VIJAY PRASHAD looks at the web of militias and drug-trafficking gangs that emerged in the Sweida region through the Syrian civil war, and how they relate to recent clashes and Israel’s intervention

IN 1956 General Nasser, the ruler of the newly independent Egypt, nationalised the Suez Canal. It runs through Egypt, was dug by forced Egyptian labour and legally belonged to the Egyptian state.
Britain, France and Israel responded by sending in gunboats, warplanes, paratroopers and marines to grab the canal back and try to overthrow Nasser. Egyptian troops fought back.
The US, Russia and the United Nations opposed the imperial adventure. Britain, France and Israel were forced into a humiliating retreat, with nothing to show for a couple of hundred deaths among the invaders and over a thousand Egyptian civilians and soldiers killed.

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

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

US General Stanley McChrystal has been invited to advise on creating a ‘team of teams’ for healthcare transformation. His credentials? He previously ran interrogation bases where Iraqis were stripped naked and beaten, reports SOLOMON HUGHES