April 2006 Archive 

Is the party over? The 2007 Scottish elections are being billed as ‘make or break’ for the Scottish Socialist Party, which has struggled to build on its electoral breakthrough in 2003. Gregor Gall argues that its success is crucial to the left both north and south of the border

The Torture Line The British government has tried to play down its role in rendition – the illegal removal of suspects from one country to another for questioning and, in some cases, torture. But there is mounting evidence that the Foreign Office, armed forces and intelligence services are complicit in this process, exposing British citizens and residents to ‘coercive interrogation’ techniques and opening up British airspace to US ‘torture flights’.

Venezuela’s new model army It was all very mysterious; but indicative of the seemingly random way things can happen in Venezuela. I had only a few days left in Caracas after the 2006 World Social Forum.

Arming US Aggression In 2004 global military spending topped $1 trillion for the first time since the Cold War. This extraordinary figure made momentary headlines when it was announced in the run up to the G8 summit in July last year, but then quickly dropped off the agenda again. What never hit the headlines was the equally extraordinary fact that that the USA’s proportion of that spending accounts for nearly half of the $1 trillion total. What’s more, the headline-making return to Cold War spending levels for the world as a whole is largely down to the increases in US military spending under the Bush administration.

American Health As an American, I watch in astonishment when other countries debate whether to import anything resembling American health insurance companies into their health care systems.

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