Fourteen years ago I came from Syria to study in Edinburgh, and because of the war there, Scotland is now home. As I watch the latest wave of desperate refugees try to make for the British coastline, I witness with a heavy heart how they are demonised in a now-familiarContinue Reading
Kirsty O'Connor/PA The number of migrants crossing the English Channel in small boats has increased significantly – up to 4,343 this year compared with 857 in the same period last year. The number of lurid headlines calling for action has also increased significantly but the issue is not always wellContinue Reading
When more than 200 police officers raided the headquarters of Hong Kong’s biggest – and only – pro-democracy mass-circulation newspaper, Apple Daily, on August 10, many people feared this spelled the end of press freedom in the territory. Earlier that day, they had arrested the paper’s owner, 72 year-old tycoonContinue Reading
When Jangul’s* village on the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan was bombed in the war between the Soviet communist regime and the Mujahedeen in the 1980s, it was some opium buried under his house that enabled him to build a new home. Then, in the 1990s, when he was joblessContinue Reading
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
