Politics
-
UK Drugs Trade - Smugglers Get Creative
Drug smugglers are trying inventive new tactics. Can border police stop the illegal trade into the country? And are they targeting the wrong people?
-
An emergency budget for turbulent economic times
Yesterday’s Budget – full of severe cuts to services and tax rises – was presented as unavoidable given our economy’s dangerous position. But where do the real risks lie?
-
Bloodstained riches: Zimbabwe’s diamonds
New finds have sparked a diamond rush in impoverished Zimbabwe. But are the diamonds a mainly a lifeline to prop up a tyrannical regime?
-
Israel loosens its 3-year stranglehold on Gaza
International pressure has forced Israel to ease its blockade on the Palestinian territory of Gaza. Could this be a step towards lasting peace?
-
Burned alive: the deadly politics of central Asia
In a small and distant country, a spate of vicious ethnic killings are being linked to a struggle between the world’s superpowers and a Russian bid to win control.
-
Cheap as chips? Not any more, warns the UN
The UN has issued a warning about poverty, malnutrition and the rising cost of food. What’s pushing up the prices? And can we avoid a global disaster?
-
The horror of an army turning on its own people
In 1972, British soldiers killed 14 Irish protestors in the city of Derry. Yesterday an exhaustive inquiry declared the protestors totally innocent.
-
Life without mangoes, bananas or flights to Paris
A group of global experts has worked out that Britain could cut 637m tonnes of greenhouse gases within 20 years. But life would be very different.
-
The price of sexist insults versus the wounds of war
The award of a potential £575,000 to a policewoman for years of sexist abuse has unleashed a storm of indignation from war veterans and popular newspapers.
-
The lost millions: 43.3m are now displaced worldwide
It’s Refugee Week, and the number of displaced people is at its highest for 20 years, with 80% housed in developing countries. Is Britain shirking its responsibility?
-
Army chief gets the boot, as Afghan war heats up
A change at the top signals a new approach to the war in Afghanistan. But can this battle really be won? And should we be fighting at all?
-
The cruellest cut — or a brave new world?
Beneath the endless gloomy headlines about job losses and closures there lurks an ideological argument about the role of the state in the future of Britain.
-
The World Cup — can it be worth all the fuss?
Should the eye-watering sums spent on the planet’s biggest event – not to mention the time and effort that goes into it – be diverted to more worthwhile causes?