Irony of Colombia ‘socialising’ the idea that women victims of armed violence are responsible for their deaths
Many of the women under threat in the Colombian town of Tibú have nowhere to turn, aside from a small handful of human rights defenders. Authorities have lost grip of the rising insecurity that targets women to armed groups in the cocoa-growing region that borders Venezuela. “The women of Catatumbo...
How collapse in Colombian government authority has triggered femicides linked to armed groups
In Tibú, a small town along the border with Venezuela, a rising wave of violence in Colombia’s primary coca-producing region is targeting women, leading to an unprecedented spike in killings and forcing others to flee. Those who flee are often left in precarious economic situations far from their homes, too...
Inside Ukraine-Russia cyber warfare: Information hacking and leaking is ‘weaponised’ to unhinge the enemy
Names, birthdays, passport numbers, job titles – the personal information goes on for pages and looks like any typical data breach. But this data set is very different. It allegedly contains the personal information of 1,600 Russian troops who served in Bucha, a Ukrainian city devastated during Russia’s war and...
‘At the moment we need to recognise that climate crisis in Eastern Africa is actually the new normal’
The current stretch of failed rains in the Horn of Africa has hit a region that had barely begun to recover from the 2016-2017 drought. With no pause to enable pasture and water points to regenerate, estimated 20 million people’s ability to cope has been stripped away. In southern Ethiopia,...
Alarm bells in Horn of Africa are tolling about unprecedented drought with some 20m people at risk of famine
Already struggling after three seasons of failed rains, farmers and pastoralists in the Horn of Africa are facing an unprecedented fourth drought – a catastrophe that will tip more than 20 million people into extreme hunger and, for some, possibly starvation. Rains were expected across the region in March or...
Fallen Eric Boerlert was often candid: We created the mess we’re in today because the Press didn’t ask ‘Why?’
The media can be conspiratorial. Coverage of politics in America – and by extension the so-called democratic world – is often biased. Eric Boehlert had the rare gift of serving readers whole news. By the time Al Gore crushed Bradley in the January 2000 Iowa caucuses, the solons of the...
Transition: How journalist Eric Boehlert refused to swim with the stream to give American voter unvarnished truth
From his early coverage of political reporters’ savaging Al Gore to his incisive critique of their Joe Biden coverage right before he died, he got it. And Eric Boehlert will be missed. I am broken-hearted over the news of Eric Boehlert’s death in a bicycle accident this week, at 56....
To reclaim ‘soil justice’ Diné Nation in US taxed junk food and used proceeds to fund community wellness
In 2014, Denisa Livingston, a Navajo tribal member, public health expert and organiser with Diné Community Advocacy Alliance (DCAA) and other members of her organisation successfully lobbied the Navajo tribal government to pass the Healthy Diné Nation Act, which imposed a two per cent tax on junk food – the...
From soil justice to social justice: How neglected Indigenous communities in US are using land to fight racism
A half-hour drive south of Gallup, New Mexico, the elevation rises and the sprawling desert turns to a hilly, mint green landscape covered in piñon trees and fields of wild sage – staple plants in Navajo traditional medicine and spirituality. Unlike many Native American tribes forced to resettle permanently in...
How Ethiopian rebels’ scepticism in government’s truce is killing innocent civilians in Tigray region
The response to the conflict in Ethiopia’s Afar region is constrained by a lack of funding and the limited presence of aid organisations, which are stretched across three conflict-hit northern regions where more than nine million people need assistance, relief organisations say. The need remains highest in Tigray, where no...
