Transparency records reveal senior trade officials held dinners and strategy meetings with the notorious lobbying firm even as controversy over its Epstein links deepened, says SOLOMON HUGHES
THE word flower in the Azerbaijani language is written like this: “Gul.” Were you to change the first letter to a Q, then it would read:“Qul,” which means slave.
One night three years ago, the then 21-year-old journalism student Qiyas Ibrahimov and his friend Bayram Mammadov decided to use this particular quirk of their mother tongue to make a political point.
“May 10 every year is celebrated as the founder of our autocratic regime Heydar Aliyev’s birthday,” Ibrahimov says.
MOHAMMAD OMIDVAR, a senior figure in the Tudeh Party of Iran, tells the Morning Star that mass protests are rooted in poverty, corruption and neoliberal rule and warns against monarchist revival and US-engineered regime change
International solidarity can ensure that Trump and his machine cannot prevail without a level of political and economic cost that he will not want to pay, argues CLAUDIA WEBBE
As Saudi Arabia is hailed abroad for its ‘reforms,’ the reality for women inside the kingdom grows ever more repressive. On the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, MARYAM ALDOSSARI argues it is time to stop applauding the illusion – and start listening to the women the state works hardest to silence



