After three weeks of shelling and with over 1,200 people killed and more than 5,000 wounded, the Israeli bombardment of Gaza is finally, or at least temporarily, over. All reports describe the peace as fragile, with Hamas demanding...

Dreams From My Father, Barack Obama , (Paperback, 464 pages, Canongate Books, rrp £8.99, available £4.99) On Tuesday I will go along to Queen’s University Belfast for an event, to be addressed by the United States Consul General, Susan...

Mumia Abu-Jamal was convicted and sentenced to death in July 1982 for the murder of white police officer Daniel Faulkner on 9 December 1981. Although he has consistently maintained his innocence he has spent almost all of the last 26...

Ive written in this blog before that Im a very cautious Obama-ite. (Booo!) With due acknowledgment of the historic and symbolic significance of a black American of (half) Kenyan parentage actually becoming US president (a big change)...

This evening at 8 pm there is a programme on BBC Radio 4 in the series, Investigation . It looks at the Human Rights Council of the United Nations. Does the Council protect human rights or does it shelter governments that abuse rights?