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Sunday, 7 December 2008

  • Leading article: Not just charity, but justice too
    Monday, 8 December 2008

    That is why, for The Independent's Christmas Appeal this year, we have focused on three charities which do not simply ask us to give money to dig a well or send drugs to a needy clinic in the Third World. Rather they ask – extending the fishing metap...

  • Leading article: Debate must be about more than the Speaker
    Monday, 8 December 2008

    Today, MPs – who have been gagging for their say since the affair erupted – will finally be given the debate they want. On the face of it, the motion is simple. It calls for the setting up of a committee to investigate the police raid on Mr Green's C...

  • Cormac Murphy-O'Connor: Why is religious belief seen as a private eccentricity?
    Monday, 8 December 2008

    This unfriendly climate for people of all religious faiths has led to the recognition that what we have in common as Christian believers is infinitely more important than what divides us, a consideration that now applies not only to the Christian chu...

  • Leading article: Faith and reason
    Monday, 8 December 2008

    Among the arguments he makes in the article we print today, the Archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, notes that one effect of the privatisation of religious belief in recent years has been to diminish what he calls the social "...

  • Donald Macintyre: Is Tzipi Livni ready to take the risks needed to secure peace?
    Monday, 8 December 2008

    In Washington last week, Tony Blair optimistically repeated that the Israeli Palestinian conflict can be solved. It wouldn't be a Blair speech if several of its assumptions weren't open to question. But few would quarrel with his implicit appeal to B...

  • Mikheil Saakashvili: Ask the Russians why Georgia hasn't been stable
    Sunday, 7 December 2008

    My government is especially grateful for the UK's support and for David Miliband's encouraging words on our economic and political reforms. As President of Georgia, I will do everything necessary to meet the requirements of the alliance. As we prepar...

  • Dr Mark Salter: A distraction from the fight against addiction
    Monday, 8 December 2008

    Alcohol problems are endemic in society, 20 per cent of us are drinking too much and one in 20 of us are dependent on alcohol, but society doesn't want to face up to the scale of the problem. The reasons that people drink are wide-ranging and complex...

  • Independent Appeal: Change, not charity, is this year's message
    Monday, 8 December 2008

    The world's poorest people need more than charity at Christmas. That is why The Independent Appeal this year is doing more than asking readers for money to help dig a well or send drugs to a needy clinic in the developing world. The three charities w...

  • Samantha Bond: Acting lessons from a six-year-old
    Monday, 8 December 2008

    Then again what I am referring to is working with the children in the BBC1 comedy series Outnumbered. And I don't think that the way these children are required to act in the show has ever been tried before. Suddenly everyone is talking about Outnumb...

  • Katy Guest: If that Obama phones again, get rid of him
    Sunday, 7 December 2008

    The Florida congresswoman has not ended up where she is today by falling for just any charmer who claims to be the president-elect of the United States. So when she received a call on her mobile phone last week, and a voice announced that Mr Obama wo...

  • Maria Neira: If we improve our health care, we can beat climate change
    Monday, 8 December 2008

    This is not sufficiently forward thinking. We know that current climate-related threats to human health can be avoided or controlled by relatively routine and inexpensive public health measures. Furthermore, awareness of the significant health benefi...

  • Elizabeth Nash: Here is a land where democracy is valued
    Monday, 8 December 2008

    The sound is that of Madrilenos queuing to enter the Congreso, or parliament building, which holds annual open days in early December in honour of Spain's post-Franco democratic constitution of 1978. In a nation filled with state-sponsored festivitie...

  • Matthew Bell: The IoS Diary
    Sunday, 7 December 2008

    Just over a month ago, life was looking bleak for Raj Persaud, the TV shrink who became a star after years of appearing on 'This Morning'. After being found guilty of plagiarism he was forced to quit his post as consultant at a leading London hosp...

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Day In a Page

Andrew Mitchell: 'It's no good feeling hard done by'

Andrew Mitchell: 'It's no good feeling hard done by'

In his first interview since 'plebgate', the former Chief Whip opens up just enough to concede that, in politics, you have to take the rough with the smooth
Corruption and the FCO: Blue skies, white sands, dark clouds

Corruption and the FCO: Blue skies, white sands, dark clouds

Special report: Met police call for criminal inquiry into former diplomat's Cayman Islands rule
Fallen angel: Winona Ryder on bouncing back from her decade in the wilderness

Fallen angel: Winona Ryder bounces back

She owned the 1990s... but then she disappeared. Now, Ms Ryder is back with quite the bang in her latest role, as the wife of a notorious real-life Mob hitman.
Roman Polanski shakes Cannes Film Festival

Roman Polanski shakes Cannes Film Festival

The director's new film, 'Venus in Fur', is one of the raciest on offer
Rev Richard Coles: 'I don’t have any concerns that God is cross with me for being gay and eventually the Church won’t either'

Rev Richard Coles on the Church and homosexuality

The mellifluous, erudite and witty Coles is the nation's most pop-culture-friendly priest
'Baghdad likes to live from crisis to crisis': Civil war looms in Iraq

Patrick Cockburn: Civil war looms in Iraq

The governor of Kirkuk - one of the country's most violent but successful provinces - fears the worst
Written on the body: Tattooists at pains to point out their artistic credentials

Written on the body

Tattooists at pains to point out their artistic credentials
Conquering Everest: 60 facts about the world's tallest mountain

Conquering Everest: 60 facts about the world's tallest mountain

The IoS marks the sixtieth anniversary of Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay first reaching the peak of the highest mountain on Earth
A new, and irreversible, Dust Bowl looms

Rupert Cornwell: A new, and irreversible, Dust Bowl looms

The destructive power of tornadoes will be as nothing once the Great Plains' vast underground water reserve dries up
Every creature's needless death diminshes us all

Philip Hoare: Every creature's needless death diminishes us all

A 60 per cent decline in our national species should alarm us, yet few of us act. But to mind more about animals would reflect well on society
Killing with kindness: Burma's religious battleground - and the monks at the heart of it

Killing with kindness: Burma's religious battleground

Six years ago, the world cheered the monks behind Burma’s Saffron Revolution. Now, a horrific new eruption of religious slaughter is being blamed on a 'Buddhist Bin Laden'.
Let's take it outside: Bill Granger's Bank Holiday feast

Let's take it outside: Bill Granger's Bank Holiday feast

You can’t always depend on the weather – but you can avoid the pitfalls of the British barbecue by preparing an elaborate outdoor feast indoors ahead of time...
The Calvin report: Stirring Champions League final shows how far English game must advance

The Calvin report

Stirring Champions League final shows how far English game must advance
10 big questions for the British & Irish Lions to answer

10 big questions for the British & Irish Lions to answer

Warren Gatland's squad fly Down Under aiming to do justice to the expectations – and hoping the Wallabies stay in the pub
The Last Word: Golf must end the hypocrisy before its halo slips totally

The Last Word

Golf must end the hypocrisy before its halo slips totally