STEPHEN RAINEY suggests shrugging-off problems and getting on with living

You know that anti-Israeli protests have reached their nadir when gay pride becomes involved, says JASON WALSH

CHRIS GRAY concludes his series on the Roman empire by analysing the reasons for its survival in the east

Business jargon disguises the fact that moxy is what counts in capitalism. Fine, but can we cut the instrumentalist agenda, asks STEPHEN RAINEY

Greece will suffer due to the EU intervention, it’s French and German banks that are getting bailed-out, says JASON WALSH

In the wake of the British general election OWEN POLLEY challenges the unionist parties to come to terms with what unionism actually stands for

PATRICK WEST says Irish football fans shouldn’t be cheering on England come the World Cup—and it has nothing to do with Anglo-Irish relations

Philosopher STEPHEN RAINEY considers the morality of the Naseer-Khan decision

The British general election campaign was a rendez-vous with reality for the far left, writes JAMES HEARTFIELD

STEPHEN RAINEY says the euro crisis means we should – finally – treat the EU as the political entity it is

In the third article in his series on classical-era Rome, CHRIS GRAY looks at the efforts of Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus to defeat the landowning oligarchy

Recessions are better for the right, says DOUG HENWOOD

Since 1999 Britain’s bomb-happy Labour party has slaughtered more foreigners than the Tories could dream of. Does the new Conservative-Liberal government mean the dawning of a less murderous age or will the internal contradictions win out, asks OWEN POLLEY

forth has an interest in independent publications (for obvious reasons) and so is publishing an interview with Lobster editor Robin Ramsay

What does the pharmaceutical industry have in common with the Bilderberg Group? Nothing, says JASON WALSH, who really wants conspiracy theorists to shut up

In the second article in his series on the Roman empire CHRIS GRAY examines the imperial oligarchy

The trouble in Greece underlines two important lessons: austerity packages don’t have to accepted and that frustrated violent actions achieve nothing, says JASON WALSH

forth’s electoral musings

RICHARD DWYER critically examines Labour’s record since 1997 and hopes for a positive Labour-Liberal coalition

DOMHNALL Ó COBHTAIGH asks, why has a hedge fund has been allowed to trump democracy in Greece?

Newspaper designer and editor of the web-mag, The ColdType Reader TONY SUTTON on the future of news in the digital era

Dr STEPHEN RAINEY was not impressed by the lastest Northern Irish leaders’ debate

Tomorrow sees Britain and the North go to the polls but whoever wins there will be winter of austerity, says JASON WALSH

YAEL MAURER is feeling hopeful after May Day in Tel Aviv

The looming closure of the Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy represents a move toward ‘cybernetic governance’, reports EDIA CONNOLE

Hooray for the Israeli Defence Force – its found a new high-tech way of dehumanising both female soldiers and enemy combatants, says YAEL MAURER

forth begins a series of articles on Classical-era Rome by CHRIS GRAY with the plebeian fight for equality

The idea that animals have a ‘right’ to privacy is a trojan horse for even madder ideas, says TIMANDRA HARKNESS

Gordon ‘send-‘em-home’ Brown should watch who he’s calling a bigot, says TIMANDRA HARKNESS

Calls for Libya to stump-up to the relatives of people killed by the IRA are senseless, CONNAL PARR

David Cameron’s slash-and-burn policies could see the Unionist/Tory marriage collapse before it’s consummated, says STEPHEN RAINEY but there’s another problem lurking in the long grass

We’re supporting Labour. And the Liberal Democrats. But only because Zac Goldsmith is standing as a Tory.

