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Peter BachCounterPunch |
I came across Jack Kerouac’s The Dharma Bums in a chain bookshop at King’s Cross station. I was on my way to interview a radical publisher and...
Most discussions of Iran revolve around oil, escalation, and regime change. Yet Iran today feels easier to understand as part of a much older pattern....
The mountains always felt close when the aircraft lifted out of Kabul. During the Afghanistan war, Dubai became a strange airlock between two...
On Iran’s eastern flank, far from the Gulf states now in the crosshairs, another conflict continues to grow. Pakistan has declared what it now calls...
If you think about it, the world’s not that wide. It only feels that way on maps. It gets pretty narrow at key pressure points like the thin ribbon...
As the Buzzcocks sang in Ever Fallen in Love, “You spurn my natural emotions…” But I’m not talking romance here. I’m talking the spurning of...
In response to Ai Weiwei’s art, the Chinese authorities censored his exhibitions, erased his online presence, demolished his studio, confiscated his...
On Thursday 26 February 2026, the Gorton and Denton by-election could introduce to UK politics a register of despair not heard in Manchester since Joy...
When I was a child, the world felt vast enough to resist you. Things didn’t always work because you needed them to, and sometimes they refused. I...
The scale of industrial disputes currently taking place across the UK suggests a trade-union landscape in motion. Unions are depicted as more...
I have a friend drawn to mountains. When he isn’t in the UK, he’s usually somewhere in the Nordic region or the Himalayas, where he is now. It’s...
Nearly two years after Pope Francis’s unprecedented ecumenical pilgrimage to South Sudan, the country is once again sliding towards violence,...
Reza Pahlavi, the crown prince of Iran, released a video in Farsi last week calling on Iranians to go outside on Thursday and Friday evenings at 8pm....
In the recent Atlantic interview, Donald Trump reiterated that the United States “absolutely needs Greenland,” effectively renewing his push for...
The strained smiles and fixed expressions of European and Ukrainian leaders in London recently told their own story. President Zelenskyy met with Keir...
I have been thinking about what non-sensational facts about Europe may be overlooked in Washington—particularly as recent reporting suggests that...
The persistent rumours that imprisoned Pakistani politician Imran Khan is dead have been crackling away like Lahore firecrackers these past few weeks....
As scribes over here in the UK suddenly ask if the right-wing populist Reform party has peaked, I realise I know almost nothing about politics. Even...
Most of the creative people I know in the UK are resigned to an uphill struggle. Many work in a vacuum. The city is pocked with such voids. Sisyphus...
So Thom Yorke has just insisted Radiohead will “absolutely not” perform in Israel under Netanyahu. This marks a clear departure from their...
Nor is it helped by Trump’s habit of treating allies as optional accessories. We saw this last week with the favoritism shown to Hungary in the form...
Nor is it helped by Trump’s habit of treating allies as optional accessories. We saw this last week with the favoritism shown to Hungary in the form...
Brits often wrestle with their annual BBC licence fee. At £174.50 a year, it is no small cost in the current economic climate. Every payment creates...
‘When do you think Starmer goes?’ asked a friend last week, irate about the high arrest rate among non-UK nationals. In a Focaldata poll, at the...
Joseph Beuys on his lecture “Jeder Mensch ist ein Künstler – Auf dem Weg zur Freiheitsgestalt des sozialen Organismus” photographed by Rainer...
I saw a man crouched by the side of the road close to the railway station last week. I thought he’d dropped something. Then I saw he was holding a...
When the first Trump years ended, Jared Kushner did what many former officials only dream of—he turned his address book into a balance sheet. In...
“The truth is rarely pure and never simple,” wrote Oscar Wilde. That observation holds true for press freedom on both sides of the Atlantic. The...
Paul Donnellon, a BAFTA-nominated animator and director, invited me to two private feature film screenings in London’s Soho last week. He is the...
“War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength,” wrote George Orwell in Nineteen Eighty-Four. Looking at just eight conflicts today, the...
Most Londoners had half-forgotten about Trump’s state visit until Air Force One touched down. The capital was that distracted by the Mandelson...
It’s been thirty-three years since I walked the streets of Takoradi—over three decades that feel less like time passed than the tide gone out. And...
An American friend visiting London last week asked me to recommend some “movies” to him. Only later did I realise how loaded a question it was....
Immigration today provokes some of the fiercest political passions in the UK. It changes the shape of communities, stretches housing and public...
Much judgement of the UK drifts steadily westwards, crossing the Atlantic in fleets of think-tank reports, news magazine features, breathless cable...
You are seated at your cramped desk, eyes half-closed against the glare, coffee gone cold two hours ago. You have an idea. Not just any idea. A story...
In February 2022, a British Royal Marine officer—often among the brightest—made a mistake while seconded to a UK Special Forces base at Regent’s...
On July 11, the US-derided International Criminal Court (ICC) told the UN Security Council that war crimes and crimes against humanity are being...
‘What do they know of cricket who only cricket know?’ famously wrote the Trinidadian historian C.L.R. James in Beyond a Boundary, exploring not...
When a billionaire dubbed the ‘Czech Sphinx’ takes control of Royal Mail—Britain’s storied postal service—it’s both a chance for...
Two days before those B-2s flew, a moment of diplomacy—some said hypocrisy—still lingered. Leading Hezbollah commander Mohammad Ahmad Khreiss had...
Only months ago, Reform UK and Britain’s trade unions stood on opposite ends—ideologically and strategically. One championed deregulation and...
Man United used to win. That’s Man U. Manchester United. The team used to play with strength, clarity, fire. The players knew what they were doing....
While the Trump administration deploys Palantir to create detailed portraits of millions of Americans, the UK Data (Use and Access) Bill sits on its...
A friend messaged me last week about the latest trend in crypto crime: violent, real-world attacks. Kidnappings. Pistol-whippings. In two instances,...
The journey from Islamabad to Muzaffarabad, the capital of Azad Jammu and Kashmir, is a memorable one. Mine was made over 17 years ago when most folk...
My first exposure to key work done in Ukraine on the spiritual and psychological rehabilitation of veterans and families came via a recent private...
When my very old friend Godfrey got in touch to say he’d be in London for a night and needed a bed before flying to Italy, I didn’t hesitate. I...
The quiet streets of Newton Mearns, on the southern edge of Glasgow in Scotland, aren’t often the scene of industrial tension. But on a damp Tuesday...
A few weeks ago, the first thing I noticed was how uncannily still the red and white helicopter was against the blue sky. It was hovering above the...
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