Each of these women had undergone FGM early in their lives, and now, encouraged by my mother, they were talking frankly about how they felt. One of them spoke of the agony that the procedure still caused her three decades later.

Yesterday, someone drew my attention to Fast Company Magazine's Most Innovative Companies of 2012. It groans with exactly the sort of US companies one might expect it to: Apple, Google, Facebook, Square, Twitter, Amazon... groan, indeed.

Well this is not too far from paradise - at least not for me. I, and I suspect many are not too far from despair at the simple mundane nature of everyday existence, but the tranquility I feel [at least for the first few days!] after arriving here redresses the balance.

Hi, My name is David Tait - I'm an NSPCC Trustee and 'charity mountaineer' having now successfully climbed Mount Everest four times - in 2005, 2007, ...

There is a dangerous mythology that exists about Iran, and which refuses to go away. It is irresponsibly perpetuated by many in the media, reminiscent of the Neo-Con propaganda which we became familiar with in the run up the illegal invasion of Iraq in 2003.

If you think Syria is a ghastly mess now, just wait till the rebels finally topple Bashar al-Assad. If I wanted to be vulgar (hell, why not?), I'd say: "You ain't seen nothing yet."

The new patient was a famous artist and the hospital staff who knew about art were half in awe of him, half dismayed to see his flaccid left arm and h...

When welfarism fails most spectacularly, it is usually because it attempts to treat a perceived social or economic problem without understanding -- le...