Barack Obama's inauguration speech: full text and video
Read and listen to the US president's second inaugural address.Vice President Biden, Mr. Chief Justice, Members of the United States Congress, distinguished guests, and fellow citizens:Each time we...
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The inauguration speech: Obama’s “come and have a go” moment
Since December's school shooting in Connecticut, the President's voice has a new edge to it - a hardness, a determination, an aggression and a volume.You can read the full text of Obama's inauguration...
View ArticleI loved Obama's speech unreservedly. So there
Obama gave a well-written, brilliantly delivered, and - for the US - subversive inauguration speech. Why was the reaction of many UK progressive commentators so hysterically cynical?I sometimes get the...
View ArticleShould prostitution be legalised in France?
Back from Paris where she has been interviewing prostitutes, politicians, police, and feminists who argue both for and against legalising prostitution, Valeria Costa-Kostritsky asks whether legalising...
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Things you may not know about the Israeli elections
Did Bibi hide stolen money in his socks? Will Donald Trump bring Mid East peace? And other important questions... The rise of the right-wing dominated Israeli election coverage this year, but many...
View ArticleSeething discontent in the Horn of Africa: Eritrea's strange "coup"
A further crack in an unpredictable and repressive regime.At around 10am on 21 January a contingent of Eritrean troops stormed the state television station. They rounded up the staff – all employees of...
View ArticleHolland’s high life under threat
Questions are being asked about the viability of Holland's liberal drug laws.In Amsterdam in November last year, hundreds of people gathered at a warehouse in the north-east of the city under a fug of...
View ArticleThe revolt of the Sheikh
What role will the ‘Ulama’ – the Syrian oppositional scholars – play in a post-Assad Syria? Muhammad Al-Yaqoubi has become one of Syria’s leading opposition scholars (Ulama). Before the uprising...
View ArticleIs the new IF campaign trying to ‘Make Poverty History’, again?
The development community must be brave enough to have an honest debate with the public and with politicians about the difficulties and challenges of aid, as well as its benefits.With the Enough Food...
View ArticleThe People's Republic: the rise of civil disobedience in Egypt
As Egypt celebrates the second anniversary of the 25 January revolution, cities are threatening to declare independence from central government.On the second anniversary of Egypt's 25 January...
View ArticleFrom the Archive: Naomi Wolf's Our Bodies, Our Souls
For the 40th anniversary of Roe v Wade - which legalised abortion in the US - the New Statesman is republishing Naomi Wolf's provocative 1995 essay, which argues that the pro-choice movement is...
View ArticleHas Israel shifted further to the right?
The latest election results analysed.Billed as Israel’s decisive shift to the right, the election to the nineteenth Knesset merely represents treading-water. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promises...
View ArticleThe secret war in Balochistan
The Pakistani province is beset with violence.On 10 January, two bomb blasts ripped through a snooker hall in Quetta, Balochistan, killing 86 people and injuring 120. Most of the dead were Hazara...
View ArticleHugo Chávez: Man against the world
As illness ends Hugo Chávez’s rule in Venezuela, what will his legacy be? Richard Gott argues he brought hope to a continent.This piece was originally published as part of a cover package in the New...
View ArticleHugo Chávez: An elected autocrat
He kept power by bullying those who dissented – and his departure leaves a dangerous vacuum.This piece was originally published as part of a cover package in the New Statesman magazine, alongside an...
View ArticleMali: now for the hard part
As David Cameron visits Algeria, it seems that Downing Street is only now realising just how long-term a project defeating the Islamist rebels in North Africa will be.David Cameron’s visit to Algeria...
View ArticleEurope: democracy, or barbarism?
An open letter to Angela Merkel.Dear Madam Chancellor,Yours, more than any other country, bears the responsibility for the crimes of national socialism. Yours, more than any other country, has...
View ArticleWe don’t make our country stronger by forcing refugees into desperation
When women come to our shores for help, we owe them a chance to rebuild their lives, writes Natasha Walter.Today a document was published that contains more misery, line by line, than one can easily...
View ArticleLeader: Cameron should not seek to be the heir to Blair in North Africa
Shortly after his election as Conservative leader, David Cameron is said to have described himself as “the heir to Blair”. Rarely has this sobriquet seemed more appropriate than in the days following...
View ArticleLeader: Obama prepares to fight dirty
In November last year, President Obama said, after a screening of Steven Spielberg’s biopic of Abraham Lincoln: “Part of what Lincoln teaches us is that to pursue the highest ideals and a deeply moral...
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