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Jones: Memory and imagination in Flanders Fields

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, along with my tenuous grasp of McCrae’s identity and relevance, and my interest in the tiresome debate over the merits and meanings of his poem. Would McCrae have approved of being remembered today for In Flanders Fields? Ought his poem be left in peace as a product of his time and place? Mostly I wonder if McCrae’s soldiers would rest

Manthorpe on Pacific militarization by Japan and China

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 front line of the increasingly militarised confrontation with China as Tokyo orders the deployment of anti-ship missiles to the island. The deployment comes after weeks of aggressive naval and air force exercises by China, incursions by Chinese Coast Guard vessels into Japanese territorial waters around the disputed Senkaku Islands, and bellicose statements from both Beijing and Tokyo. Late

Albert Camus at 100

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, we still want to serve them.”  – – – “What on earth prompted you to take a hand in this?”“I don’t know. My… my code of morals, perhaps.”“Your code of morals. What code, if I may ask?”“Comprehension.” Camus the man — whose death at 46 in a car crash sparked conspiracy theories — left memories no less complicated:

Manthorpe on amnesty and exile in Thailand

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 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 Thaksin Shinawatra to return from exile. Since it was elected in 2011 the Pheu Thai Party government, led by Thaksin’s sister Yingluck Shinawatra, has been looking for the right moment to produce the highly

Looking up

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 squabbles and warmongering, it’s startling to remember that people can, sometimes, rise above polarized politics, zealotry, nationalism and government gridlock. The Soyuz launch from a Kazakhstan base can be watched online on NASA Television, or in New York, on a giant screen in Times Square, just after 11 p.m. EST. Meanwhile check out this image of Saturn, right, from cameras aboard the Cassini-Huygens

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