We must consider alternatives to criminalisation and incarceration of people who use drugs, and focus criminal justice efforts on those involved in supply. We should increase the focus on public health, prevention, treatment and care, as well as on economic, social and cultural strategies. –Ban Ki-moon, former UN Secretary-General, on World Day Against Drugs, 26 […]
This is the official press release for an important film on the urgent need for drastic changes in the world’s food and farming practices and for accountability and consequences for those who have exploited the planet for profit and contributed to the deaths of millions. Robert Golden, director of the 90-minute film This Good Earth, […]
Several writers, including West Country Voices’s Tom Scott and Sadie Parker, have drawn attention to the disturbing parallels between the anti-democratic activities of Trump in the USA and Johnson here. Many, however, are reluctant to accept that Johnson is in effect Britain’s Trump, despite the fact that this dubious accolade was bestowed by none other […]
Catrina Davies discovered her true self in Europe. In September she left Cornwall for Portugal, from where she reflects on severance, belonging and betrayal. When I was ten my parents took me and my sisters to France for a week. We drove onto the ferry at Plymouth, all squashed into our Citroen AX, disembarked in […]
Both in the USA and the UK, citizens are being asked to set aside their horror and outrage at domestic events – the Trump putsch there, the Covid-19 death toll and post-Brexit chaos here – and ‘come together’ for the sake of the country. How dare the perpetrators ask this of us? I was prompted […]
Judging by the liveliness of social media platforms well into the night, as 6 January rolled into 7 January on the European side of the Atlantic, half the UK was glued to CNN – watching agog as insurrectionists invaded government offices in Washington D.C. They stormed the Capitol building, the heart of American democracy, equipped […]
In my own small way, I was caught out by the closing of the borders the weekend before Christmas. Matt Hancock ran around Britain’s TV and radio studios telling stunned presenters and audiences that Covid-19 was “out of control” in London and the South-East. That’s the modern-day equivalent of screaming it from the rooftops. It […]
The US president’s descent into lunacy and fascistic violence holds a lesson for the UK. It was not so hard to predict that Donald Trump’s rage at having lost the US election would lead inexorably to violence, and I was one of several to do so a few weeks ago. The story is not over […]
I had begun an article on the confirmation of more hopeful signs for democracy in the USA coming from the run-off elections in Georgia…and not because Democrats won, but because the long hard effort to secure voter engagement right across the electorate had paid off. I will return to the subject, because there are important […]
While argument rages over whether Cornwall should have been assigned to Tier 1 of the government’s social distancing regime, little attention has been paid to the US company operating the meat-packing plant in Cornwall which has been at the centre of a major outbreak of Covid-19. Tom Scott lifts the lid on its grim record […]
Hello everyone. Time for one more instalment of my humble reportage from America about our healthcare system as I have come to know it and experience it. As I have said before, I am very lucky to have the insurance that I do, but if there is one area where I am likely to “lose […]
Like many others I have spent all too many hours recently gazing at CNN, willing those voting numbers to change, and remove President Trump from the White House. In the process I have learned a great deal about the geography, sociology and politics of the United States, thanks to their excellent and informative coverage. This […]
The relief, and even joy, at Joe Biden’s win in the US elections has been somewhat tempered by the spotlight it has shone on something that has been lacking in our politics for years, but is now more obvious than ever by its absence. Respect. And by that I mean respect for the opposition. As […]
Leading historians of fascism are warning that Trump will stop at nothing to retain power, and there are ominous signs that he is preparing for violence. What is the point of history is we do not learn from it? It’s a question that’s been very much on my mind in the aftermath of the US […]
The world – and its dogs – heave a sigh of relief as sanity and empathy triumph in the US Election. Trump was the first President for 130 years not to have a Presidential dog.
Lhasa is packed with pilgrims, poor country farmers and nomads who visit the monasteries and temples every winter. Their obeisance involves dragging themselves on their bellies across the square and round the temples, their knees protected by rags, their hands by wooden blocks. In the Potala, one-time palace of the exiled Dalai Lama, those who […]
Arching across the winter night sky from horizon to horizon is the silvery stream of the Milky Way, our galaxy of possibly half a trillion stars, the second largest of a family of about fifty galaxies that form the so-called Local Group. The Milky Way flows through ancient constellations: Canis Major, the great dog; Orion, […]
Greetings, everyone. We are enjoying a bit of Indian summer here with temperatures in the 80s, and far too many politicians invading our state. Now I had not really planned to write this article, but it just so happened that I received my Medicare summary notice today in the mail, and thought I would share some […]
Editor: When Priti Patel smirks her delight at the ending of free movement, she neglects to remind UK citizens that, whilst our European friends and neighbours have been denied the unfettered freedom to move to the UK, we have lost our rights to live, love, work and retire freely in the EU member states. 27 […]
Hear, interpret, respond: After deciphering what is going on behind the news, EuroDog decides to ride out the current storm until a silver lining turns up next week – paws crossed….
Editor: In a week when a former minister, Nicky Morgan, claims that name-calling from the opposition somehow justified Conservative MPs voting to deny poor children access to free meals, it’s clearer than ever that we must have electoral reform and put an end to playground politics. Caroline Voaden’s experience as an MEP allows her to […]
The tide is slowly turning in one of the early fronts of the culture wars, as scientific possibility and questions of personal freedom challenge the assumptions of an earlier generation. Throughout its history, on questions where private vice encounters the desire to create the perfect ‘city on a hill’, the United States has lurched between […]
Greetings from an election-weary Pennsylvania. I hope I haven’t lost you along the way, as I’ve tried to lead you to some understanding of how the American healthcare system works for senior citizens. In this ‘instalment’ I would like to talk about the costs of Medicare, what supplemental insurance is, and what it costs me. […]
Several recent events have raised urgent questions about the threat to our democracy from unscrupulous digital operatives. Disturbingly, these questions remain largely unanswered by a report this week from the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). Last week, Channel Four reported on a data leak from Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign that revealed how ‘Team Trump’ had worked […]
You’ve probably heard about ‘Obamacare’, but maybe not Medicare. They aren’t the same thing. I don’t know much about Obamacare except that it protects my insurance for pre-existing conditions: it is my only legal protection. There are so many provisions to it, but basically it is a resource to help people find some kind of […]
In the first of a new series of insights into other countries’ systems, John from across the pond gives us an appreciation of the complexities of health insurance in the United States. Greetings from across the pond. My name is John and I am a retired high school teacher from Pennsylvania. I am writing to […]
The US west coast is on fire, the hurricane season is off to an early start and in the UK a year of unseasonal weather has resulted in the worst wheat harvest in decades – yet more reminders that climate change is a pressing and immediate global crisis. And, as leaves fall and mists rise […]
Editor’s note: This article was written in Japan and offers a global perspective on this topical issue. Coronavirus has given society a peek into the future of capitalism – observes Karl O’Callaghan – and the global economic system needs a more people centred approach if it is to survive. Robbed of free-spending customers, economies have […]
Why do nations sometimes lurch into spectacular acts of self-destruction? A strange fervour that seized the Xhosa people of South Africa in the 1850s may shed some light on Brexit, writes Tom Scott. The history of southern Africa is not short on plunder, cruelty and betrayal. But as a student of it some years ago, […]
‘CIA! CIA!’ the man wobbling towards me on his bike shouted as I tried to take his photograph. It was a shock. My embarrassed companions moved me on. We were standing in the main road through a small village deep in southern Belarus in the early 1990s where foreigners were a rare sight indeed, probably […]