Fownhope’s Heart of Oak Society traces its roots to the age of friendly societies, when communities provided their own safety net. Its anniversary celebrations reveal a tradition still very much alive, says MARK SEDDON
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Watching an EU-sanctioned breach of international human-rights law
Last month the crew on board the NGO rescue ship Sea Watch 3 saw Libyan Coastguard intercept migrants attempting to flee the country's humanitarian disaster. MINA NAGUIB, a volunteer doctor on board the ship, talks to Ben Cowles about the incident
Mina Naguib (centre) and his fellow volunteer doctor attend to a rescued refugee on board the Sea Watch 3
ANGUS REID explains the significance of Cuba’s egalitarian in letter and spirit Family Code and the pertinent lessons it holds for democracies anywhere in the world
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NICK WRIGHT considers how the isolation of Israel and a new film on the controversial Italian communist leader are creating new reference points for Italy’s left
CARLOS MARTINEZ says Cuba’s achievements in the face of a criminal blockade are startling, but the island’s future if the United States succeeds in crushing it looks bleak
AMNON BROWNFIELD STEIN reports that far-right MPs who mobbed the event organised by Hadash may have helped raise awareness of the brutality of the Israeli right
IN JANUARY, Mina Naguib and the crew on board the civil migrant-rescue ship Sea Watch 3 witnessed an EU-sanctioned breach of international human-rights law.
“On the morning of the 9th, early in the morning, we heard information of a boat in distress,” says Naguib, an emergency-medicine doctor based in Manchester who was volunteering as a medic with the German charity Sea Watch.
But by the time the Sea Watch 3 arrived at the co-ordinates, the so-called Libyan Coastguard was in the process of intercepting the boat and, presumably, returning the refugees on board to the humanitarian disaster they’d risked their lives to escape.
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