First, from Keith Olbermann… Second, regarding what is and is not deemed torture. Last night I revisited the film In The Name Of The Father, the true story of Gerry Conlon and the Guildford Four and Maguire Seven. The film is based on Conlon’s autobiography entitled Proved Innocent, which I highly recommend. For those of you that [...]

Susie Jackson hails from London, England. This is her first entry as an author at matthewgood.org. Her focus as an author will primarily be British political, human rights, and foreign affairs issues. Detention Without Charge Last Wednesday UK MPs voted by 315 votes to 306 to give a government minister the power to extend to 42 days [...]

The United States and the UK have today warned Iran that if they do not comply with UN resolutions regarding its nuclear program then tougher economic sanctions will be implemented, including oil and gas sanctions. The Bush Administration has also employed rhetoric suggesting that tougher measures are also a consideration and that ‘all options are [...]

My friend Susie from London forwarded me this unbelievable story of a premeditated murder by three young men in Sunderland. See if you can even begin to wrap your head around this… “A man and two youths who kicked a disabled man to death over a £5 bet have been jailed for life. Brent Martin, 23, who [...]

There are things that you see, and there are things that you do not. For example, we all know that our current government is rather friendly with the Bush Administration. What you might not know, for example, is that we signed an agreement with the United States that allows us, and them, to send troops [...]

There is a relatively new device called “The Mosquito” which is being used in England to control where young people typically gather. The device works by emitting high-frequency sounds that only young people (typically younger than 20 years of age) have the ability to hear. Because it’s fairly annoying, it causes young people to eventually [...]

When it comes to the unfolding drama regarding Iran, look no further than the Israelis for proof positive that hypocrisy is alive and well. Yesterday, Israeli’s newly appointed ambassador to the UK, Ron Prosor, uttered the following… “At the current rate of progress, Iran will reach the technical threshold for producing fissile material by 2009,” he [...]

Not that I have a problem with white collar criminals being punished for their crimes - God knows they tend to do far more harm than your average street corner criminal whose environment has typically placed them in the business of stealing car radios. But when it comes to the law, especially precedents set with [...]

During that Q & A at last night’s event I was asked about the recent poll in which 78% of Afghans polled nationally believe that “things are generally going in the right direction”. Of course, when one reads that, and doesn’t delve any deeper analytically, it looks automatically fantastic, and to those that support our [...]

The war in Afghanistan is, as many of you are aware, a touchy subject here at home. There are currently just over 2,000 Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan, with the British maintaining the largest foreign force next to that of the United States. In Iraq, the British currently have 5,500 troops, though it has just been [...]