Opinion and Analysis

03.02.2007 Functionally, the iPhone is nothing new. But if it takes off, it could herald a transformation of new media, says John Browning.

02.02.2007 By withholding economic aid from Palestinian government institutions and trying to pressure Palestinians into rejecting Hamas, the US and its allies have contributed to a humanitarian disaster, weakened their Palestinian friends and strengthened Hamas' legitimacy, argues Iain Guest.

31.01.2007 There will be one certainty after the Racial and Religious Hatred Act comes into law next month: the first case to test the new law will be brought by one religious group against the other, says Padraig Reidy.

30.01.2007 On 26 February Liberal Democrat peer Baroness Miller will introduce the second reading of the Public Demonstrations Repeal Bill, an attempt to claw back some of the rights to protest lost after the enactment of the Serious Organised Crime and Policing Act in 2005. She talks to Padraig Reidy.

28.01.2007 The political will exists to combat China’s pollution, but collusion between business and local governments remains a major obstacle. Jianqiang Liu asks: who is really harming the country’s interests?

05.01.2007 David Krieger looks at "an amazing and important commentary" on nuclear weapons by four architects of the Cold War: George Shultz, William Perry, Henry Kissinger and Sam Nunn.

13.09.2006 What state secret was investigative journalist Greg Palast filming a hundred miles from New Orleans?
Behind barbed wire in a trailer park encampment still survive 73,000 Katrina evacuees. Greg filmed the adjacent Exxon Oil refinery, wanting to give a sense of the full flavor and smell of the place. For this he was charged by the Department of Homeland Security in the US.

20.08.2006 If fundamentalism thrives on fear and perceived injustice, can the political debate afford to ignore the conditions faced by Muslims locally and globally? Gary Younge in the UK's Guardian newspaper argues that facing the crisis caused by the war on terror is not indulgent but intelligent.

20.08.2006

Daniel Nelson

The balance of power is not based on political friendships but strategic alliances. Has Israel's latest performance stimulated a rethink in Washington? Daniel Nelson considers the question.

18.08.2006 Thirty-three days of war. On the Israeli side: 154 dead - 117 of them soldiers. On the Lebanese side: about a thousand dead civilians, thousands wounded. An unknown number of Hezbollah fighters dead and wounded. More than a million refugees on both sides.
So what has been achieved for this terrible price, asks Uri Avnery.

17.08.2006 Israel’s absolute power of deterrence is over, according to MIFTAH’s Editor. This Palestinian initiative for democracy thinks the war has marked a watershed in Israel's position in the Middle East.

16.08.2006 If Israelis had faced an enemy like Hezbullah in 1948, the outcome of its War of Independence might have been different, says Charles Glass in the London Review of Books.

15.08.2006 President Bashar al-Assad states simply: the Lebanese Hezbollah guerrilla army has, in effect, won this round of its war with Israel. This, according to Robert Fisk of the Independent, is the simple truth. And the truth, according to him is something that no other Arab leader has chosen to speak in these past five weeks.

14.08.2006 George Monbiot in the Guardian asks, who loses from this war? According to him it's the people of Lebanon and northern Israel. But not Hizbullah, who are now proclaimed as heroes in Muslim nations across the Middle East. Not Bush or Blair, for whom every attack by terrorists is a further vindication of their war on terror. And not the Israel Defence Forces who can now demand more resources and greater powers.

14.08.2006 The real war in Lebanon begins as the ceasefire takes effect, writes Robert Fisk of the UK's Independent newspaper. He believes that Israel is now facing the harshest guerrilla war in its history and that they might well lose.

26.06.2006 "My name is Mohammed Sokor, writing to you from Dagahaley refugee camp in Dadaab. Dear sir, there is an alarming issue here. People are given too few kilogrammes of food. You must help." The UN World Food Programme receives a direct appeal from a disaster zone in the Horn of Africa.
*OneWorld UK's Mobile for Good

05.04.2006 Thailand’s prime minister made a spectacular gamble - and lost. Jan McGirk reports from Bangkok.

31.03.2006 The tension of expectation is building in Zimbabwe as people’s misery becomes unsustainable. Will this be the year for change, wonders Mary Ndlovu.
* OneWorld UK Guide to Zimbabwe

30.03.2006 Kathryn Wolford, president of Lutheran World Relief, discusses how, in order to meet global challenges, US relief organisations are increasingly turning to political advocacy as part of their development strategy.

28.03.2006 Since Maoist forces ended their four-month ceasefire in January, Nepal’s 10-year civil war has engulfed the entire country, placing the civilian population at risk and hindering the development of the impoverished countryside. A Human Rights Watch briefing paper examines the conflict.
* Nepal: Human rights crucial at dangerous political crossroads
* OneWorld UK Guide to Nepal