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Content creation in the age of the mobile internet
The tradeoff between the capacity to upload and the possibility to download goes to the heart of the battle between active creation and passive consumption. Today it is clear that the digital divide...
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Turkmenistan – where everything in the garden looks rosy
State controlled media in Turkmenistan paint a pretty picture of life inside this closed country. But it is a picture that most citizens do not recognise, and they are increasingly challenging...
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Aleppo's souq: witness to the modern Syrian state
Aleppo, once Syria's economic heartbeat, bears testimony to the historic diversity and associated vibrancy a crushing war has flattened. Until 2012 Aleppo was the uncontested hub for manufacture and...
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The struggle over Chavez's legacy
Over a year after the Venezuelan leader's death, the Chavez narrative is still up for grabs. Hugo Chavez died on 5 March 2013, and two events took place recently in London to mark the first anniversary...
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Syria, storytelling, and all things between: a meta-commentary on ‘the...
Al-Akhbar English (AAE) is the English branch of a prominent Lebanese newspaper, Al-Akhbar. During the second week of February 2014, Al-Akhbar English published a six-part special series called,...
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Racism in Northern Ireland
British politics has for too long ignored hate in Northern Ireland.Anna Lo, Wikimedia/DaviMurphNorthern Ireland is always treated as a special case, and with some justification. We have suffered a...
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The Cloud rains on all parades
A parking ticket leads our Sunday Comics author to wonder how much of our lives have migrated Up ThereThe Cloud and its inhabitants know where I live. My unconscious knowledge of this fact was...
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Roma integration and 'a normal way of living'
Roma integration in Europe has shifted to a right-wing definition of integration where the onus is being placed on the minorities to make the adjustments and accommodations deemed necessary for social...
View ArticleArbitrary detention, once again, in Thailand
If madness is doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting a different outcome, the authors of Thailand’s twelfth coup since the absolute monarchy have yet to learn from Einstein’s aphorismYour name...
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The securitisation of dissent and the spectre of Gezi
At the weekend police shot demonstrators in Istanbul, attempting to enter Taksim Square to mark the anniversary of the Gezi Park protests—another deadly battle in the struggle for rights and freedoms...
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Dealing with the past: "There must never be a hierarchy of pain"
" I would like you to come with me to explore the past through the eyes of victims and survivors. It is difficult a very difficult place to get to and an even more difficult place to leave". Kathryn...
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“Desperate times call for desperate measures?”: the ‘Politics of anxiety’ and...
What are we meant to concludefrom the ‘rise of the far-right’? The narrative tells us that being objective, moderate and ‘technical’ rather than factionalist is what is needed in ‘times of anxiety’....
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Quo vadis, Europe?
Europeans, like most other inhabitants of the planet, are currently facing the crisis of ’politics as we know it’ - a state of “interregnum” – as the great Italian philosopher Antonio Gramsci described...
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Italy: back to the future?
PM Matteo Renzi triumphed over Beppe Grillo and Berlusconi in the last European elections. Does this reshuffling of Italian politics mean the country is back to a sort of normal?Italian PM Matteo...
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Women’s voices in northern Nigeria: hearing the broader narratives
As the world's attention focuses on northern Nigeria with the abduction of schoolgirls from Chibok, Fatimah Kelleher explores the importance of understanding the voices and agency of northern Nigerian...
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What we owe Nigeria’s kidnapped schoolgirls
People worldwide are calling for action to bring back the kidnapped schoolgirls in Nigeria. But concern for the girls demands that we think carefully about the harmful consequences of proposed...
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Afghanistan: history repeats itself when ignored
The invading NATO forces, in an action allegedly aimed at the defeat of terrorism in a country which had no tradition of terrorist activities, appeared to act with no inkling of the lessons that could...
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Come and live in Russia!
The Russian government is running a scheme to encourage former Soviet citizens now living in other countries to resettle in Russia. But for many, its limitations outweigh its apparent...
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Privatisation of governance: a multi-stakeholder slippery slope
A tight overlap between economic and political elites creates a massive push to shrink the public sector to accommodate private interests. This amounts to an abdication of state responsibility and a...
View ArticleCitizens are not stupid: looking at the European Elections from the outside in
Seen by an outsider, the European Elections actually looked more like a success for Europe and transnational democracy - not a failure. Let me tell you why.Seen by an outsider, the European Elections...
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