Since Ahmad al-Sharaa came to power in Syria, the Damascus government has been given carte blanche to use maximum force against any threat to its continued rule, writes VIJAY PRASHAD

“IMPOSSIBLE you say? If it is impossible we must start at once,” was Margaret MacDonald’s response to naysayers, doubting her latest scheme for the advancement of socialism.
Impossible wasn’t really a concept she had much time for. It’s a dull inevitability that today she is remembered mainly as the wife of prime minister Ramsay McDonald; there was a bit more to her than just that.
Margaret Gladstone was born in London in 1870, the daughter of a chemistry professor who was one of the founders of the YMCA.

The heroism of the jury who defied prison and starvation conditions secured the absolute right of juries to deliver verdicts based on conscience — a convention which is now under attack, writes MAT COWARD

As apple trees blossom to excess it remains to be seen if an abundance of fruit will follow. MAT COWARD has a few tips to see you through a nervy time

While an as-yet-unnamed new left party struggles to be born, MAT COWARD looks at some of the wild and wonderful names of workers’ organisations past that have been lost to time

Timeloop murder, trad family MomBomb, Sicilian crime pages and Craven praise