By Valentina Magri In the 1950s a group of post-World War II writers came together to establish a youth movement known as The Beat Generation. They rejected standards and materialism and appreciated style, innovation, drugs and Eastern religion. In today’s world, the beat generation has been replaced by The Beaten Generation. According to ILO figures cited by IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde at Stanford University last February: There are over 200 million people looking for work across the globe, 75 ...

By Luca Foschi This time the news barely reached the front page. Last week a gas attack in Kfar Zeita, a small town near the Syrian city of Hama, killed two people and injured scores. Footage on YouTube shows a medical team trying to revive several young children. Damascus and the splintered rebel front blame each other for the poison assault, but there are bigger questions at hand. Wasn’t the Assad government supposed to hand out all its chemical warfare...

By Deiniol Jones In a recent article in the New Statesman, Brendan Simms argued that we have entered a new era in relations between the Russia and the West. The annexation of Crimea and the instability in the south-east of Ukraine are overturning the post-Cold War international order. Propaganda and the innovative use of social media is an integral feature of Russia’s ‘unconventional, political warfare’, which seeks the creation of a ‘New-Russia’, a gathering together of the Russian ethnic population...

By Adam Walker, Economics Correspondent On and off the pitch, there is a sense that Liverpool is undergoing a revival. The port city, famed for innovation, industry and a certain musical export, was for centuries the economic powerhouse of Britain, home to a diverse population who fuelled the engine of the north. In the Shankly era the red side of the town enjoyed unparalleled football success, winning silverware at home and abroad. But its fortunes faded on the pitch as the town...

By Tomás McGoldrick, Ireland Correspondent  Last week saw the first state visit by an Irish President to Britain. For the first time since Ireland gained its independence in 1922 the relationship between the two countries is seen as strong enough for Michael D. Higgins to be able to visit his nearest neighbour in what Taoiseach Enda Kenny called ‘a golden age’ for Anglo Irish relations. There are close cultural and family links between the two countries. Britain has been the destination...

By Jack Gilbert  The former BP man is now set to take over another massive corporation In April 2010 millions of gallons of oil seeped into the Gulf of Mexico, killing off nearly everything in its path. Birds encased in oil desperately wrestled to escape their imminent death. Dolphins were washed ashore panicking and struggling to breathe. Local children in Louisiana and Florida complained of unexplained symptoms such as bleeding ears and nose bleeds. The then Chief Executive of BP, Tony...

By Emma Silverthorn Speciesism is arguably one of the most pervasive ideologies of our time, so much so that its suppositions are widely considered as fact.  The term, coined by philosopher Peter Singer in the eighties, is in a nutshell a prejudice for ones own species against another species. It is from this viewpoint that human beings supposed rightful dominion and use of non-human animals is justified. These justifications are made on a number of grounds - religious ones, ideas related to...

Adam Walker talks to Jenni Herd  Today, younger generations are being bombarded by negative press that offers little hope for their future. In the past decade the global media has broadcasted multiple conflicts, the threat of financial crisis against modern economies and the continuous message that our world is dying. Add to this the fact that young people are often misrepresented as hooded thugs, binge-drinking slackers or computer-obsessed antisocial regressives’ all of whom shun society and personal responsibility, and you...

By J T Coombes When the expenses scandal kicked off in 2009, by the very nature of the extent of the abuse it shocked society to its core. Eventually it led to sackings, resignations, apologies, some repayments and a few imprisonments. Today we are yet again assailed by the knowledge that financial abuse continues in the shape of Maria Miller, and that the sums involved are again vast. Not only that but again there is desperate resistance to admit blame and...