The era of the ‘paywall’ is upon us but publishers need to provide something worth paying for, says ADAM MAGUIRE

Media coverage of the British leaders’ debates is all about who won the debate – this isn’t politics, say JASON WALSH and T. UÍ FINNTHIGHEIRN

Leaders’ debate or no leaders’ debate, British politics has been emptied of eccentrics and it’s poorer for it, says JASON WALSH

Conservative pseudo-liberals are already celebrating the ‘end’ of flight due to the eruption in Iceland but sedentary lifestyles are nothing to celebrate, says JASON WALSH

Los Angeles police commissioner, who claimed blacks died in greater numbers than ‘normal people’ while in custody due to medical conditions, has died

The Penny’s moral panic is a sideshow – the real story is the infantalisation of adult women, says DAN JEWESBURY

JAMES HEARTFIELD journeys through the poetry in motion of logistics

Calls to have the Pope arrested when he visits Britain are not only mind-bogglingly stupid, they also threaten national sovereignty and follow in the footsteps of the wars on Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Iraq, says atheist JASON WALSH

Today’s earthquake in China wasn’t caused by gays, communism or climate change – but economic development could mean fewer deaths in future

The shotgun marriage between the Tories and Ulster Unionists won’t see the dawning of a bright blue future, JASON WALSH

It’s no surprise that Marx’s zombie bones won’t stay interred at Highgate Cemetery during a global recession but why is it always the worst parts of Marxism that stalk us today, asks TP D’INVILLIERS

England’s new tougher regulations on lap dancing are a victory for middle class hypocrisy, not women, says ELEANOR TAMS

Good science must be apolitical but our response to it should be democratic,
says SWIREK STASS

One British political party wants to not only stop immigration but introduce what amounts to an internal passport system – but it’s not the BNP. It’s the Greens.

The Quinn Group’s difficulties reflect failure of Irish economic policy – and the government’s response, says DOMHNALL Ó COBHTHAIG

Calls to ban head shops are illiberal and silly but so are pro-drug voices who complain about alcohol and tobacco, says JASON WALSH

The inclusion of gay women in a Holocaust memorial despite an absence of persecution shows how victim culture has captured the political elite

The British government is about to call a general election but the stakes have never been lower, says JASON WALSH

James Lovelock’s authoritarian complaints about humanity are not only undemocratic, they’re wrong

Space isn’t just a vision, it’s a place we should be going, says TIMANDRA HARKNESS

Adding green to the red, white and blue doesn’t make forced deportations, colonisation or militarisation acceptable, says JASON WALSH

Nationalisation is not public ownership, says JASON WALSH

A note from the editor’s desk

The spectres of Brendan Hughes and Jean McConville are stalking Gerry Adams, but there is more to this story than meets the eye and the IRA isn’t the only party that comes out of it covered in dirt, says JASON WALSH

Why is the Conservative candidate for Richmond upon Thames funding so many of the environmental groups that ought to be attacking the Tories, asks WILL DEIGHTON

Links between a orangeman and the BNP aren’t scandalous or surprising – nor are they illegal, says JASON WALSH

Sylvia Hermon is standing as a ‘liberal’ but she’s one of the most authoritarian MPs in Westminster and looking at a DUP pact, says OWEN POLLEY

As an avalanche of fresh allegations of cover-ups of child abuse emerge one senior Irish clergyman says he was not party to oaths of secrecy, despite media reports to the contrary – but there is strong evidence of a culture of silence as more cases emerge, forth editor JASON WALSH reports

Conservative opposition to universal healthcare, in Ireland as in the United States, misses the real problem: the redefinition of medicine as ‘wellness promotion’

Meaningless apologies help no-one in the case of the Irish clerical abuse scandal, says JASON WALSH

A new book reveals how celebrities’ and human rights activists’ simple-minded moral posturing on Darfur made the conflict even worse says PHILIP HAMMOND

An ode to David Beckham’s foot is no more stupid than the office of poet laureate demands

Google is a business and that’s why it acts the way it does – so why single it out for critique?

