Politics

By Lock Bailey Iraqi-Kurdistan President Barzani turned down a White House invitation last month.  Barzani has asked the American government for years to remove the Kurdish people from Washington’s terrorist list yet he has been denied each time.  Barzani’s refusal to visit sends a clear plea: The Kurds are not terrorists, but a peaceful people long oppressed and victims of genocide. In 1988, at the tail end of the eight year war between Iraq and Iran, Saddam Hussein and his Ba’ath pilots...

By Tim Stacey from The Equality Trust This week is Budget week and there’s been plenty of talk about the tax and spending changes that could be announced. These include increasing the personal tax allowance, which is talked about in terms of helping ‘low earners’, and raising the starting point for the 40p tax rate, which is believed to help those on ‘middle incomes’. The focus of these tax measures, and usage of these terms, suggests a slightly skewed view is present...

The abominable human rights questions being raised over gay marriage will fall on deaf ears until we start asking the right question. Equality has never been the issue. There’s some bizarre notion that members of the clergy come out in a rash when confronted with same-sex marriage, wielding their crucifix and throwing holy water at the door to protect the church against a new ‘fad’ that is sure to fade in the same way the punk rock movement’s brand of...

By Lock Bailey If opposites truly do attract, then there could be no better chemistry than that of US President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. Unfortunately, opposites make the poorest couplings in foreign relations—and Bibi and Obama prove this true. Obama is quite left and Netanyahu is quite right, to understate these antipodal leaders. Netanyahu showed favor in Republican nominee Mitt Romney in the 2008 elections, for example (years earlier the two of them worked in The...

By Lock Bailey One may criticise the United States' involvement in other countries and in other regions' affairs and do so justifiably. Yet often within the very same condemning breath one may also plead for the United States' involvement and intervention in another area of the world. The Civil War in Syria is one such tragedy that yells such ambivalent commands to the doorstep of the White House. The Syrian Civil War rolls steadily on - this month marks the third...

By Haridos Apostolides, US Correspondent  Hillary Rodham Clinton will run for President of the United States in 2016 OK. It’s not confirmed yet, but it does seem fairly certain; Hillary Clinton will run for presidency in 2016. There won’t, of course, be an announcement for another twelve months or so as the focus for now will most likely be on the midterm elections in November as the Democrats and Republicans try to regain control of the House and Senate respectively. Already,...

By Tomás McGoldrick, Ireland Correspondent The recent Vision Critical poll of people in what could be known as ‘rest of the UK’ found that 62 per cent wanted Scotland to stay in the Union and 38 per cent are happy to see Scotland go it alone. It would have been interesting to see results from Northern Ireland separately as politicians and the public there have started to wake up to the possible ramifications of Scottish independence. Some unionists have called Alex Salmond...

By Joe Mellor, Deputy Editor As Viktor Yanukovych became the world’s most wanted man, the US declares Ukraine is “under new management.” But could this inflammatory language further damage relations with a wounded Russia? Ukraine's interim President Olexander Turchynov has warned of the dangers of separatism following the ousting of President Viktor Yanukovych. Many in Ukraine's Russian-speaking regions oppose his overthrow and the installation of a more European-leaning interim administration. Yanukovych, like recently unseated Egyptian leader, Mohamed Morsi, was democratically...

By Luca Foschi “Plain living and high thinking,” declared Italy’s incoming Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, quoting William Wordsworth during his speech at the Democratic Party’s (PD) national assembly on February the 13th. He entered the rooms of Via del Nazareno in Rome as Mayor of Florence and Secretary General of the government’s ruling party, a position he gained with a landslide victory in December’s primary elections. “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I took the one less traveled by”,...