Joe Biden, the Democratic challenger in November’s US presidential election, has finally picked his candidate for vice president: Kamala Harris. Has picking Harris, who is Black and Asian American, improved Biden’s chances of winning the election? Or has it actually improved the chances of Donald Trump to get re-elected? DependingContinue Reading
I spent much of the late 1990s as a reserve military intelligence officer involved in the hunt for war criminals in Bosnia. We got most of them in the end. A couple of years later, as a civilian human rights officer, I visited dozens of shallow graves and killing sitesContinue Reading
The finger of blame for the Beirut explosion is pointing at Lebanon’s corrupt and criminally negligent political leadership. Amid continuing protests, the government of prime minister Hassan Diab resigned on August 10, though ministers will stay on in a caretaker role until a new cabinet is formed. The international communityContinue Reading
Communities all over the world are trying to manage the coronavirus crisis, with varying amounts of support from governments. We contacted people who used to fight in the guerrilla movement The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC-EP), to see how they were coping. These men and women often live communallyContinue Reading
Alexander Lukashenko, the authoritarian leader of Belarus who came to power in 1994, has won his sixth presidential election. The preliminary results show a landslide victory, giving Lukashenko 80% of the vote and his main opponent, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, just 10%. Nationwide protests have broken out in response and we shouldContinue Reading
It would be a brave person who tried to argue that the UK government, over the past several years, hadn’t shown a kind of systemic ableism in its attitudes towards and policies dealing with disabled people. This ableism is reflected in wider societal and media-based discourses in the UK. OverContinue Reading
Since the explosion in Beirut I’ve listened repeatedly to the song Ya Beirut (Oh Beirut) by the Lebanese diva Majida al-Roumi, while obsessively reading the news and checking on extended family members – like any other expatriate Lebanese. The song, which was originally a poem by the Syrian poet NizarContinue Reading
If we look at a map, the world appears neatly organised into a patchwork of states. They are clearly named and have clear borders. Yet, a closer looks reveals a much more complicated picture. Across the globe, groups are in various stages of claiming and gaining independence and recognition. AsContinue Reading
Knife crime is at record levels across the UK. SpeedKingz/Shutterstock Knife crime hit a record high in England and Wales before the COVID-19 lockdown came into place – with police reporting 46,265 cases for the year to March. The recent report by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said thisContinue Reading
At the time of writing at least 100 people have lost their lives and a further 4,000 have been wounded following an explosion in the Port of Beirut. While the actual cause remains uncertain, the tragedy calls to attention the tremendous consequences of a lack of port security. The explosion,Continue Reading