The nanny state and cynical anti-politics have met head-on in Brisbane’s new nightclub regulations, reports forth‘s Australia correspondent DAVID JACKMANSON

TIMANDRA HARKNESS reports on a supersonic car project that might revitalise engineering

From Google, through the banks, to the arts, everyone is arguing for their own private communist society to protect them from the ravages of the market, says JASON WALSH

Transcript of forth editor JASON WALSH‘s contribution to the Global Uncertainties debate ‘What makes a terrorist?’ held at Queens School in Bushey, Hertforshire on March 17, 2010 as part of a UK Research Councils/Debating Matters event.

Psychiatrist Dr STEPHEN GINN asks if the growing use of ‘smart drugs’ will see poor concentration classified as an illness

We have to defend Lars Vilks because free speech matters but he’s a fool and his alleged would-be assassins arrested in Ireland are bumbling idiots, says FINBAR ROSATO in Sweden

JASON WALSH loathes toffs as much as the next pleb but he doesn’t want to see fox hunting banned

25 years after giving up Greek, ANDREW CALCUTT explains why he is now a Latin lover

Nationialism was the politics of empowerment in the nineteenth century – but it’s now 2010, says ANDREW GALLAGHER

Allow commercial whaling, says DAVID JACKMANSON

Michael Foot wasn’t a hero of the left, he was the last in a long line of Labour losers, says JASON WALSH

Is Britain headed for a hung parliament, asks JASON WALSH – and does it matter?

The UK government’s science policy isn’t just contradictory, it’s used a stand-in for politics, says science journalist TIMANDRA HARKNESS

Mad, bad and dangerous to know, the Tea Parties are the flip side of Obamamania and both contain positive aspects

Hillary Clinton’s unsolicited offer to mediate between Britain and Argentina should remind us that you don’t need a history degree to know the Falklands don’t belong to Britain. All you need is a map

The earthquake that struck Chile was stronger than the one that struck Haiti in January but the death toll is literally a thousand times lower

Updated: 19.30 UTC

They may offend liberal opinion but tabloid newspapers are the first line of defence for a free press, says JASON WALSH

ANNA MORVERN says the alleged Mossad assassination should not be allowed to force biometric identity documents on us

Official censorship pales in comparison to unofficial censureship, says BRENDAN O’NEILL

YAEL MAURER says her country’s foreign assassination antics would be funny – if they weren’t so serious

forth reader MICHAEL GILLESPIE gives his view on the proposed bill of rights for the North

Whatever about the ‘necessity’ of austerity packages, anti-Greek sentiment is inflated by prejudice and unmasks EU bully-boy tactics

The authorities have given over authority to children, argues DENNIS HAYES, and it is tantamount to child abuse.

Forget the fading messianic effect, Obama’s energising of politics still matters and we could still do with some of that enthusiasm here at home

There’s plenty to dislike about fake ‘amateur’ sports but let’s focus on the skill and beauty of the games, says JASON WALSH

Gliberals whinging about labour conditions in the third world are helping to keep the poor in chains, says JASON WALSH

JACQUI RUSSELL argues for more development – and transparency – in Uganda as a way of guaranteeing rights

In the first of a series of articles before the Belfast Salon debate OWEN POLLEY argues for a modern Britishness against ‘Ulster’ identity

Sun, sea and… no sex or politics. According to reports Australia has gone censorship crazy, at home and away (on the internet). DAVID JACKMANSON brave the battle of the (bantam) breasts to find out what’s really going on

The lesbian, the Pope and the right to free speech

The Republic of Ireland has a lower population than major cities – the only reason anyone cares about Ireland is because of the conflict

The shine has come off the Conservatives’ alliance with unionists as sectarian politics reasserts itself in Northern Ireland, says forth editor JASON WALSH, writing in the Guardian

forth editor JASON WALSH reporting for the CS Monitor

Why personal communication should be personal, in Global Comment

As the Ukrainian presidential election goes to round two, candidates’ “pro-Western” or “anti-Western” leanings are not what actually matters, says NATALIA ANTONOVA reporting from Ukraine