Maghazi Refugee Camp. Stephen McCloskey. All rights reserved.The tenth anniversary of Israel’s illegal blockade of the Gaza Strip has been marked by a glut of new reports from human rights organisations alerting the world to a deepening humanitarian crisis in the territory. Perhaps the starkest warning has come from the International Committee of the Red…
Month: March 2019
The business of migration control in Spain
Photo: Ilias Bartolini/Flickr. Some rights reserved. When the Berlin newspaper Der Tagesspiegel published, a few weeks ago, the complete list of the 33.293 deceased migrants identified since 1993 on their way to Europe, its goal was a very simple one: to highlight the fact that each line in that somber list "tells a story": the…
Pro Hockey Player Kaliya Johnson: Put Your Kids On The Ice. You Never Know If They’ll Fall In Love With It
Kaliya Johnson is committed to growing the game of hockey — and helping to ensure young women are a big part of its future. She just started her second season as a professional in the National Women’s Hockey League, playing as a defender with the Boston Pride. This follows a standout career with Boston College as a scholar-athlete…
How Paper Photographs Became America’s First Form Of Social Media
What would social media look like in the 1800s? Long before Instagram and Snapchat made photography an integral part of our everyday lives — and identities — picture-making in the 19th century was a social and shareable experience too. Like now, photographs provided an intimate way to document friends and loved ones, creating a lasting…
Towards Nazi Australia
An asylum seeker calls out to journalists on Papua New Guinea's Manus island, August 2013. EOIN BLACKWELL/Press Association. All rights reserved. The international trend in first world countries towards right wing populist politics is symptomatic of rising insecurity and inequality. Each context has its own specific topography whilst there are underlying dynamics that seem common…
How ‘Verbal Autopsies’ Are Helping Reduce Infant Mortality Rates Globally
Social science can’t always save lives. But when it does, it can help millions. Take India for example: The country’s estimated 2017 infant mortality rate is 47th worldwide — higher than Iraq’s. In absolute terms, the numbers are staggering. At a time when the United Nations has set a goal of reducing child deaths by half, India accounted…
Twin Earthquakes Expose Mexico’s Deep Inequality
Early in the morning on Sept. 16, 1810, priest Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla rang the bell of his church in the small town of Dolores, near Guanajuato, Mexico. His parishioners gathered round, and he urged them to revolt against Spain’s two-year-old Napoleonic government. Hidalgo’s call to arms, which later became known as the Grito de…
A trip to liberated Minbic in Northern Syria: from hell to paradise
A square in the liberated city of Minbic. Picture by Ercan Ayboga.It is getting more and more complicated here. Almost all parties at war are located in close proximity to this region in Northern Syria. Most notably the Turkish army, acting as an occupant, wants to take Minbic – an endeavour which, although announced by…
Ivanka Trump Believes It’s ‘Inappropriate’ To Be Asked About Her Father’s Alleged Sexual Misconduct
Ivanka Trump seems to be operating in an alternative universe from her father. As a senior adviser to the president of the United States, Ivanka has taken on a large, albeit nebulous, role in the cabinet. One issue she has said she’s focused on is women in the workplace. Given her father’s stances on the…
Anti-feminism and anti-gender far right politics in Europe and beyond
Christiane Taubira when she was French Justice Minister in 2013. Bernard-Salinier/ Press Association. All rights reserved.The rise, over the last two decades, of the neo-nationalist, populist right is now a well-established fact across the political landscape. But the precise permutations taken and modes of organisation and affiliations on specific issues such as anti-LGBTQ rights, which…