Press release me, let me go

Why can’t we get a little bit of openness from the Chinese authorities? I know it’s a bit of a Groundhog Day -type question, but it is Friday afternoon and surely I’m allowed to show a bit of frustration! Anyway, why am I asking this...

Tory MP Philip Hollobone has tabled a private members' bill which would ban Muslim women from wearing burqas or full-face veils in public places. Reportedly the bill has very little chance of becoming law, as the main parties aren’t...

Open any newspaper on any day and you will almost certainly read an article thats criticising the government in one way or another. Whether it be the governments stance on immigration, on the economy or even on the human rights of...

Systematic failings from the police over investigating a series of rapes and sexual offences perpetrated by a sexual predator in a car – the Kirk Reid case has an unpleasantly familiar ring. Yes – it’s like the John Worboys case , the...

If in Britain we’d recently had major unrest with hundreds – possibly thousands – of people killed in apparently ethnically-motivated bloodletting, I don’t think we’d have conducted a polite referendum on the constitution within a...

As regular readers of this blog will know – both of them! – the topic of Israel and Palestine has a marked tendency to polarise opinion (see Sebastian and Alex’s epic, Wimbledon tennis-like exchange in the comment thread for a recent...

While queuing to buy a paper at my local newsagents this morning I noticed Michael Jackson’s greatest hits were being played in the background. It took me a little while to clock that as well as the shop owners being Jacko fans, they...

The epic stand-off on Wimbledon’s court 18 yesterday, made compelling viewing as the two men battled it out under the gaze of a sweltering, yet captivated audience, trying desperately to commit the players’ names and ever ascending...

No longer run by the mad dog of Tripoli (in Ronald Reagan’s infamous phrase ) but by a “reformed” Muammar Gaddafi, an elder statesman of the Middle East, Libya has recently been rebranding itself. To put it mildly, Libya used to have...

First, a confession – I’m very late with this blog and many of you may already have watched the film concerned (it aired on BBC Newsnight last Thursday). “ No place like home ” is a powerful documentary that looks at the reality of...

As I’m sure you noticed, the media coverage of the recent execution of Ronnie Lee Gardner in Utah, USA was unusually extensive. A casual observer might have thought “Right. This must be a big thing”, but in actual fact it was just the...

The uncertainty of not knowing Who should play in goal for England against Algeria in the World Cup tonight has been the subject of much speculation. Should Robert Green be given another chance, or should he be replaced by David James...

Tomorrow is B day. All eyes will be on Burma as “The Lady of Burma” celebrates her 65th birthday, her 15th under arrest. There has been a great deal of coverage on Burma and Aung San Suu Kyi today, and the gallery of intimate images on...

Thousands of children in Turkey, some as young as 12, have been prosecuted under anti-terrorism legislation, solely because they’ve been accused of taking part in demonstrations which the government says support terrorism. The demos...

Imagine, like poor Alan Bennett, you’re the victim of a street theft. Someone accosts you, tricks you and steals all your money. You’d be shaken up. You might feel a fool, thinking you’re even partly responsible. Self-reproachingly...

North Korea will take to the pitch tonight, for their first appearance in world cup finals since 1966. In something of a David and Goliath fixture, they will take on Brazil in their opening match. The bookies did not take long to call...

In the aftermath of the England-USA goalkeeper debacle, I was sitting in a pub reading match reports on my phone, thinking … how far removed the Kyrgyzstan crisis felt from all the World Cup chat. (BTW, if you thought I had something...

I admit it. I know absolutely nothing about football. I don’t know my penalty-kicks from my corners. But that said, I always enjoy the World Cup. It’s the buzz, the spirit of national camaraderie and the general jubilant atmosphere...

The first time someone told me about a human rights-free zone, it sounded like some sort of utopia that had been happened upon. Then I saw it in print, and there was a hyphen, not a comma. Amnesty published a report today, ‘ As if Hell...

Iran is in the headlines once again today, as the UN Security Council prepares to vote on tougher sanctions against the country in response to its nuclear programme. But a report from Amnesty today urges that political considerations –...