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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How a toxin weapons control initiative at the UN bombed
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
Special report by PEOPLE’S WORLD
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
ON March 22 two years ago, a country submitted for consideration by diplomats at the United Nations Conference on Disarmament meeting in Geneva an explanatory paper on its initiative on an international convention for the suppression of acts of chemical terrorism.
That country was the Russian Federation.
Article 2 of the proposed convention reads: “Any person commits an offence within the meaning of this convention if that person unlawfully and intentionally uses chemical weapon to commit an action intended to cause death to a civilian or any other person not taking an active part in the hostilities in a situation of armed conflict or to cause serious bodily injury, when the purpose of such action, by its nature or context, is to intimidate population or to compel public authorities or an international organisation to do or to abstain from doing any act.”
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