English Club

For our second post in Mediapart's English club we are happy to present you a translation by Laura Morris of an article written by Armand Hurault and originally published in the edition Paroles Syriennes on the 15th of November 2013. This article described the difficulties of printing newspapers in Syria today.

For our first article in Mediapart's English Club, we are happy to present "Zayton wa Zaytonah", a Syrian magazine for children that has found success through its unusual approach.

Ukraine’s public is not overwhelmingly pro-European as media reports have claimed. The Ukrainain society is almost evenly split between support for Europe and Russia, and the origins of that split are deeply rooted in Ukraine’s complex history. By Leonid Peisakhin, Ph.D. in Political Science.

Rana Sabbagh, Executive Director of the organisation Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism, sounds the alarm over increasing attacks on free speech in the Arab world, “the one gain that protesters believed they had secured at the start of upheavals that erupted in much of the region in 2011”.

In this open letter to the EU competition commissioner, a group of 44 British politicians, academics, energy industry specialists and environmental campaigners demand an end to government subsidies paid to the nuclear industry in Britain. Subsidies for nuclear power, they argue, have the effect of diverting resources away from technologies which are cheaper and more effective in meeting energy needs and cutting emissions. Furthermore, state aid for nuclear power is entirely at odds with the coming single market for electricity in the EU and with the principle that there should be free movement of goods and services throughout the region.

« As gays, lesbians, bisexuals, transsexuals, and transgender persons — because we are gays, lesbians, bisexuals, transsexuals, and transgender persons — we cannot condone the statements by Manuel Valls, nor can we be silent and ignore the support lent to him by François Hollande. »

The current investigations of Argentine courts into the crimes of the Franco dictatorship has brought the issue of European political memory to the fore. Guatemala and Argentina are examples of how democratic engagement with past violations of human rights can lead to justice, write the historian Federico Finchelstein and the Argentine editor Fabian Bosoer.