GABRIELE NEHER draws attention to an astoundingly skilled Flemish painter who defied the notion that women cannot paint like men
America in Retreat
by Michael Pembroke
(Oneworld, £20)
IT TOOK newly elected President Joe Biden a little over a month before he authorised military strikes on Syria, allegedly in response to rocket attacks on US forces in Iraq.
A week later, his Vice-President Kamala Harris publicly declared opposition to a recently announced International Criminal Court probe into Israeli war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Biden’s election was supposed to mark an end to the rogue presidency of Donald Trump who, refusing to accept he lost the election, left office after rallying his supporters to storm the Capitol building on January 6.
Trump threatens war and punitive tariffs to recapture Iranian resources – just as in 1953, when the CIA overthrew Mossadegh and US corporations immediately seized 40% of the oil, says SEVIM DAGDELEN
International solidarity can ensure that Trump and his machine cannot prevail without a level of political and economic cost that he will not want to pay, argues CLAUDIA WEBBE
FRANCISCO DOMINGUEZ says the US’s bullying conduct in what it considers its backyard is a bid to reassert imperial primacy over a rising China — but it faces huge resistance



