SOLOMON HUGHES highlights a 1995 Sunday Times story about the disappearance of ‘defecting Iraqi nuclear scientist.’ Even though the story was debunked, it was widely repeated across the mainstream press, creating the false – and deadly – narrative of Iraqi WMD that eventually led to war

THE other day I read a riposte on Facebook in response to a pro-socialist comment: “Why, if capitalism is so bad are so many people clamouring to be let into the USA, UK and other developed capitalist countries?”
A comment that cannot be easily brushed aside. Of course, the tragic irony is that most of those thousands of would-be immigrants are fleeing areas that have been devastated by precisely those “super-capitalist” countries to which they are attempting to flee.
The overwhelming majority of those are, ironically, fleeing countries with capitalist systems but where the elites behave more ruthlessly and are not restrained by traditional democratic or legal structures.

JOHN GREEN recommends a German comedy that celebrates the old GDR values of solidarity, community and a society not dominated by consumerism

JOHN GREEN welcomes an insider account of the achievements and failures of the transition to democracy in Portugal

Mountains of research show that hardcore material harms children, yet there are still no simple measures in place

Peter Mitchell's photography reveals a poetic relationship with Leeds