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

ARMED Forces Minister James Heappey said at a Conservative Party fringe meeting that Britain would probably have to “hold its nose” and do a deal with the Taliban.
Addressing a packed meeting on Afghanistan, the minister showed how far the Conservative leadership is drifting away from the “neoconservative,” interventionist approaches they embraced after September 11 2001.
Heappey was addressing a meeting of Conservative Friends of Afghanistan, which was “marking the 20th anniversary of British troops in Afghanistan,” but did so like the wake for a failed policy.

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