A new mortal threat confronts civil liberties in the Western world. This is not, as you might think, the use of torture and detention without trial by the US and its allies.
Bank runs were supposed to be a thing of the past, relics of the Victorian era or the Great Depression of the 1930s. But last weekend customers queued to withdraw a reported £2 billion from Northern Rock.
One of the few genuinely democratic moments of the past few years came in May and June 2005, when the European Constitution was thrown out by referendums in France and the Netherlands.
"Where are the students on the rampage?" Polly Toynbee asked plaintively in the Guardian recently. "Compare this inertia with the fury over Vietnam back in the late 1960s, when Britain had no troops in that war.
George Bush’s administration continues to try to tighten its vice around the Islamic Republican regime in Iran.
What's started to happen to global financial markets is very serious. Also, to anyone who knows the history of capitalism, it’s very familiar.
The world economy has been floating on a sea of cheap credit for much of the present decade. The sharp falls on global stock exchanges last week may have marked the moment when the financial markets realised this era is coming to an end.
There's a case for saying that the two by-elections on Thursday last week weren’t particularly good news for any of the three major parties. The biggest loser was David Cameron with the Tories pushed into third place in both Sedgefield and Southall.
Gordon Brown’s first few days in 10 Downing Street have been marked by his determination to tippex Tony Blair out of history and distinguish himself politically from his predecessor.
Some time next year more people will live in cities than in the countryside. According to the State of the World Population report published last week by the United Nations (UN), humankind is experiencing a second great wave of global urbanisation.
Bild, Germany's equivalent of the Sun, proclaimed the country’s chancellor, Angela Merkel, "Miss World" at the end of last week’s Group of Eight summit. It’s hard to see why she is so popular.
The US strategy in Iraq is in flux. George Bush’s generals say the "surge" in US troop numbers will continue into spring next year.
