Pick of the Web
Iraq: has the prospect of war faded?
Iraq’s presentation of documents to United Nations weapons inspectors, and the US’s muted response, is the current focus of world attention. Yet amid the flurry of diplomacy and propaganda, has the risk of war really diminished? The current military deployments and strategic aims of the US suggest an answer.
'Hairlines' goes to China - from the Tang dynasty to present-day Beijing
New and ancient poetry and images will be added to this space over the coming weeks and months. In the latest issue, we go to China.
A question of trust: Iraqis, the US, and regime change
Many Iraqis are sceptical about US plans for their country. The recent history of actual or attempted regime change in Iraq explains why.
Making history: South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission
Can society’s need for healing override the search for justice? The apartheid system that murdered Gillian Slovo’s mother faced its crimes not in a courtroom, but in a Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) hearing. In making her experience part of South Africa’s search for the truth of its past, she explains how the country’s innovative TRC helped reconcile it to its devastating wounds.
Leaving aside the huge policy issues involved for any nation emerging from dictatorship, emotional barriers also have to be overcome.
Man or Mouse?
Following the shock revelation that a man–mouse hybrid is on the way, Dr Richard Rodent speaks exclusively to anyone who will listen.
Modern hunters must link arms
Hunters in Britain are challenged by legal bans and animal rights campaigns. They need an imaginative leap over mental boundaries, by reaching out to native peoples such as the Bushmen/San, now facing harsh modernity without any right to choose. Is it possible to create a new, global narrative that joins both types of hunter in a shared defence of human rights and fragile wildness?
Iraqis plan a post-Saddam future
Iraqi exiles in London, of all backgrounds and opinions, are coming together in a major conference to chart a political way forward for their homeland. It is the latest in a long series of such efforts. Can this one work?
Protection, defection, and destruction
Bush eats greens, Putin washes in vodka, and caviar slips off the menu
Iraq: why we want the argument
openDemocracy is committed to exploring arguments at their strongest – without taking sides.
The Internet is bad for democracy
We are still lulled by complacent enthusiasm for e-democracy. Unless we are vigilant, we could have a monster on our hands.
Bring out the beast: body hair in China
On the margins of civilisation and in the mists of evolution lurk hairy
barbarians, furry primates and wild men. But why the fascination? Is it
about getting back to our roots, or a fear of the beast within?
Lessons from Mombasa: al-Qaida's long-term strategy
The deadly attacks on Israeli targets in Kenya are part of a rising trend of operations by al-Qaida and its affiliates. Their clear lesson is that the group is thinking for the long term. Does the United States understand its enemy?
10 x Ten: Kiarostami's journey
Ten: the latest film of Abbas Kiarostami tells stories of love, pain, divorce, womanhood and everyday humanity through conversations between a Tehrani woman and the passengers she picks up in her car. In London, openDemocracy’s Farsi-speaking intern talked to Iran’s leading film director and Ten’s actress Mania Akbari.
Between fear and hope in Kurdistan
Our columnist leaves Tehran for Iraqi Kurdistan just below the no-fly zone. The Kurds she meets have carved out a precarious life free of Saddam’s rule. But they are yet to break his hold on their minds and memories.
The Baku-Ceyhan oil pipeline: BP replies
A huge new oil and gas project in a highly sensitive region will bring wealth and development, says BP.
Saddam is a real threat
The best way to judge the threat of Saddam Hussein to the world is to examine his record. Saul Landau’s polemic, long on irrelevant facts, avoids this task precisely because the record points in one direction: the Iraqi dictator must be stopped.
R.N.: shadow under the Congolese sun
A young, privileged woman of the Republic of Congo had found a place in an unsettled society. But a change of regime threw her into a spiral of distrust, arrest, torture – and exile.
Shooting Clint
In the dead-pan humour of this story by a young Israeli cult author, published here in English for the first time, the violence of the Arab–Israeli war is there, but not there.
Postcards from the edge
From French diplomacy to Canadian insults.
Global Grey Goo and the Faustus Road
What does the global publishing industry have in common with trash science fiction? And can microbiology succeed where international negotiations on climate change fail? But first, a word on Baku-Ceyhan
This week's editor
Europe from the bottom up
European debate
Democratic Wealth
Nuclear non-proliferation
oDRussia at journalismfestival .com
Mali - the plot thickens
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Remote control war
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Conference coverage from 50.50
Articles exploring the themes of the fourth international Nobel Women's Initiative conference May 28-31. Jennifer Allsopp and Heather McRobie will be reporting for 5050
Articles exploring the themes of the fourth international Nobel Women's Initiative conference May 28-31. Jennifer Allsopp and Heather McRobie will be reporting for 5050
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Paul Rogers on Global security
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Lis Howell On broadcasting
Dan Hancox Revel, Riot and Rebellion
Martin Rose Bliss Was It in that Dawn to Be Next Door
Vron Ware Up in Arms
Jim Gabour Sunday Comics
James Warner Standing Perpendicular, as books do
Markha Valenta Inter Alia: religion, politics, culture
Paul Rogers on Global security
Mary Kaldor on Human security
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