Apartheid’s Last Stand

Jeremy Harding, 17 March 2016

Angolans sustained immense losses in the fight to end apartheid. It was certainly heroic, but it was ruinous too.

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Blame Robert Maxwell: How Public Inquiries Go Wrong

Frederick Wilmot-Smith, 17 March 2016

On 15 June 2009, Gordon Brown announced an inquiry into the Iraq war. Although oral hearings finished in early 2011, it won’t report until the middle of this year...

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Corbyn’s Progress

Tariq Ali, 3 March 2016

The UK state​ – its economy, its culture, its fractured identities and party system – is in a much deeper crisis than many want to accept. Its governors, at least in public, remain...

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The Military and the Mullahs

Owen Bennett-Jones, 3 March 2016

On 4 October​ 1954 Pakistan’s army chief General Ayub Khan passed the hours of a sleepless night at the Dorchester Hotel in London writing ‘A Short Appreciation of Present and...

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In Giza

Carol Berger, 3 March 2016

I arrived​ at Al-Modireyet Amn al-Giza, the Giza Directorate of Security, late in the morning of Monday, 8 February. ‘But where’s the entrance?’ I asked the taxi driver...

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End Times for the Caliphate?

Patrick Cockburn, 3 March 2016

The war in Syria and Iraq has produced two new de facto states in the last five years and enabled a third quasi-state greatly to expand its territory and power.

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The state of emergency​ that François Hollande declared on 14 November, the day after 130 people were killed and more than 300 wounded by the attackers in Paris, is still in force....

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Driving through a Postcard: In New Hampshire

Christian Lorentzen, 3 March 2016

The​ Whitestone Bridge crosses the East River, connecting Queens to the south-eastern tip of the Bronx. To the west are the ten jails of Rikers Island and to the east are the 18 holes of the...

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Is it a condition on the acceptability of warfare that those who kill should put their lives on the line?

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Robin Hood in a Time of Austerity

James Meek, 18 February 2016

The wealthiest and most powerful in Europe, Australasia and North America have turned the Robin Hood myth to their advantage.

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Nightwork in Chengdu: China’s Capitalism

Kenneth Pomeranz, 18 February 2016

The reasons​ for China’s economic boom remain disputed. Chinese economic policy has changed repeatedly while high growth rates have continued. Commentators are clearer on what...

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Ahmad Tibi, a long-standing Arab member of the Knesset, once remarked that ‘Israel is democratic towards Jews, and Jewish towards Arabs.’

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Short Cuts: Julian Assange

Daniel Soar, 18 February 2016

This is​ a story about two bad boys. One, Julian Assange, has been holed up in the Ecuadorian embassy in London for more than three years. The other, the artist Ai Weiwei, has done his time in...

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At the Movies: ‘The Big Short’

Michael Wood, 18 February 2016

Hindsight​ is a fine thing, and hindsight about a bit of foresight is even better when it comes to storytelling. There was a time when nobody knew anything about what was happening, whatever it...

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Enemy Citizens

Amjad Iraqi, 4 February 2016

Two Arab teenagers​ who had been arrested at an anti-government protest were waiting to see a lawyer at a police station in Nazareth, the largest Arab city in Israel. Their shirts were torn and...

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Short Cuts: In Cologne

Thomas Meaney, 4 February 2016

It takes​ a moment to get your bearings at anti-asylum demonstrations in Germany these days. It still seems strange to see neo-Nazis and Pegida protesters waving French flags. The other day I...

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The Inequality Problem

Ed Miliband, 4 February 2016

What we need to do is clear: avert the possibility of greater inequality that technological revolution carries with it, and instead share out the benefits of the higher productivity it will bring.

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Who are the spongers now?

Stefan Collini, 21 January 2016

If students will set aside vague, old-fashioned notions of getting an education, and focus instead on finding the least expensive course that will get them the highest-paying job, then the government...

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