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

JF: BACK IN 2010 while working as a central government press and communications officer, I interviewed one Manouche Shafik, then head of the now defunct Department for International Development.
Fast-forward 14 years and I see her name again, this time at the heart of the maelstrom surrounding the current US student protests in support of the Palestinians that are gripping the country.
Shafik, now president of Columbia University, called in the New York Police Department (NYPD) last week to break up the encampment that has inspired a host of other protests on campuses all over the US. The charming lady I met, who gave me a delightful interview on how to achieve a good work/life balance, and whose CV includes posts as illustrious as deputy governor of the Bank of England, deputy managing director of the IMF, and vice-president of the World Bank, now finds herself besieged by students and faculty alike as the wave of protest rages on.





The Trump government is seizing overseas students from their homes and campuses and even off the streets, with no legal grounds and no due process, writes LINDA PENTZ GUNTER


