SOLOMON HUGHES recommends Sunjeev Sahota’s recent novel set in a trade union election campaign for its fresh approach to what unites and divides workers, but wishes the union backdrop was truer to life
THE 1991 annual report from Amnesty International should be required reading for all media studies and journalism students.
“The Iraqi government headed by Saddam Hussein had been committing gross and widespread human rights abuses” in the 1980s, including using chemical weapons, the human rights organisation explained.
The report goes on to note that Amnesty International publicised gruesome evidence of the atrocities and appealed directly to the UN security council in 1988 to take urgent action. “However, the world’s governments and media took only token interest, and none of the UN bodies took action.”
History shows from Iraq to Libya, and now Iran, that regime-change fantasies rarely deliver stability — but they always deliver human and economic cost, says MARYAM ESLAMDOUST



