Fownhope’s Heart of Oak Society traces its roots to the age of friendly societies, when communities provided their own safety net. Its anniversary celebrations reveal a tradition still very much alive, says MARK SEDDON
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UN heaps more shame on Britain’s role in Yemen
When the usually spineless organisation says British made bombs in Saudi hands are targeting civilians, the time to protest is overdue, writes FELICITY ARBUTHNOT
ANGUS REID explains the significance of Cuba’s egalitarian in letter and spirit Family Code and the pertinent lessons it holds for democracies anywhere in the world
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NICK WRIGHT considers how the isolation of Israel and a new film on the controversial Italian communist leader are creating new reference points for Italy’s left
CARLOS MARTINEZ says Cuba’s achievements in the face of a criminal blockade are startling, but the island’s future if the United States succeeds in crushing it looks bleak
AMNON BROWNFIELD STEIN reports that far-right MPs who mobbed the event organised by Hadash may have helped raise awareness of the brutality of the Israeli right
IT IS possible to speculate why Prime Minister David Cameron has declared it his mission to scrap the Human Rights Act.
It appears he simply does not believe in human rights. For example, the fact that Saudi Arabia executed (in some instances beheaded) 47 people in one day last month and displayed their bodies from gibbets didn’t deter Cameron from letting British military experts work with their Saudi counterparts.
Those experts advised on which targets and people to bomb in Yemen. Parliament has not been consulted; thus democracy too has been suspended. The fact that in May 2013 Saudi also beheaded five Yemenis and used cranes to display their headless bodies against the skyline also did not trouble him. Neither did the fact that by November 10 2015, the year’s total of executions had already reached 151, the highest for 20 years, in what Amnesty International called “a bloody executions spree.”
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