My new Free Range column, Far from Flanders Fields, on Remembrance Day: Accounts of Canadian John McCrae, who wrote In Flanders Fields, suggest a man steeped in the romance of war. But it’s at Ypres, where he wrote the poem in 1915, that my imagination falters,
DEBORAH JONES: FREE RANGE Published November 11, 2013 Accounts of Canadian John McCrae, who wrote In Flanders Fields, suggest a man steeped in the romance of war. McCrae was a physician as well as a poet, and also a warrior so dedicated that after
Increasingly dangerous chest-thumping by Japan and China has its origins in Beijing, which fears American-led efforts to contain China, argues international affairs columnist Jonathan Manthorpe. Excerpt: Miyako Island, usually known as Japan’s best beach and snorkelling holiday destination, is now on the
JONATHAN MANTHORPEPublished: November 8, 2013 Miyako Island, usually known as Japan’s best beach and snorkelling holiday destination, is now on the front line of the increasingly militarised confrontation with China as Tokyo orders the deployment of anti-ship missiles to the island. The
Happy 100th to Albert Camus, who made art of rebellion and rendered the absurd lucid. Camus the writer left a trove of ideas. Excerpts from The Plague/La Peste: “We refuse to despair of mankind. Without having the unreasonable ambition to save men,
Thailand is roiled by political intrigue, street protests and royal scandal. International affairs columnist Jonathan Manthorpe explains why an amnesty bill is unlikely to change this state of affairs: No end is in sight to the torrid and bloody turmoil that has
JONATHAN MANTHORPEPublished: November 6, 2013 No end is in sight to the torrid and bloody turmoil that has engulfed Thailand’s public life for almost a decade, as the country’s senate prepares to reject an amnesty law that would allow ousted prime minister
On Wednesday an American, a Russian and a Japanese will board a Soyuz spacecraft and blast up and out of earth’s atmosphere, to join six others in orbit on the International Space Station. For those of us left behind, stifled in our fug of petty
There’s a fuss in Britain and North America over plastic shopping bags. Compared to all the critical local and world issues it’s just silly. And it’s also an example of individual consumer “rights” being defended to the nth degree, trumping common goods
There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.
