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Wednesday, 20 February 2008

  • Leading Article: There must now be no return to military rule
    Thursday, 21 February 2008

    Meanwhile, the two biggest parties to emerge from the vote, Nawaz Sharif's Muslim League and the People's Party of the late Benazir Bhutto, are ready to do a deal, which would give them control of a majority in Parliament. The new government will hav...

  • Leading Article: Clumsy steps in the wrong direction
    Thursday, 21 February 2008

    So what exactly does this mean? A Home Office Green Paper proposes a hike in visa application fees to create a "transitional impact" fund. The details are unspecified but we are told that the purpose of this fund would be to "ease the pressures" caus...

  • Leading article: Departure of a dictator who had outlived his times
    Wednesday, 20 February 2008

    Mr Castro has staged his departure in several acts. He submitted his provisional resignation at the end of July 2006, when he was about to undergo surgery, and he handed temporary power to his younger brother, Raul. In an open letter last December, h...

  • Clifford Coonan: China can no longer paint itself as a victim
    Wednesday, 20 February 2008

    Spielberg's decision to walk away from the Games was not significant in terms of the spectacle itself; he had a purely advisory role to the great Chinese director Zhang Yimou, and his input would have been minimal. But the move is important in markin...

  • Letters: An invisible group of Muslim women suffers under sharia law
    Thursday, 21 February 2008

    Some of the most aggressive and misogynist views I have heard are from women wearing the headscarf. The first question likely to be asked of girls or women suffering domestic violence in the Muslim community, is what they did to cause their family/hu...

  • The Third Leader: When the going gets tough...
    Thursday, 21 February 2008

    Post-poll analysis showed that she lost ground among less educated voters and lower earners, and had only a bare majority among women. Mr Obama had made serious encroachments into her hitherto most reliable support. Is it curtains, then, for the Clin...

  • Letters: Beijing Olympics
    Wednesday, 20 February 2008

    This is not to ask companies to criticise governments, but to support internationally agreed principles to which almost all governments, including China, pay at least lip service. More than 100 major transnational companies cite the UDHR as a basis f...

  • Leading article: A suitable case for treatment
    Wednesday, 20 February 2008

    Trafford Healthcare Trust has been struggling with cash problems for several years now. It is facing a £7m deficit by the end of March 2009 unless it gets spending under control. And now it has been forced to borrow £3m from the Department of Health ...

  • David Hepworth: These silly awards are pop's most absurd anachronism
    Wednesday, 20 February 2008

    One look at the members of Chumbawamba throwing water over John Prescott, KLF apparently machine-gunning the retreating figure of Sir George Solti, Jarvis Cocker invading Michael Jackson's stage to wave his nether regions at the King of Pop, or any o...

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