Israel’s​ legislative elections on 9 April were a tribute to Binyamin Netanyahu’s transformation of the political landscape. At no point were they discussed in terms of which...

Read more about Trump’s America, Netanyahu’s Israel: Actually Existing Zionism

Anglo-American involvement in the Middle East has always been principally about the strategic advantage gained from controlling Persian Gulf hydrocarbons, not Western oil needs.

Read more about What are we there for? The Gulf Bargain

On music as on art and culture in general, Fisher’s standards were strict. ‘Music that acknowledged and accelerated what was new’ in the world around it was a force for good, but music (and art...

Read more about Not No Longer but Not Yet: Mark Fisher’s Ghosts

Short Cuts: Mueller Time

David Bromwich, 18 April 2019

On 22 March​, Robert Mueller, the special counsel charged with investigating Russian meddling in the 2016 election and its possible connection with the Trump campaign, submitted his report to...

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Pick a nonce and try a hash: On Bitcoin

Donald MacKenzie, 18 April 2019

Every time​ a bitcoin ‘miner’ is successful they create for themselves 12.5 new bitcoins, currently worth around $60,000. If they don’t succeed, they can have another go...

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The clue​ is in the name. Parliament is designed for talk – for the expression of opinion and criticism. Pundits, particularly in the 19th century, wrote about ‘parliamentary...

Read more about Educating the Utopians: Parliament’s Hour

Friendly Relations: Abe’s Japan

Edward Luttwak, 4 April 2019

One can fly​ to Japan from anywhere, but from Japan one can only fly to the Third World, and it hardly matters whether one lands in Kinshasa, London, New York or Zurich: they are all places...

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Stained in Red: Credit Data

Rachel O’Dwyer, 4 April 2019

When​ the Chinese e-commerce platform Alibaba, the biggest retailer in the world, launched an app allowing its customers to buy products and transfer money instantaneously, it understood that...

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Two years into the Trump presidency, it is a gross exaggeration to talk of an end to the American world order. The two pillars of its global power – military and financial – are still firmly in place....

Read more about Is this the end of the American century? America Pivots

Spookery, Skulduggery: Chris Mullin

David Runciman, 4 April 2019

Chris Mullin’s​ A Very British Coup was a nostalgic book that turned into a prophetic one. First published in 1982 and set towards the end of that decade, it nonetheless recalled...

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As the case of the missing students became international news, parents and activists went looking. They found first one mass grave, then another and another and another. Not their children’s. Other...

Read more about It is very easy to die here: Who killed the 43?

The Saudi Lie

Madawi Al-Rasheed, 21 March 2019

Behind all the distorted coverage, it seems to me, is an exoticising assumption: they’ll never be quite like us, though they deserve extravagant praise for trying. But Saudi Arabia is a country like...

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Among the Gilets Jaunes

Jeremy Harding, 21 March 2019

They first came together beyond the margins of the major cities, in rural areas and small towns with rundown services, low-wage economies and dwindling commerce. Among them are people who grew up in city...

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In Saillans

Fleur Macdonald, 21 March 2019

The Saillans Spring​ began in 2011 when residents heard that their mayor had proposed to a supermarket chain that it open a branch on the outskirts of the village, in the Drôme department...

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‘Just get us out’

Ferdinand Mount, 21 March 2019

If you​ are able to name the last four leaders of the United Kingdom Independence Party, then you really ought to get out more. And no, none of them was or is Nigel Farage, although of the ten...

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Diary: Migrant Flows

Jérôme Tubiana and Clotilde Warin, 21 March 2019

More​ than a million migrants crossed the Mediterranean during the refugee crisis of 2015, with about 850,000 landing in Greece and the remainder in Italy. By March 2016 the EU had signed an...

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House-Cleaning: I met a Republican

David Bromwich, 7 March 2019

The question remains whether the citizenry – between 35 and 40 per cent of eligible voters – who register across-the-board approval of Trump will accept the removal of a president solely on the grounds...

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What is​ a Gavin Shuker? Most of the time, it isn’t necessary to know, unless you live in the Luton South constituency. If you don’t live there, even if you’re a Labour voter,...

Read more about Short Cuts: The Independent Group