Politics

ECOLOGY

Environmentalism is a Humanism by Niccoló Milanese

One of the most significant changes in behaviour associated with environmental consciousness is the now pervasive regard for the provenance and mode of production of the goods that we buy. With every product, we are at least capable of asking where, how, under what conditions and with what consequences was it produced, and take the answers to those questions seriously. [subscribe]

FUTURE OF FEMINISM

Pro-Life Feminism by Liz Hoskings

Instead of fighting for equality on their own terms, women have been forced into adapting themselves to a wombless, male world. Feminists have also capitulated to the values of the libertarian playboy, which view women as sexual objects to be used and discarded. It is no coincidence that the Playboy Foundation has been one of the biggest financers of the ?pro-choice? movement. [more]

Portrait of a Heroine as a Young Woman by Ayaan Hirsi Ali

The biggest obstacle that hinders Muslim women from leading dignified, free lives is violence ? physical, mental, and sexual ? committed by their close families. [subscribe]

AID & TRADE

Development After Doha by Susan Kramer

The failure of the Doha trade round signifies a serious failure for developing countries. Although their leverage was limited even at Doha, the middle-income and least developed countries will have even less of a voice as WTO negotiations are replaced by regional and bilateral trade deals. This comes at a time when developing countries are increasingly looking at trade as a route out of poverty. [more]

POLITICS

Orange & Yellow: Bookends in Time by Paul Marshall

Everyone loves a good political biography, but far fewer have the appetite for works of political economy. They are for political anoraks, and so require good branding and marketing ? ?Orange? books and ?Yellow? books, even ?Little Red? books. The Yellow Book and Orange Book are two constrasting offerings of political economy from within the liberal tradition, separated by 75 years, and offering very different policy prescriptions. [subscribe]

COLUMNS

Anatole Kaletsky on Gordon Brown and the Left

Is Gordon Brown far to the left of Tony Blair? Will Brown, an unrepentant socialist, abandon the ?New Labour? project? Will the Blair-Brown transfer of power signify a return to the miserable days of Old Labour? With the Blair government in its death-throes, these are the questions that will dominate British politics in the year ahead. [more]

THE MIDDLE EAST

As the dust settles...Israel by Daphna Baram

For many Israelis, the 1973 Yom Kippur War was a major shock and the cause of great disillusionment: the fact that Israel was attacked by surprise, that the performance of the army was embarassingly poor, and that the political and miliary leaders embarked on a campaign of mutual recrimination, left a nation feeling orphaned. [subscribe]

As the dust settles...Lebanon by John Thorne

In the spring of 2005, shortly after the Cedar Revolution, I sat with a close friend, Ramy, on his balcony overlooking Beirut. The city lay serene before us, as if resting from the exertion. ?We are free?, Ramy explained, ?and we are responsible: now we have to build the Lebanon we dream of?. [subscribe]