anatoly Serdyukov, recently dismissed by President Putin, was an exception, and his civilian status...
View ArticleA new head of the BBC appointed in the face of our petition
Last week, OurKingdom launched a petition asking that the new Director General of the BBC be appointed transparently and openly. Today a closed-door decision was made. Have they learned anything?Well,...
View ArticleCan we trust the BBC? Come join a public debate on 10 Dec
openDemocracy invites you to an open discussion on the future of Britain's most important cultural and current affairs institution. How do we re-establish trust between the BBC and the public?The new...
View ArticleThe execution of Ajmal Kasab and Indian authorities’ cowardice
Large parts of Indian society bay for the blood of religious minorities engaged in alleged terrorist activities, but look askance at what ought to be labelled crimes against humanity by Hindu...
View ArticleSyrian wounds and Iraqi scars
The similarities are stark: a Baathist regime in power for decades, a ruling religious minority accused by some of fuelling sectarian resentment and praised by others for maintaining a secular...
View ArticleClik here to view.
If voting could change anything: the 2012 Catalan Elections
A vote next week will probably enable the controversial referendum on independence in Catalonia. Madrid continues to try to thwart the move, while demonstrations – and statistics – tell a different...
View ArticleRwanda: why UNHCR is wrong about Cessation
The UN Refugee Agency must not be the facilitator of a permissive attitude towards continued corruption and the absence of democracy in Rwanda. By calling on refugees who fled before 1998 to return...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Lessons from Lance - moralities of the human cyborg
The distinctions between 'natural' and 'artificial' performance enhancement are largely abitrary - humans are a thoroughly technologised species. It is the social context of Armstrong's actions that is...
View ArticleInternational engagement in post-conflict Sri Lanka: lessons from the...
With a recent internal UN report criticizing its operations in the Sri Lankan civil war, international aid groups and donors are grappling with a new way forward. But any reformed policies may be...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Russia, land of slaves
Last month, a number of slave migrant workers were discovered in the cellar of a Moscow store. It was, alas, just one example of a much a wider practice exploiting vulnerable groups across the country....
View ArticleClik here to view.
A successful exhibition of ‘offender art’. But what’s ahead?
The Koestler Trust’s 50th annual exhibition in London of art by prisoners, immigration detainees and secure mental patients closes this weekend. What will Free have shown us? And what’s ahead for its...
View ArticleThe geopolitics of drug trafficking in Afghanistan
In Afghanistan, opium is not clandestinely traded on some back alley black market. Opium is the market. In 1991, Myanmar was dethroned as the premier source of opium and now Afghanistan holds a...
View ArticleKilling them softly in Medellin
More than sixty musicians were threatened with death immediately after El Duke´s funeral. The ceremony was considered a provocation by armed criminal groups, or BaCrim as they are known in Colombia....
View ArticleThe number games
The Obama campaign tirelessly raised money, recruited volunteers and set number quotas in language that seemed to have been torn straight from a Bain consulting manual.The US Presidential race of 2012...
View ArticleHamas-Israel ceasefire: a real victory?
The agreement has left out some issues essential for ending the suffering of the Palestinians.Following the news of an imminent ceasefire, I was waiting impatiently for that moment—9 pm local time...
View Article