Current Affairs Articles published in Three Monkeys Online
Who Killed Roberto Calvi
One of the most mysterious murders of Italy's murky Cold War history was that of Roberto Calvi, the head of the Banco Ambrosiano, and the man dubbed 'God's Banker' because of his business relationship with the Vatican. A Rome jury has recently acquitted
Cold War Psychohistory in the Scottish Psyche
The very essence of the cold war was dividing the world into blocs, of 'us' and 'them'. Strung between Stalin and Gorbachev, things should have been different at the start of the 21st century, but new conflicts and new enemies have appeared in
The Leopard and the Fox - Tariq Ali and the BBC
The year was 1986, the subject Pakistan and its military coup of 1977, and the outcome a thoroughly British case of cold war sponsored censorship by the BBC. Tariq Ali discusses with Three Monkeys Online the circumstances behind the censoring of his drama
Poland's Problem with Eco-Terrorists
The route of a bypass in an underdeveloped corner of one of Europe's lesser 'developed' countries, Poland, has caused an argument with much wider ramifications. Horatio Morpurgo delves into the wider issues involved in the controversial Augustow by-pass.
Rosia Montana: Consumerism and its Disconnects
What connection does the rural backwater of Rosia Montana, have to European integration and Global climate change? Horatio Morpurgo mines the controversy surrounding a Canadian company's plans for a small Romanian town, and finds food for thought for wes
This is getting serious - The US anti-missile shield, seen from the Czech Republic.
What has the Czech Republic to gain, or, equally importantly, to lose from the installation of the US anti-missile shield system on its soil? Questions posed by Padraig McGraith, who lives a mere bomb-blast away from Jínce u Příbrami, ...
Love in the time of Bossi-Fini. The real impact of immigration legislation in Italy
Behind the polemics and eye-catching headlines carelessly trotted out by the media on immigration, real people's lives are affected. Journalist Cristian Artoni has researched a number of different cases, ranging from the banal to the tragic, where the Ita...
The Best Defence? Poland and the US anti-missile shield
The proposed US anti-missile shield to be deployed in Poland, is called in Polish tarcza antyrakietowa, ironically, as tarcza also means target. Robert Looby describes what little debate there has been in Poland on the subject of the contro...
Defending History - Deborah E. Lipstadt and Holocaust Denial
Professor Deborah E. Lipstadt became a household name when David Irving sued her for libel. The trial, Irving vs Lipstadt, in a sense, put the Holocaust on trial. Irving lost his case, with the court accepting that he had "persistently and deliberately mi...
In Defence of a Liberal Education.
Would we accept the foundation, with tax-payers money, of political schools? For example, a neo-conservative school here, or a communist school there, where pupils would be instructed uncritcally in a political ideology? Dr. Stephen Law, author of The ...
Dusting off the Dancing Metaphors – Leadership struggles down under
Last month saw Australia's conservative party embroiled in a leadership squabble between current leader John Howard and party treasurer Peter Costello. Bringing to mind previous clashes in Australian politics, and the Blair/Brown standoff in the UK, Felix...
Birth Crisis - Sheila Kitzinger on Birth in the 21st Century
Birth in Western Europe and America has become a heavily medicalised event, where women entrust themselves and their babies to a team of medics who, with the aid of technology and science, manage the dangers of birth. Why, though, are so many women trauma...
Misrepresented? Hugo Chávez and the Western Media
Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez has been amply described by the Western Press in recent years, usually in terms of 'populism' or 'anti-Americanism'. In an interview with Dr Julia Buxton, lecturer in Peace Studies at the University of Bradford, Robert L...
Understanding Climate Change - or Why I should Fly Less
Horatio Morpurgo writes about the environment, flying around the globe in the process. A contradiction? Musing on his carbon footprints, Morpurgo visited the Centre for Alternative technology, in Wales....
Samuel Butler, or Sociobiology for Grown-Ups
Samuel Butler as a novelist has had an influence on writers as diverse as E.M.Forster and Saul Bellow. But he also contributed to the emerging debate on evolution provoked by Charles Darwin's publication of On the Origin of Species. Horatio Morpurg...
Rocco Buttiglione Responds - The Moral Maze Part II
Italian Minister Rocco Buttiglione brought the European Commission into crisis in 2004. In a recent interview in Three Monkeys Online, on ethics and morality, Dr. Richard Holloway criticised Buttiglione's decision to stand for the commission. In this in...
From the Armalite to the Strawberry Smoothie - 21st Century Ireland, North and South.
By rights Henry McDonald, born and raised in the Catholic working class district of the Markets in Belfast, should have grown up Republican, Nationalist and Catholic. Instead he grew up an afficionado of punk rock, football, and international politics. Mc...
Poland, The State of the Nation - Uklad, Horse-Trading, and the PiS
September 2005's Polish election followed a newly established pattern, the annihilation of the incumbent party. Robert Looby, casting a critical eye over the political landscape argues these devestating political changes are largely illusory. The party na...
