Middle East
Coke and Carob
JULIA Gillard has denounced the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement ahead of anti-Israeli protest action planned at the University of NSW today.
Against free markets
The term that is. There seem to be few usages that are a greater barrier to clear thought and debate than free markets. Whether used as a term of sneering abuse to create straw-person arguments or as a slogan of the right and proper, it is ready-made to close minds and abstract away from the issues that do matter; such as the complex questions about the proper lines between private action and public rules.
No spring for shiite Syria
Robert Fisk’s unsentimental analysis of Assad’s strengths As long as Syria can trade with Iraq, it can trade with Iran and, of course, it can trade with Lebanon. The Shia of Iran and the Shia majority in Iraq and the Shia leadership (though not majority) in Syria and the Shia (the largest community, but not [...]