Russian national pride has been badly dented by poor performance at the winter Olympics. It is being widely read as a political failure, reflecting the effects of corruption, and a regime which promotes PR over professionalism
The BBC is not just one of Britain’s best-loved institutions, but also one of its most political. After a year of sniping from both Labour and Conservative front benches,
A film called Honey took top prize at the 60th Berlin Film festival, presided over by Werner Herzog, this year’s jury supremo. And there were six more prize-winners…
I am astonished at the way Bullygate is being seen as simply a distracting non-scandal of a sideshow.
We should take the charges against Brown and his New Labour culture
Chittagong Hill Tracts shaken by riots and arson. India and Pakistan take steps to rebuild their relationship. Niger leaders rule themselves out of elections. Darfur rebels contradict president’s claim that the war is over. All this and more in today’s briefing.
On the occasion of the 150th anniversary of Chekhov’s birth, his English biographer Rosamund Bartlett celebrates the writer’s last days in Yalta, and leads the campaign to restore his house
Freedom is the goal rather than the ground of human rights. But freedom is also essentially dependent on others and other cultures. Achieving the conditions for freedom - human rights - is humanity's overriding moral obligation.
As French President Nicolas Sarkozy attempts to drive through a ban on the niqab and burqa, Laurie Penny describes how the Islamic veil has become yet another item of women’s clothing for men to fight over for their own ends
A spell-binding history of cannibalism in the middle ages: its use as a propaganda tool, and place in Christendom's self-image; the cannibal as a philosophical hypothetical, and a justification for colonialism; and Richard the Lionheart's fondness for "Saracen's head's all hot"
Throughout Russian and Soviet history, the intellectual has played a central and hugely influential role in society. Today, that has changed. A recent internet vote on the country’s most influential intellectual saw instead postmodern ambiguity emerge victorious, writes Lyubov Borusyak
What's depressing is the film's theory of value
