Opinions

As the Obama family heads to their annual summer vacation on Martha’s Vineyard, perhaps the president should take along a copy of “Catch-22” for some beach reading. Joseph Heller’s classic, satirical antiwar novel, published in 1961 and based on his…

I and Oliver Stone both spoke at Hiroshima on the anniversary of the first nuclear bombing in human history and we are slated to speak in two days at Nagasaki on the anniversary of the second nuclear attack. My speech…

On October 17, 1931, Alphonse Capone was sentenced to 11 years in prison. Not because he was head of the Chicago underworld, Mafia capo who ran prostitution, illegal gambling and smuggling of alcohol. Not for the death of his competitors,…

“What a dangerous edifice War is, how easily it may fall to pieces and bury us in its ruins,” wrote Carl von Clausewitz, the 19th-century Prussian general and military theorist, in his seminal text “On War,” close to 200 years…

At the heart of all politics lies cold, hard opportunism. New circumstances, changed alliances and unexpected events will always conspire to alter one’s calculations to benefit a core agenda. In the Middle East today, those calculations are being adjusted with…

The UK National Health Service (NHS), one of the most efficient and value-for-money healthcare organisations in the world is no more. We may still talk about it as if it were around but the final blow to its existence, appropriately…

By Ryan Crocker* The awful conflict in Syria grinds on, with more than 100,000 dead and no end in sight. The calls to “do something” – anything – become louder: arm the rebels, enforce a no-fly zone, send in the…

The governing Popular Party (PP) is on a crusade – not only against fundamental rights such as health, education, housing, work, but also against sexual and reproductive freedoms. The PP wants to impose a model of society, not only at…

By Johan Galtung In this column, Johan Galtung, rector of the TRANSCEND Peace University and author of ‘The Fall of the US Empire – And Then What?’, writes that the future holds many possibilities for humankind, from the rise of…

Malala Yousafzai was shot in the head last year by a member of the Taliban whilst on a bus after school in order to silence her campaign for girls’ education. She was 15 at the time and had started campaigning…