The New York Times and other major media have ruled out any further scepticism toward the US government’s claim that Syrian President Assad dropped a sarin bomb on a town in Idlib province, reports Robert Parry.

Britain's secret wars reveals the true extent of Britain's covert foreign policy that supports war, conflict and oppression around the world in a succinct, accessibly structured and informative book, writes Matt Alford.

Pervasive and problematic assumptions about the UK’s security lie at the heart of the UK parliament’s recent decision to continue to support Saudi Arabia, despite accusations of war crimes in Yemen writes Celia McKeon.

Rely on the UK media for your information about Syria, and you probably think it was Russia and Assad says David Morrison. Here is what goes unreported.

Western leaders are plotting to bomb another Mideast nation, this time Syria, citing ‘humanitarianism.’ But similar claims in Iraq and Libya were deceptive and ended up killing far more people than were ‘saved,’ says Robert Parry.

Did the British government lie in court about Saudi arms deals asks Andrew Smith?

The Chilcot Report damns the procedures and claims but avoids passing judgement on intentions and good faith writes Piers Robinson.

The Chilcot Report has delivered severe criticisms of the way in which the British government took Britain to war in Iraq in 2003 and, in these early days following its publication, there has been widespread media criticism of Tony Blair as well as other officials. Chilcot has made clear that war was not the last resort at the point of invasion, that more time could and should have been given to the UN weapons inspections, that the way in which Blair established the legal basis for war was far from satisfactory, that planning for post-invasion Iraq was inadequate and that Blair had failed to fully engage his cabinet and other officials in the decision making process. Criticisms of Blair seem likely to continue and to harden further in light of the report.

At the same time, the Chilcot Report pulls punches when it comes to the question of deception and manipulation, despite seeming to offer up evidence, or even confirmation, that the British public was misled by the Blair government and that bad faith was involved. As discussed here and here, two issues have dominated over the years; the first concerned the manipulation of intelligence in order to promote the impression that Iraq was a serious and current WMD threat; the second concerned whether Blair misled Parliament and the British people by claiming that the disarmament of Iraq, through peaceful means if possible, was his objective and not the removal of Saddam (regime change).  

A chocolate-producing community of peasant farmers, who faced massacres and violence after declaring themselves neutral in Colombia’s 50-year civil war, could  hold the key to lasting peace now a ceasefire has been declared writes Michael Gillard.

The San José de Apartadó peace community is the subject of a timely documentary by British anthropologist Gwen Burnyeat, a descendent of Charles Darwin.

Screening in the UK this week, it comes ahead of a historic peace deal due to be signed in July by Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos and Marxist guerrilla leaders of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc) after four years of talks in Cuba.

A Spinwatch report released this month reveals the deep ties between pro-Israel organisations operating in Brussels and US-based right-wing donors, Republican supporters of Islamophobic causes and proponents of Israel’s settlement project. The report's authors argue we need much greater transparency in political lobbying at the EU.

Since Palestinian civil society announced the call in 2005 for an international Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel, similar to the one that helped end apartheid in South Africa, an array of pro-Israel organisations have been established in Brussels to influence European policy on Israel-Palestine. Most of the discussion of the ‘Israel lobby’ centres on its activities in Washington. But are there similar groups active in Brussels? For more than two years we have been researching that question. It turns out that there is indeed a burgeoning Israel lobby in Brussels.

Press release: Our new report on the Israel lobby and the European Union is launched today (9 May) in Brussels and this coming Friday in London (13 May).

Researched and written by Public Interest Investigations/Spinwatch and published by EuroPal Forum, the report reveals the extent to which noted American funders and proponents of the Islamophobia industry in the United States and Israel’s illegal settlement project in the occupied West Bank and east Jerusalem are also financing the expanding Israel lobby in Brussels.