When Aleksander Lukashenko rigged the Belarusian presidential election in August 2020, he expected things to follow a well-practiced pattern.1 After previous elections during his 26 year rule, the Eastern European country’s liberal nationalist opposition would cry fraud at the results.… Continue Reading
On 11 April 1871, three weeks into the life of the Paris Commune, a poster appeared on the walls of France’s capital: Citizenesses, we know that the present social order bears within itself the seeds of poverty and of the… Continue Reading
The news from Palestine, as has been the case for a long while now, is bad and depressing on many levels. The announcement of the “deal of the century” and subsequent gestures from the United States towards Israel, capped off… Continue Reading
On 7 October 2020, following a trial lasting more than five years, a Greek court found the leaders of Golden Dawn guilty of forming and running a criminal organisation. Heralded as the biggest trial of Nazis since the post-war Nuremberg… Continue Reading
The new decade started with the news of flooding in Jakarta, Indonesia that killed more than 60 people and displaced tens of thousands. Caused by extremely heavy rainfall, the effects of the floods were exacerbated by poor infrastructure and the… Continue Reading
Large, youth-led pro-democracy protests hit the Thai military junta in autumn 2020. Crowds of up to 50,000 started to gather around the Democracy Monument in central Bangkok in August. By 19 September—an important anniversary marking a military coup against an… Continue Reading
For several weeks in October 2020, tens of thousands of people took to the streets of Nigeria to protest against police brutality. The protests came after news circulated that the federal Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) had killed a young man… Continue Reading
Much of the United States breathed a collective sigh of relief on Saturday 7 November as Donald Trump’s electoral defeat became clear. People posted reactions on social media immediately after the results were announced. In New York City, as in… Continue Reading
A year is a long time in pandemics.1 It is a little over 12 months since the first victims succumbed to Covid-19. By the time of writing, the global death toll had reached 1.5 million, a figure likely to rise… Continue Reading
The eruption of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests after the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer on the 25 May was a spectacular highlight to the eerie summer of 2020. In the United States alone, an… Continue Reading