The Iranian National Chess Team has removed a pair of sibling chess masters for not adhering to the country’s religious laws. The duo, 18-year-old Dorsa Derakhshani and her 15-year-old brother Borna Derakhshani, were dropped from the team and banned from entering tournaments in the country after Dorsa failed to wear a head covering and Borna engaged…
Protests in Brazil. Flikr, Samilla Luz, some rights reserved “Brazil: land of the future” is the title of a 1941 classic book by Stefan Zweig. Ithe title became a popular saying: Brazil is the land of the future. Every Brazilian has heard it and, until 2000, it was a customary joke to say that “future…
HDP's massive election rally in Istanbul, May 30, 2015. Demotix/ Sahan Nuholglu. All rights reserved.Demotix/ Sahan Nuholglu. All rights reserved. Two historic general elections were held in Turkey over the course of four months in 2015. The desperate losers in the first elections on 7 June turned out to be the (in)glorious winners 120 days…
How much would you pay to keep the phrase “on fleek” in your lexicon? While many would surely donate money to erase its existence altogether, the personality behind the phrase “eyebrows on fleek,” Peaches Monroee, is looking to generate some cash from her contribution to pop-culture slang. The Chicago-born internet personality, born Kayla Newman, feels…
Members of the upstate Drone Action Coalition outside the Hancock Air Force base, New York. Ed Kinane is on the far left. Credit: http://www.upstatedroneaction.org/. All rights reserved. In one way or another I’ve been involved in anti-militarism for most of my adult life. Raised Catholic but with my born-into faith rapidly eroding, I chose to…
Gare de Lyon. Flickr/Jon Siegel. Some rights reserved. How do counter-terrorism and counter-radicalisation methods impact on ethnic and religious accommodation in our liberal democratic societies? Much of the literature draws on the concept of ‘suspect community’, and suggests that it has primarily alienated the Muslim community through an assimilationist model of ‘muscular liberalism’. The ‘suspect…
On Sunday, Trump wrote a slew of vague tweets about the plan for the U.S.-Mexico border wall, further confounding our already perplexed nation. From what we can tell, Trump is annoyed Democrats refuse to support his $21.6 billion border wall, so he’s proposing yet again that Mexico will pay for it … “at a later date…
Humanitarian assistance to Syrian refugees at Idomeni, Greece, August, 2015. Demotix/Giorgios Cristakis. All rights reserved. When ISIS arrived in Mosul, Fatima knew that her son, a policeman, was in mortal danger. With his children they fled to Erbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, a safer place for now but with little future to offer a…
There’s no question that LaMelo Ball, a sophomore guard at Chino Hills High School, put on a dazzling display of skill when he racked up a staggering 92 points in his team’s 146-123 victory over Los Osos. With LaMelo’s brother LiAngelo, the team’s usual high scorer, sidelined with an injury, LaMelo’s display gave his…
Keiko and Alberto Fujimori (Photo: infolatam.com) Fujimorism, which for a decade (from 1990 to 2000) led an authoritarian regime in Peru smeared by corruption and violations of human rights, is threatening a comeback. It came close to doing it in 2011, when Keiko Fujimori lost in the runoff election against current president Ollanta Humala. Today,…