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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Escalating the war: the West’s responsibility for the slaughter in Syria
Arming the Syrian rebel forces only exacerbated and prolonged the civil war, says IAN SINCLAIR
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
DESPITE the carnage and intense anger created by the US-led wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, Somalia and Pakistan, many prominent commentators and politicians repeatedly pushed for the West to step up its intervention in Syria.
In 2012 Emile Hokayem, a senior fellow for Middle East security at the Institute for Strategic Studies, wrote an article titled “Arm Syrian rebels to enable [a] political solution.”
Three years later human rights activist Peter Tatchell was campaigning for what he called “Syrian democratic forces” to be given anti-aircraft missiles and Kurdish forces to be supplied with “heavy artillery, anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles against Isis.”
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