London-born/Oslo-resident artist, playwright and actress Kate Pendry has investigated evil in her art for years. This last year evil came closer yet; from hearing the bomb go off to sitting in on the court case, she reflects on the terror and her adopted nation in an openDemocracy video interview. 

This week too, openDemocracy Russia launches a week of leading voices from Russian civil society on Russian human rights at the crossroads. Presented by Human Rights Watch veterans, Anna Sevortian and Tanya Lokshina, we have so far considered the renewed crackdown on civil society, human rights violations in the turbulent north Caucasus, LGBT rights – ‘just don’t say gay’, media freedom, the heartbreaking situation with palliative care and Russia’s nationalist protesters. 

By contrast, Irvine Welsh urges aspiring writers to ‘express your culture’ if you don’t want it to disappear into image-dominant, global mass culture. Sunder Katwala is less surprised than Welsh by the ‘multi-and-popular cultural event’ opening the London Olympics. 

Meanwhile ourBeeb, having looked at how market research drives that institution, and whether it can help to save the nation’s local media, reveals that if women scientists are from Venus, the BBC is from Mars. 

Gender relations make various startling appearances this week, whether in the way women are paying for the recession in the UK, offset by a rousing call to defend London’s Women’s Library; or a sobering piece on how Ethiopian sex-workers reconcile themselves to their lot. 

The greatest flurry in the comments spaces is provoked by Markha Valenta’s latest column in which she discovers, among many things, that the biggest gap between men’s and women’s feeling of safety is in the richer countries of the west. But for those who wish to point out the risk of violence to males, our site shows this inSouth Africa, and of course, in Syria which, Paul Rogers explains, now scares Washington as well as our Arab Awakening columnists. 

Corruption is another theme, dimming countries’ prospects fromRomania to India, Ethiopia (again), to the world’s security sectors. But in a first for openDemocracy, Seth Redniss made us laugh about the crisis in the Middle East. 

You may not want to miss the following: 

Rafael Correa on Assange and Pinochet 

Laurie Penny on rape 

US Navy adviser loses her career after blowing whistle on admirals keen to provoke Iran

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