Iraq Death Toll in Third Year of Occupation is Highest Yet
Three years on from the Invasion of Iraq, and the human cost of this war is still unclear. While information on civilian deaths is still unforthcoming from the US & UK governments, the Iraq Body Count provides important figures....
Sexuality, Sin, and Sacrifice - Deconstructing the Patriarchy. An interview with Dr. Mary Condren
Dr. Mary Condren's ground-breaking work The Serpent and the Goddess(1989) examined the relationships between women, religion and power in Celtic Ireland. The themes brought up, though, are as relevant today as ever. In interview with TMO, Dr Condre...
Working with the Sahrawi. Interview with Alfonso Torres Istúriz, ATTsF member in the Sahara
In a personal interview, Alfonso Torres Istúriz, who works in the Moroccan Sahara with the all-too-often forgotten Sahrawi people, gives an insight into the challenges, frustrations, and rewards of working for an NGO....
Three Degrees of Democracy: McDowell, Bush and Blair
Democracy can not be spread - through armed interventions or otherwise - unless one can define what democracy is. Examining three 'healthy democracies', Ireland, the UK, and the United States, Anthony Behan argues that citizens urgently need to define the...
Fallujah. Uncovering a massacre - interview with Maurizio Torrealta, co-producer of Fallujah - The Hidden Massacre
One year on from Operation Phantom Fury/al-Fajr, the second battle for Fallujah, the American military have been forced to admit to the use of white phosphorus as an offensive weapon. Three Monkeys Online looks at the background to the battle in Fallujah,...
Entering the Moral Maze - A discussion on religion and ethics with Richard Holloway
Even the Catholic church admits that the power of organised institutional religion is on the wane. Where once we (in Western Europe and America) were obliged to follow the moral dictates of the dominant religious forces, now many moral choices fall to the...
From Landscape to Manscape - Eduardo Chillida and Fuerteventura's Tindaya Mountain
It’s big; it’s a thumb-in-your eye assault on a virgin landscape, but is it art? Well, yes, it is actually, and that’s where the problem lies The late Basque sculptor Eduardo Chillida envisaged creating a monumental hollowed out space in the he...
N.A.T.O. Gladio, and the strategy of tension.
That a clandestine paramilitary network, co-ordinated by N.A.T.O. existed throughtout Western Europe due the Cold War is a fact. Less clear is the relationship between this network and the wave of right-wing terrorism that swept across Europe in the '70s ...
The Return of Moqtada al-Sadr
As Iraqi's prepare to vote on acceptance of the long anticipated constitution, the return to prominence of Moqtada al-Sadr highlights tensions in the country. Erich Marquardt of the PINR, analyses Moqtada al-Sadr's return from relative silence to the cent...
The New Turkey -Reflections from Istanbul.
Much disccusion on Turkey's accession to the EU comes from Europe looking outwards. Chris Morris, though, lived and worked in Turkey for four years as a BBC correspondent. Three Monkeys Online discusses reform, accession, freedom of speech, and political ...
Central America's Street Gangs Are Drawn into the World of Geopolitics
In Central America, Washington is getting serious about a problem it helped to create. Adam Wolfe, of the PINR, examines the growing problem of organized criminal gangs in Central America, and how, in part American immigration policy has helped create the...
Growing Signs of Unrest in the Maldives
The Maldivian government's use of excessive force in mid-August to quell demonstrations by opposition activists demanding democratic reforms indicates that its commitment to establishing multi-party democracy in the country remains weak. Dr Sudha Ramachan...
Still Fighting Apartheid - South African Activist Dennis Brutus
In the 1960s his target was the sporting system that allowed white South Africa to compete internationally while imposing apartheid on its own citizens. Nowadays, veteran activist and poet, Dennis Brutus is targeting the banks, corporations, and instituti...
A Massacre to Remember - The Bologna Train Station Bombing, Twenty-Five Years Later
Twenty-five years ago 85 people were killed in one of Europe's worst terrrorist attacks, the massacre at Bologna train station. The attack, though, hasn't been consigned to history, and remains current and important for a generation faced with a renewed w...
Counting the dead. The Iraq Body Count.
While George W. Bush and Tony Blair have consistently re-assured their electorates that all possible precautions have been taken to protect civilians in the conflict in Iraq, they have provided no data to support this. The Iraq Body Count has compiled inf...
EU enlargement endangered?
The failure of both the ratification process for the European Constitution, and to find consensus at the recent European Council summit may have an impact upon further expansion of the Union. Dr. John O'Brennan, of the University of Limerick, argues that ...
Live 8 - An opportunity lost?
Live 8 aims to harness political protest, to force the G8 to agree a package to double aid, cancel debt, and reform trade. Laudable? You might think so, but George Monbiot argues that the message given by Live 8 is a dangerous one. He discussed his critic...
