Creating new perspectives since 2009
Items by Yvonne Ridley
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Servile Western leaders queue up to congratulate Erdogan
It has been a week of mixed blessings for Western leaders as Turkiye’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan once again confounded his critics at the ballot box. Sporting more faces than the Big Ben clock in Westminster, servile Western leaders rushed to congratulate the Turkish president on his election victory last...
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Some justice at last for Tariq Ramadan, who warns Muslims to beware of Zionist vilification
Anyone who supports Palestine and is vocal about the injustices suffered by the Palestinians living under Israel’s brutal military occupation should be ready to be targeted and vilified by Zionist lobby groups. This is the astonishing warning from popular Muslim academic Tariq Ramadan who was cleared of rape charges...
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Clear aerial message exposes Saudi sportswashing at Newcastle United FC
A spectacular aerial stunt designed to prick the conscience of the publicity-shy Saudi Arabian regime was carried out in front of 52,000 eyewitnesses on Sunday as part of a campaign to expose Saudi sportswashing and human rights abuses. The airborne drama happened over Newcastle United Football Club’s stadium on...
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Political ignorance and lies hide the truth of the two-state solution
Politicians are, generally, good at lying. Some of them, like former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, simply can’t help themselves and are widely regarded as serial offenders, while others are guilty of nothing more than ignorance. Either way, it is deemed to be rude or against the rules of...
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UAE backs winners and losers in Sudan
The outbreak of civil war in Sudan is a sad story of two out-of-control Generals at odds with each other, both trying to convince us all this is merely a continuation of the people’s revolution that overthrew the dictatorship of Omar Al-Bashir in 2019. It is, of course, a...
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Scotland's new First Minister refuses to call Israel an apartheid state even though he has family in Gaza
Scotland is one of the smallest countries in the world but you would have to be deaf, dumb and blind not to know that last month Humza Yousaf became the first Muslim to be elected as a leader in Western Europe. You’d also have to live somewhere very remote to be...
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The Ottoman soldier who sacrificed his freedom to defend Al-Aqsa Mosque
Procrastination is the thief of time and I have idly spent the last few hours disappearing down different rabbit holes following odd facts and bits of useless information. I’m sure many of you will have spent hours looking for one thing, only to be led way off track and...
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Spare us the crocodile tears, Zionists; legitimate criticism of Israel is not anti-Semitism
The deliberate targeting and persecution of academics who are put through the “Zionist wringer” shows no sign of abating, even though the latest victim, Lara Sheehi has been cleared of spurious claims of inciting hatred of Jews. Sheehi is an assistant professor of clinical psychology at George Washington University....
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Israelis are now at war with themselves
Israel has gone to war yet again, but this time it’s on home turf: Israelis are fighting with Israelis. The eyes of the world are on the Zionist state as more than half a million Israelis protest to get rid of corrupt Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. There is a...
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Unpunished and unrepentant: the war criminals who get away with murder
When the then British Prime Minister Tony Blair and US President George W Bush flouted international law and unleashed Shock and Awe on Iraq in March 2003, the attack and invasion had unintended consequences which could probably lead us directly to the equally illegal invasion of Ukraine by Russia’s...
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FIFA Women’s World Cup woes for Saudi Arabia’s prince of darkness on Mother's Day
Mother’s Day in the Arab world is celebrated on the first day of spring, 21 March, and for many children it is the most important day of the year, so high is the Muslim regard for mothers, who should be obeyed and treated with the utmost respect. This, of...
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Sportswashing: when money talks, everyone listens
No one likes to be ignored, but before it can happen, you have to be heard in the first place. In many ways, that makes the deliberate turning of a deaf ear even more upsetting and offensive. Such disregard is practiced by too many supporters of Saudi-owned Newcastle United...
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Jimmy Carter: the first (and only) US president to identify Israeli apartheid
As Jimmy Carter, at 98 the longest-lived US president, spends his final days with his family in “home hospice care”, obituary writers will be busy reflecting upon the legacy of America’s 39th president. There’s a great deal of talk about legacy these days as political leaders come and go...
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Supporting Newcastle United is not all black and white when it comes to human rights
The odious Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman is in a league of his own when it comes to using the death penalty in Saudi Arabia, according to a new report out this week. The smirking de facto ruler of the kingdom has watched executions almost double in number every...
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Sweden’s hypocrisy could cost it NATO membership, warns Erdogan
Sweden is one of the largest countries in Europe in terms of land mass, but it has a relatively small population of around ten million. It is generally regarded as being the best place to live in a league of 198 nations when it comes to freedom and quality...
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The 2026 FIFA World Cup in the US will sportwash the horrors of Guantanamo
The Western media spewed forth barrel loads of pompous invective recently about why Qatar should never have been chosen to host the 2022 FIFA World Cup. Bewildered Qataris found themselves being demonised by TV commentators and journalists alike in a tirade of what one news source described as “white...
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The Taliban has to change its ways, because the equality clock is ticking
If it seems like Groundhog Day in Afghanistan, you could be right. The ruling Taliban seems to have made little change to its ideology and is even further away from the promises it made to improve women’s rights when its fighters entered Kabul unchallenged in August 2021. Girls’ schools...
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US promises only last as long as they suit Washington
During his recent visit to the White House, US President Joe Biden promised Volodymyr Zelenskyy that the Ukrainian leader would “never stand alone”. The grinning Zelenskyy reminded me of a football manager who gets the full public endorsement of his club chairman days before being sacked. The likely reality...
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UN ‘outrage’ was empty words to describe an empty ‘cavity’ in Gaza
Readers of my columns will know that I’ve never been a big fan of the United Nations because of its sheer inability to hold too many of the world’s most prolific human rights offenders to account. At times, its silence on such matters has been deafening. It was with...
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Dirty tricks, lies and collusion with lawmakers are employed to protect Israel at any cost
In April last year, Israel reeled and railed against a Human Rights Watch report in which the Zionist State was revealed to be committing the crimes of apartheid and persecution; both are akin to crimes against humanity. The hard-hitting HRW report was called “A Threshold Crossed”. It detailed how...
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Qatar has delivered the FIFA World Cup, now let it bring peace to Palestine
The International Federation of Football Associations, FIFA, is a flawed governing body which has chosen to ignore a whole raft of corruption allegations — all denied — that it “sold” the world’s greatest-ever sporting event to super rich Qatar. The astonishing allegations were published by the prestigious Insight Team...
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The real cost of Palestinian resistance
There is a depth of sadness in the deep brown-eyed gaze of Islam Asalya that makes the observer uncomfortable, because you just know that there is a tragic story unfolding in there somewhere. Sadly, this young Palestinian student comes from Gaza, so his penetrating stare is all too familiar...
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Revolution is in the air at Sisi's climate conference
Storm clouds are gathering over the skies of Egypt which have a hint of revolution within them. They could be the real reason why prominent climate change protagonists like Britain’s King Charles III and politicians are not attending the prestigious global COP27 due to be held in Sharm El...
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The roar of the Lions' Den
One of these days the political and military leadership in Israel will understand you can’t kill an idea with bombs, bullets, brute force or bribery. Just when the brutal occupation forces of the Zionist state think that they have contained Palestinian resistance, others step up to the mark with...