OurKingdom and 50.50 scrutinize Northern Ireland in this context, with a shocking rollcall of hatred, followed by fightback in the ‘race hatred capital of Belfast’, (to be compared with today’s Australia), Kathryn Stone (Victim’s Commissioner for Northern Ireland) on dealing with the past, and Mairead Maguire against militarism. NATO meanwhile is noticed slipping back into confrontation.

oDR surveys the Ukrainian presidential election, views the prospects for civil war in the battle for Donetsk, looks atTurkey’s role in Central Asia, ponders the ultimate Russian conspiracy theory, and pursues its LGBT series to Samara. 

Transformation publishes an unforgettable Chelsea Manning graphic novel, asks if the LGBTQ movement should fight for prison abolition, and probes deathbed politics. We launch our partnership with the OPENCITYDOCSFEST with two tantalising previews.

openGlobalRights has some advice for the new Human Rights Commissioner, and a warning against the deadening hand of over-eager gatekeeping, as we make full use of anniversaries this week to ponder the human rights of protesters in Gezi Park and Tiananmen Square, where lessons learned by men and women and from Poland, coincide with China’s official silence, public restiveness, and the New Citizens Movement.

OurKingdom, otherwise concerned with the precariat, theeconomy and nationalism, joins forces with oD to mark another anniversary: one year of living with Snowden’s revelations, further illuminated by Anthony Barnett in interviews withGeneral Michael Hayden, former Director of the NSA and William Binney who built it and blew the whistle too.

Paul Rogers leads the return of Syria to our front page, with a portrait of Aleppo today, discussion of Assad’s election, the regime’s confidence, portrait of a dynasty, the bitter debate, and how jihadists are winning over the upcoming generation, and impacting on Jordanian politics.

In this week’s feature on ‘Politics in the times of anxiety’Zygmunt Bauman’s meditation on that “middling link in the chain of dependency”, Europe – Quo Vadis?, is joined by an account of how mainstream European governments exploit the rise of the ‘far right’; the contradictions arising from pressures on the Greek police and their negative impact on immigration enforcement; the Global Preventive Security fantasy; fear of youth radicalisation in Syria; Brazil’s penchant for the violent obliteration of difference; Nazi propaganda with a calculated twist; the social value of political anxiety and neoliberalism as obsessional neurosis, with a closing tour de force on modern sovereignty and the impossibility of killing off enough people in the divine right way.


Don’t miss:

• Protect your online privacy with the Reset the Net’s Privacy Pack

• 65 things about surveillance we know because of Ed Snowden (EFF)

• Dave Chapelle in conversation with Maya Angelou (video; 48 minutes, but worth it)

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