SALMAN RAFI SHEIKH – Military creep: Pakistan’s federal system is being undermined by militarisation

In 2008, when Pakistan transitioned from nine years of military rule under Pervez Musharraf to an elected civilian government led by the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), many believed that Pakistan’s ‘culture of military coups’ was headed in a decisively more democratic direction. The transition came about as a result of the ‘Lawyers’ Movement’, a mass… Read More SALMAN RAFI SHEIKH – Military creep: Pakistan’s federal system is being undermined by militarisation

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Jonathan Steele: I came to Russia a political correspondent and left a crime reporter // Rafael Behr: 30 years after the Moscow coup, democracy is in a crisis of self-esteem

When Jonathan Steele moved to Moscow for the Guardian in 1988, the story of Mikhail Gorbachev’s reforms was getting “hotter and hotter”. But with all the restrictions on foreign journalists in the Soviet Union, the question was how to report it. The sources were mainly local journalists authorised to speak to foreigners or dissidents. The… Read More Jonathan Steele: I came to Russia a political correspondent and left a crime reporter // Rafael Behr: 30 years after the Moscow coup, democracy is in a crisis of self-esteem

Dilip

It’s now or never: Scientists warn time of reckoning has come for the planet

Heatwaves and the heavy rains that cause flooding have become more intense and more frequent since the 1950s in most parts of the world, and climate change is now affecting all inhabited regions of the planet. Drought is increasing in many places and it is more than 66% likely that numbers of major hurricanes and typhoons have risen since the… Read More It’s now or never: Scientists warn time of reckoning has come for the planet

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Mort Report: Non-Prophet Journalism // Covid 19: A Cri du Coeur From a Doctor-Diplomat Who Knows

Mort Report is a labor of love by old-style correspondents with lifetimes on the road and young ones with fresh eyes. Our philosophy is simple: we report at first hand with analysis based on non-alternative fact, not opinion.  If we get something wrong, we fix it. https://www.mortreport.org/ Covid 19 – A Cri du Coeur From a… Read More Mort Report: Non-Prophet Journalism // Covid 19: A Cri du Coeur From a Doctor-Diplomat Who Knows

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Mariam Veiszadeh: As an Afghan Australian, I watch in despair as the west cuts and runs / Afghanistan – “We Tried to Tell You” / Polly Toynbee: The Taliban’s victory in Afghanistan has laid bare the magnitude of western hubris

The anger and hurt many of us feel is palpable as the reality is that the Taliban would have not risen to have such power and influence, had they not had initial backing from western forces. Combined with a complex multitude of ethnic factions, a power vacuum, an already largely corrupt government weakened further by… Read More Mariam Veiszadeh: As an Afghan Australian, I watch in despair as the west cuts and runs / Afghanistan – “We Tried to Tell You” / Polly Toynbee: The Taliban’s victory in Afghanistan has laid bare the magnitude of western hubris

Dilip

‘The US should be held accountable’: Guantánamo survivor on the war on terror’s failure

“Tyrants in the Middle East, they took it as an example of the bad they can do. Now, in China with the Uyghurs, in Saudi Arabia and Yemen and Egypt, [they think they can] take people and just indefinitely detain, torture, kill and beat them simply by saying ‘they are extremists’. They say, if our boss [America] can do it,… Read More ‘The US should be held accountable’: Guantánamo survivor on the war on terror’s failure

Dilip

John Dower: How Americans Remember (and Forget) Their Wars / Simon Jenkins: It has taken 20 years to prove the invasion of Afghanistan was totally unnecessary

Some years ago, a newspaper article credited a European visitor with the wry observation that Americans are charming because they have such short memories. When it comes to the nation’s wars, however, he was not entirely on target. Americans embrace military histories of the heroic “band of [American] brothers” sort, especially involving World War II.… Read More John Dower: How Americans Remember (and Forget) Their Wars / Simon Jenkins: It has taken 20 years to prove the invasion of Afghanistan was totally unnecessary

Dilip

Simon Leys: AN EMPIRE OF UGLINESS (extract from The Hall of Uselessness, 2013)

An Empire of Ugliness (from The Hall of Uselessness: Collected Essays, pp 31-42)   EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY literature developed the new literary genre of the epistolary novel; I wonder if it would not be legitimate for me to propose now a new form of book review, the epistolary criticism, in which arguments are developed through an exchange of letters… Read More Simon Leys: AN EMPIRE OF UGLINESS (extract from The Hall of Uselessness, 2013)

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Gautam Mukhopadhaya: What Kabul means in Delhi

Three questions loom uppermost in the minds of observers in India. First, what accounts for the near-total capitulation of the 300,000-350,000 US and NATO trained and equipped Afghan Army and Police forces, the ANDSF, without much of a fight barring a few honourable exceptions in Lashkargah, Herat and Taloqan, against lightly armed insurgents estimated to… Read More Gautam Mukhopadhaya: What Kabul means in Delhi

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