Friday, December 12, 2025
Delivered by Elyse Mosquini, Permanent Observer to the United Nations, at the 60th plenary meeting on strengthening of the coordination of humanitarian and disaster relief assistance of the United Nations, including special economic assistance.
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By Human Rights Watch
Click to expand Image Du Bin, 2013. © 2013 VOA/Wikimedia (New York) – Chinese authorities have formally charged well-known journalist and author Du Bin (杜斌) with “picking quarrels and provoking trouble,” Human Rights Watch said today. Police in Beijing took Du, 53, into custody on October 15, 2025, a day before he had scheduled trip to Japan, his sister said in a statement. He has since been held at Beijing’s Shunyi Detention Center. He faces up to 5 years in prison under article 293 of China’s Criminal Law, and up to 10 years if found to be “seriously disrupting public order.” “The…
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By Jane Wright, Commissioning Editor, Arts & Culture, The Conversation
This week saw the launch of the final episode of our hit podcast Jane Austen’s Paper Trail (although a bonus Q&A episode is coming in January for any Austen fans experiencing withdrawal).
Episode six is devoted to Austen’s last novel – and my favourite – Persuasion, which tells the story of lovelorn Anne Elliot who has missed her chance of happiness after being persuaded to give up the man she loves for lack of wealth and prospects.…
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By Kate McNicholas Smith, Senior Lecturer in Screen, University of Westminster
In October 2025, singer-songwriter Lily Allen released her fifth studio album, West End Girl, to great critical acclaim and commercial success. When she announced an album tour, the first dates sold out in just 20 minutes.
Described by the Guardian as “a gobsmacking autopsy of marital betrayal”, West End Girl is a work of “autofiction”, inspired by Allen’s…
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By James Hay, Research Fellow, Infectious Diseases Modelling, University of Oxford
The NHS is facing severe pressure this winter as flu cases surge earlier than usual, with some calling it “super flu”. Here’s what you need to know about this year’s flu season and how to protect yourself.
What is ‘super flu’?
Professor Meghana Pandit, NHS national medical director, said: “With record demand for A&E and ambulances and an impending resident doctors strike, this unprecedented wave of super flu is leaving the NHS facing a worst-case scenario…
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By Mary Dzon, Associate Professor of English, University of Tennessee
Manger scenes displayed around Christmastime usually feature an ox and an ass beside the infant Jesus. According to the Gospel of Luke, Mary placed her child in a manger – an animal feeding bin – “because there was no room for them in the inn.”
No mere babysitters, the ox and ass harken back to the Book of Isaiah 1:3, a verse early Christians interpreted as a prophecy of the birth of Christ.…
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By Anjana Susarla, Professor of Information Systems, Michigan State University
In the absence of comprehensive federal AI regulation, states have stepped in. The Trump administration, at Big Tech’s urging, is attempting to roll back many of those laws.
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By Human Rights Watch
Click to expand Image Migrants entering a detention center for processing at the port of Shengjin, northwestern Albania, January 28, 2025. © 2025 Vlasov Sulaj/AP Photo Following a gathering of Council of Europe states on International Human Rights Day, 27 countries called for “migration reform”, attacking the European Convention on Human Rights and the European Court of Human Rights for their role in upholding the rights of migrants and asylum seekers. This latest anti-migrant rhetoric comes at the same time as the EU’s wave of regressive and cruel measures.Earlier…
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By Nicky Hudson, Professor of Medical Sociology, De Montfort University
Around 200 children in several countries were conceived with sperm from a single donor who unknowingly carried a rare genetic mutation linked to early onset cancers, it has been revealed. The consequences have been devastating. Several children have already died and many families across Europe are now facing a risk they never expected.
The case has prompted urgent questions. How was one donor used so widely? Why did standard safeguards fail to identify a mutation that can have such severe consequences? And how did a system created to create families allow a tragedy of this scale?
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By Matt Jacobsen, Senior Lecturer in Film History in the School of Society and Environment, Queen Mary University of London
Despite a wonderful central performance from June Squibb, Scarlett Johansson’s directorial debut is a sentimental, tonally uncertain drama about grief and holocaust survival
Eleanor Morgenstein, a 94-year-old Midwesterner living in Florida, moves to New York after the death of her close friend and roommate Bessie, a Holocaust survivor. She joins a Jewish seniors group and accidentally finds herself part of a meeting of Holocaust survivors.
Eleanor, at first buoyed by the prospect of new friends,…
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