Kenya has passed a controversial amendment to the country’s existing security laws, days after heated debates led to brawling on the floor of the Kenyan Parliament. Despite the fracas, the bill was passed…
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It was a year of huge transition for Egypt. Gone was the Muslim Brotherhood, in both word and deed, while the military regime of Abdel Fatah al-Sisi strengthened its control across the state. Despite facing…
Housing tends to be seen as a human right, but here’s something to make you pause this winter: very few countries give homeless people any entitlement to emergency shelter. Scotland goes further and gives…
Once again, the news agenda is dominated by tragedies. A Greek ferry is stranded by fire in the Mediterranean, and an airliner is lost over the Java Sea. Both of these disasters are ongoing, so it would…
The camera jerks as the wave crashes through the wall of the restaurant. The tables set out for a wedding breakfast are swept aside. The man behind the camera doesn’t realise the awful reality of what…
On December 26, 2004, a massive earthquake struck off the coast of Sumatra, Indonesia. This earthquake triggered the most destructive series of tsunamis ever recorded. The tsunamis lashed out across the…
There have been many natural disasters since the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, but none have exceeded it in the combination of scale and scope of its destructive impacts. The scale of devastation for coastal…
Let’s face it: once a term laden with hope for the Middle East, the idea of an “Arab Spring” has become merely depressing. Assorted humanitarian disasters have followed in its wake – think of the unspeakable…
As the last remaining protesters were being cleared from Hong Kong’s streets, many Westerners lamented the silencing of what they saw as China’s only pro-democracy voice. To them, the umbrella movement…
Do we need religion in order to be moral? George Washington cautioned against “indulg[ing] the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion”, and today more than half of Americans believe…
Stunned, open-mouthed, horrified. How else to describe the events in Glasgow three days before Christmas as a council refuse lorry ran out of control in George Square in the heart of the city? It mounted…
The idea that data on happiness and well-being can be used to guide government policy has steadily gained popularity over the past decade. But as we seek ways to replace, or at least complement GDP as…
In the late summer of 2014, the international community watched helplessly as Islamic State (IS) unleashed widespread human rights abuses against civilians across Syria and Iraq, with little standing in…
We’ve learnt this year that if an MP defects – particularly to UKIP – people pay attention. With their high-profile defections causing two by-elections, Douglas Carswell and Mark Reckless sparked both…
The mess in the Middle East is forcing states into actions that previously appeared unimaginable. Sworn enemies are suspending or at least compartmentalising grievances. The idea that an American secretary…
Ed Miliband has admitted that Labour is “on a journey” when it comes to immigration. He has promised that his party “will never again turn our backs on people who are worried about immigration” but also…
From their inception, austerity policies have been promoted as necessary for economic recovery. Throughout Europe, the demand to cut spending and deficits is presented not as a choice but a requirement…
The recent news that the United States and Cuba are finally beginning to “normalise” relations has understandably caught the world’s imagination, given the two countries’ longstanding mutual hostility…
When my good friend and long-term collaborator Sam Warren was given a pile of women’s magazines from the 1930s by her grandmother Jane Frampton, we found among them 11 Christmas issues of Good Needlework…
The release of The Interview, an American comedy depicting the death of North Korea’s Kim Jong-un, has been cancelled. A massive cyberattack on Sony, widely blamed on Pyongyang, and apparent threats against…
You have to admire the tenacity of Teflon Tony. To most observers it’s beyond doubt that the former prime minister’s reputation was burnt to a crisp by the overheated intelligence on Iraq’s invisible weapons…
The report published by the al-Sweady Inquiry has found that charges of murder levelled at a number of British troops by Iraqi prisoners were “without foundation”, but that nonetheless there were instances…
In the United States and Cuba’s strained relationship over the past 50-odd years, certain key flashpoints stand out: the Bay of Pigs incident, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and many more. December 17 2014…
The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack on a school in Peshawar that killed more than 130 children. The militants planned the massacre to take revenge on the Pakistan army. They murdered…
William Hague has made a big show of setting out a plan for English votes for English laws in a document published on December 16. The trouble is, his plan isn’t up to much. As one MP put it, his proposal…