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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Ukraine and its people deserve our solidarity – in words and deeds
We must back the provision of humanitarian and military support for the defence and reconstruction of a sovereign nation invaded by a larger neighbour, argues GMB general secretary GARY SMITH
Tatiana Alexeyevna mourns over the coffin of her soon Colonel Oleksiy Telizhenko during his funeral in Bucha, near in Kyiv, Ukraine, Tuesday, October 18, 2022. In March, Colonel Oleksiy was abducted by Russian soldiers from his home in Bucha, six months later his body was found with signals of torture buried in a forest not far away from his village
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
THE unpredictability of war is its only constant. As I write these lines the Russian offensive against Ukraine has stalled.
Armoured divisions lie abandoned and burned out all along the roads to Kiev. Frightened and unwilling conscripts — disproportionately drawn from the eastern regions of the Russian Federation — are being funnelled into a war of attrition and slaughter, poorly trained and increasingly badly armed — in the pursuit of war aims that have all but withered away in the face of Ukrainian resistance.
Vladimir Putin’s dreams of conquest — of taking Kiev in time for a May Day victory parade — have dwindled to a brutal, and consciously brutalising, resolve to fight a war of attrition in order to hold modest territorial gains adjoining the Donbas and to preserve the gains won, in the Crimea, in 2014.
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