There have been penalties for those who looked the other way when Epstein was convicted of child sex offences and decided to maintain relationships with the financier — but not for the British ambassador to Washington, reveals SOLOMON HUGHES
Blindly legalising cannabis would be a mistake – but there’s plenty we can get out of it
Labour’s new Treasury unit will ‘challenge unnecessary regulation’ by forcing nominally independent bodies like Ofwat to bend to business demands — exactly what Iain Anderson’s corporate clients wanted, writes SOLOMON HUGHES
DR DYLAN MURPHY looks at a Big Brother Watch report which exposes the government as an enabler of DWP secret spying on benefit claimants
The EU faces a critical choice: will it remain in the shadow of an increasingly unreliable US ally, or will it forge its own path in a multilateral world where co-operation with China is essential, asks MARC VANDEPITTE as leaders meet for the EU-China Summit
A lot of discussion about how the left should currently organise – including debate on whether the Green Party is a useful vehicle for advance – runs the risk of refusing to engage with or learn from the reasons the left was defeated previously, argues KEVIN OVENDEN
For Egypt trade trumps the Israeli genocide of the Palestinians, but how long can the country’s ‘misleaders’ – and others in the region – continue their indifference against the popular will of their own people, asks ROGER McKENZIE
WHILE cannabis’s potential for harm has been well-documented and numerous studies show some therapeutic benefits of medicines synthesised from the drug, the British government is reviewing the law on medicinal use of cannabis.
Man’s relationship with marijuana goes back millennia. Most ancient cultures were acquainted with the drug and hemp crops were first grown over 10,000 years ago. The Chinese used cannabis for medicinal purposes 5,000 years ago, followed by other ancient civilisations including the Egyptians, Greeks, Romans and medieval Arabs who also used the drug to treat a wide array of ailments.
Cannabis has been associated with both love and war — the legendary Arabian Nights folk tales note the narcotic’s aphrodisiac properties, while the Hashshashin (“hashish smoking”) warriors, a 11th-13th-century Shi’ite sect based in Persia, from which the English word assassin mistakenly derives, were given cannabis to induce a hypnotic state and eliminate the fear of death. More recently, during World War II US scientists found a potent extract of marijuana that could be used as a truth serum.
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TOMASZ PIERSCIONEK explores the overlaps between the ideas of Christ and Karl Marx in seeking a better world for the poor and downtrodden
The WHO has now recognised the damage that addiction to computer games does as a disease — and thanks to ‘loot boxes’ the problem can also be financial, writes TOMASZ PIERSCIONEK
It is clear the great powers have no end in sight for the war: toxic munitions that will last even longer than the conflict are the last thing the territory needs, writes TOMASZ PIERSCIONEK
