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openDemocracy is going to court to force the British government to release full details about its controversial ‘Clearing House’– a secretive unit inside Michael Gove’s Cabinet Office, which is accused of blocking sensitive Freedom of Information (FOI) requests.
In November, openDemocracy revealed that the ‘Orwellian’ unit in the Cabinet Office was vetting FOI requests and sharing personal information about journalists across Whitehall in ways that experts believe could be in breach of the law.
The Cabinet Office has refused to disclose full details about the Clearing House operation under the Freedom of Information Act – despite the FOI watchdog, the Information Commissioner’s Office, ordering it to do so in July 2020.
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There is always a lot of traffic on the road connecting Simferopol, Crimea’s administrative capital, with the peninsula’s southern coast. And on 10 March this year, it was no different. As a silver Skoda Fabia approached a lay-by on the Angarsky Pass road, a policeman waved his baton, and the car stopped.
What happened next can be seen in footage published by the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) six days after the events. Two men wearing balaclavas take the driver out of the car and put him on the asphalt.
“Full name?” they ask.
“Vladislav Leonidovich Esipenko,” the man says, lying on the road.
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More than 170 prominent European academics, authors and artists have backed a campaign calling for the European Union to offer Scotland a ‘path’ to membership as pressure mounts for another independence referendum.
The letter, which is signed by figures including Scottish actor Brian Cox, Italian writer Elena Ferrante, and Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek, urges EU leaders to make a “unilateral and open offer of membership” ahead of any independence vote.
Scotland voted overwhelmingly to remain in the EU in the 2016 referendum by a 62-38% majority. Campaigners have called for the country to have a second independence referendum in light of the vote. In 2014, Scotland voted against becoming an independent nation in a referendum, by a 55-45% majority.
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A crowning achievement: Fairy tale vs. reality in ‘The Crown’ April 23, 2021 12:07 PM CDT By Ed Rampell
Olivia Colman, center, as Queen Elizabeth II, flanked by Josh O Connor as Prince Charles, left, and Tobias Menzies as Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, right. | Netflix
I write this as the annual Academy Awards ceremony approaches; Hollywood’s landmark Cinerama Dome, with its iconic concave screen, closes; and Prince Philip has made his last journey from Windsor Castle to St. George’s Chapel for one final pageant, His Royal Highness’s funeral. The confluence of these events has moved this film/TV historian to meditate on the audio-visual medium of moving images, the evolution of the art of storytelling from Telemachus to television, Sophocles to cinema t
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The past year has been a massacre of nonagenarians. Goaded by the right-wing press, the government has repeatedly put business balance sheets over frail lives: Eat Out to Help Out, Christmas easing and delayed lockdowns.
My colleague Mary lives in London’s ‘COVID Triangle’. Every day, her neighbours file from their East End homes, onto the overcrowded Central Line, and put their lives at risk for minimum-wage service jobs.
Many – like Mary – will have said their final goodbye to grandparents over FaceTime, and attended funerals on Zoom. Many will have felt the virus choke up their lungs. All will have heard the sirens.