Five years ago, I helped to unmask a corporate spy. Climate activism was at its peak: the second ‘climate camp’ had spent a week at Heathrow the summer before, and many environmental...

Read more about I want you to know I know who you are: Spies v. Activists

Let’s call it failure: The Shit We’re In

John Lanchester, 3 January 2013

As George Osborne’s autumn statement made clear, the scale and speed and completeness with which things are going wrong are numbing.

Read more about Let’s call it failure: The Shit We’re In

Short Cuts: The Pret Buzz

Paul Myerscough, 3 January 2013

‘AS’, a finance student from the Czech Republic, was fired from his job at the branch of the fast-food chain Pret A Manger in York Way, by St Pancras Station, in the middle of...

Read more about Short Cuts: The Pret Buzz

Another War Lost: In Afghanistan

Jonathan Steele, 20 December 2012

Russia’s man in Kabul, Andrey Avetisyan, has been travelling to Afghanistan since 1983, when he was a student of Pashto during the Soviet occupation. When Gorbachev took power and started...

Read more about Another War Lost: In Afghanistan

In her book, Reconciliation, Benazir Bhutto named a man she believed had tried to procure bombs for an attempt on her life in October 2007.

Read more about Questions Concerning the Murder of Benazir Bhutto: Who killed Benazir Bhutto?

Why Israel Didn’t Win

Adam Shatz, 6 December 2012

The ceasefire agreed by Israel and Hamas in Cairo after eight days of fighting is merely a pause in the Israel-Palestine conflict.

Read more about Why Israel Didn’t Win

Short Cuts: The Book of Destruction

Eyal Weizman, 6 December 2012

In the course of the eight-day aerial bombardment of Gaza by Israel – using drones, F-16s and Apache helicopters – more than 1350 buildings were hit. They included military depots,...

Read more about Short Cuts: The Book of Destruction

Dirty Little Secret: The Programme Era

Fredric Jameson, 22 November 2012

The secret Mark McGurl discloses is the degree to which the richness of postwar American culture (we will here stick to the novel, for reasons to be explained) is the product of the university...

Read more about Dirty Little Secret: The Programme Era

Short Cuts: Seismologists on Trial

Thomas Jones, 22 November 2012

It was a hit and a miss for the Italian courts in October. On the one hand, in Milan, Silvio Berlusconi was convicted of tax fraud, sentenced to a year in jail, ordered to pay damages of €10...

Read more about Short Cuts: Seismologists on Trial

In the Land of the Free

Christian Lorentzen, 22 November 2012

Mitt Romney has now joined Bob Dole, Michael Dukakis and Walter Mondale in the political void that awaits any rejected American presidential nominee who doesn’t care to linger into...

Read more about In the Land of the Free

Diary: In Thessaloniki

Mark Mazower, 22 November 2012

I arrived in Thessaloniki at the end of October, one hundred years almost to the day after the Greeks marched in to claim the city, ending centuries of Ottoman rule. I’d been invited to a...

Read more about Diary: In Thessaloniki

Jack Straw was one of the longest serving ministers in the history of the Labour Party. He spent 13 years in office, as home secretary, foreign secretary, leader of the House of Commons and...

Read more about ‘Wisely I decided to say nothing’: Jack Straw

A Pillar Built on Sand

John Mearsheimer, 8 November 2012

In response to a recent upsurge in tit for tat strikes between Israel and the Palestinians in Gaza, Israel decided to ratchet up the violence even further by assassinating Hamas’s military...

Read more about A Pillar Built on Sand

Burning Up the World: ExxonMobil

Luke Mitchell, 8 November 2012

Forecasters in ExxonMobil’s strategic planning department predicted in 2005 that the only thing that would prevent growing demand for oil (and, not incidentally, growing profits for ExxonMobil) would...

Read more about Burning Up the World: ExxonMobil

Stiffed: Occupy

David Runciman, 25 October 2012

‘We are the 99 per cent’ is a brilliant slogan and an increasingly successful brand, but it’s a half-baked idea.

Read more about Stiffed: Occupy

On Wall Street

Astra Taylor, 25 October 2012

On 14 September, students, faculty and staff at Pace University received the following email: Monday, 17 September is the first anniversary of Occupy Wall Street. As a precautionary measure,...

Read more about On Wall Street

Heathrow to Canary Wharf: Crossrail

Nick Richardson, 11 October 2012

It took sixty years for the supporters of Crossrail, the new railway being built under London, to convince Parliament it was worth the investment. Recession scuppered the project twice, in the...

Read more about Heathrow to Canary Wharf: Crossrail

Western Recklessness

Hugh Roberts, 11 October 2012

Libya no longer has – or is – a state. The political field throughout most of the Middle East and North Africa is dominated by the various fiercely competing brands of Islamism, while...

Read more about Western Recklessness