Liberian information minister Laurence Bropleh continues to make a stalwart but surprising defence of his government’s targeting of the Monrovia...
Minister’s naughty threesome with state, press and free speech
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CATEGORY: Comment
Armenians and the meaning of genocide
Two resolutions, one introduced in the House in January and in the Senate in March, seek to recognise the events of 1915 as genocide, but the...
Censorship Complementing Cover Up
Ever since Peter Brooke as Northern Ireland Secretary of State made his 1990 statement that Britain had no selfish strategic interest for remaining...
Russia: Diary of the discontented
We are going to Moscow on Thursday evening. There are a few meetings arranged there. I could have gone at the very beginning of the week but was...
‘Weddings And Beheadings’
‘The abduction of Alan Johnston in Gaza is cruel and terrifying. However, we don’t honour persecuted journalists and writers around the...
Troubled times in Gaza
When Ariel Sharon declared his intention to withdraw Israeli settlers from Gaza in 2004, the Palestinian leadership was quick to declare its...
Kurt Vonnegut (1922-2007) – Literature as encouragement
‘I doubt that literature has ever triumphed over repression. I think of Hitler in his bunker, with a pistol at his temple and with the Red Army only...
‘We don’t need no badges
The world of blogging, and particularly political blogging, has grown massively in the past few years. As blogging itself reaches its tenth...
Ban on niqab veils in UK schools not enough
British Education Secretary Alan Johnson’s announcement this week that head teachers are free to ban schoolchildren from wearing the niqab (full...
Failure to challenge religious censorship will carry a severe price
On the Saturday before Christmas 2004, the Birmingham Repertory Theatre in Britain’s East Midlands was in a state of siege. Children who had come...