“Once a woman is raped, she loses her name.” When Rose Cunningham, an Indigenous women’s human rights defender from Nicaragua spoke those words, she paused for a moment. “People just call her ‘la violada’: the raped one.” This is the stark, dehumanizing power of sexual violence, wherein a person’s identity is erased, pushing her outside …
It might be easy to assume a four-time Olympic gold medalist diver has never struggled much in life. With that kind of unmatched talent, doesn’t fame and fortune—and presumably happiness (and a Wheaties box)—follow? Greg Louganis, arguably the greatest diver of all time, knows all too well that’s not quite how the story goes. Despite …
People gather at Konak Square against military coup attempt, in Izmir, Turkey, July 20, 2016. Picture by Depo Photos/ABACA/PA Images. All rights reserved. Military culture refers to a combination of specific ethoi that shape the military’s institutional behaviour toward inside and outside stimulants including politics. These ethoi can be norms, values, beliefs, ideals and political …
Today, if the result is ‘Oxi’, the Syriza government will have a mandate to enter a more radical phase of government. A defeat for Syriza would, at least for the moment, extinguish the only left government and much of the credibility that its existence has lent to its counterpart movements all over Europe. More importantly, …
Trident Nuclear Submarine, HMS Victorious. Image: Flickr/Some rights reserved Tory Defence Secretary Michael Fallon didn’t really want to talk about Trident in his Times article and Radio Four appearance yesterday. He wanted to talk about Ed Miliband. The jarringly shrill claim that the Leader of the Opposition would “stab the United Kingdom in the back” by …
When Russia extended its empire in the Caucasus region in the late 19th century, its Muslim Circassian population was forced to migrate to areas in the Ottoman Empire, and many settled in what is now Syria. Although increasingly assimilated, they retained their distinct identity, including their Adyghe language and culture. ‘This is my country, my …
Triumph the Insult Comic Dog is suddenly more relevant than ever. The foul-mouthed dog puppet created by brilliant comic artist Robert Smiegel has been a reliably offensive genius dating back to Bill Clinton’s time in the White House. But understandably, like so many other comics, the material he had to work with during the Obama …
Shutterstock/Ollyy. All rights reserved.Rosemary Bechler (RB): Few of us understood the full import of what Ken Macdonald QC, former Director of Public Prosecutions, was saying at the Convention of Modern Liberty in 2009 when he referred to the then just published paper by Sir David Omand on the effect of modern data mining and processing …
After winning the prestigious Women’s Africa Cup of Nations this month, Nigeria’s national soccer team is refusing to leave the Agura Hotel in Abuja, Nigeria—the nation’s capital—where the team has staged a sit-in to protest the government’s refusal to pay outstanding allowances and bonuses. Players have been camping out for 10 days and say they won’t leave until they receive the $23,650 reportedly owed to …
Erika Szostak/Demotix. All rights reserved. Much western, particularly French, media coverage of the January attacks on the Charlie Hebdo offices and the kosher supermarket in Paris fell prey to an old orientalist trope of the ‘War on Terror’: that Western secular culture is innately peaceful, rational and tolerant, while Islam is distinctly ambiguous on these …
