DECEMBER

. . . gets off to a troubling start , with the worsening situation in Iraq worsening faster than ever. The nation’s hopes for a solution are pinned on the Iraq Study Group, a presidentially appointed blue-ribbon panel consisting of five Republicans, five Democrats and the Wizard of Oz. In accordance with longstanding Washington tradition, [...]

The Top Ten Stories You Missed in 2006

You saw the stories that dominated the headlines in 2006: the war in Iraq, North Korea’s nuclear tests, and the U.S. midterm elections. But what about the news that remained under the radar? From the Bush administration’s post-Katrina power grab to a growing arms race in Latin America to the new hackable passports, FP delivers [...]

How human rights always lead to human wrongs

Jeremy Bentham described the Declaration of the Rights of Man by French revolutionaries as “nonsense on stilts”. Nice rhetoric, but ultimately unsuccessful. Since 1789 the idea of human rights has thrived. It now even has its own day. This year’s Human Rights Day, was dedicated to the war on poverty.
Bentham was right. The idea [...]

Kama Sutra and feral cats

To understand contemporary Russia, consider its airports

WORKING as a journalist in Russia, with its eleven time zones, its endless steppe and perpetual taiga, means spending a lot of time in the air. It involves flying in planes so creaky that landing in one piece is a pleasant surprise —then disembarking in airports so inhospitable that [...]

Foreign medics sentenced to death in Libya trial

Libyan court has sentenced five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor to death for knowingly infecting hundreds of children with HIV in hospital in Libya. The verdict, reached on Tuesday, has been widely condemned by the international community.

The defendants burst into tears as the judge passed sentence, while the families of the children in [...]

9 Body Parts You Didn’t Know Had Names

1. EPONYCHIUMAnother term for the cuticle of the fingernail, a narrow band of epidermal tissue that extends down over the margin of the nail wall.2 FRENUM GLANDIS Found in the male reproductive system, this delicate fold of skin attaches the foreskin to the undersurface of the glans penis.3. GLABELLA A flattened area of the frontal [...]

Welcome to the new holy land

They come to Britain in their hundreds of thousands, the poor of Africa, Asia, South America and eastern Europe, all seeking refuge, asylum or just a better life. And for many, the first port of call is the Catholic Church. Together they form a diverse new flock that is revitalising – and reinventing – the [...]

Put that in your stocking

A ‘traditional Christmas’ is just one part of our national identity that’s in danger, cry the purists, but what do they mean? As four books suggest, ‘Britishness’ is about as real as Santa Claus, says Rafael Behr Britishness is a bit like Father Christmas. So many people talk about it as though it really exists [...]

‘How to Read a Novel: A User’s Guide’:Criticism for Beginners

So much for the death of the book. People have been predicting the demise of the hardback for over a century now — in his novel “The Time Machine” (1895), H. G. Wells imagined whole libraries turned to dust — but if book production is anything to go by, Wells was a worrywart. In [...]

The A-Z of Atheism

Heaven A word found in the lyrics of Cole Porter; a nightclub in Villiers Street, London WC2 (above); a word that designates a state of bliss such as might be found in the arms of a lover; a place on earth, according to Belinda Carlisle. A
Agnostic Those who neither affirm nor deny the existence of [...]