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
The US empire’s scramble out of Afghanistan
As Saigon marked the end of US geostrategic ambitions in Indochina, so Kabul marked the end of the same in central Asia. JOHN WIGHT reflects on Washington’s undignified Afghan exit, one year on
Taliban fighters celebrate one year since they seized the Afghan capital, Kabul, in front of the U. Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan, Monday, August 15, 2022
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
EMPIRES advance and empires retreat, though not in circumstances of their own choosing — to borrow from one Karl Marx — and certainly never smoothly or without upending entire regions, countries and societies in their wake.
With this in mind, what unfolded in Afghanistan a year ago with the panicked withdrawal of US forces to end Washington and its allies’ 20-year occupation of the country was a historic tipping point, a significant signpost pointing to US hegemonic and imperial decline.
In this respect, the chaotic and panicked scenes at Kabul airport, where US and British military forces hastily attempted to effect the evacuation of their own nationals still in the country, along with those Afghans who worked with them during the country’s occupation, drew comparison with Saigon in 1975. They did so with good reason.
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Mary Kom’s fists made history in the boxing world. Malak Mesleh’s never got the chance. One story ends in glory, the other in grief — but both highlight the defiance of women who dare to fight, writes JOHN WIGHT
The Khelif gender row shows no sign of being resolved to the satisfaction of anyone involved anytime soon, says boxing writer JOHN WIGHT
When Patterson and Liston met in the ring in 1962, it was more than a title bout — it was a collision of two black archetypes shaped by white America’s fears and fantasies, writes JOHN WIGHT
In the land of white supremacy, colonialism and the foul legacy of the KKK, JOHN WIGHT knows that to resist the fascism unleashed by Trump is to do God’s work
