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
Latest editorial
Sending refugees back to hell with EU support
Piecing together the story from several documents provided by the EU following months of FOI requests, BEN COWLES exposes how the bloc’s supposed training of the Libyan coastguard has only made things worse
A photograph taken from the air of a sinking refugee dinghy in the central Mediterranean
[Ruben Neugebauer/Sea Watch]
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
Special report by PEOPLE’S WORLD
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
THE International Organisation for Migration (IOM) has estimated that 347 people have died trying to reach Europe while crossing the Mediterranean this year.
The central Mediterranean route (which stretches from war-torn Libya to Malta and the Italian islands of Lampedusa and Sicily) has been particularly deadly in 2020 so far. According to IOM Libya’s latest update 33 people have died on the route this year and 135 people are still missing.
Perhaps more concerning is the uncertain fate of at least 4,500 people the IOM says were pulled back from the central Mediterranean to Libya in the past six months — mostly by the country’s coastguard.
Similar stories
A society that grows accustomed to ‘undesirable’ people also grows accustomed to undesirable deaths. Minneapolis serves as a wake-up call, including for our own refugee policies, writes MARC VANDEPITTE
