By Peter Rutland, Professor of Government, Wesleyan University
Elizaveta Gaufman, Assistant Professor of Russian Discourse and Politics, University of Groningen
Perceived wisdom has it that the longer a war goes on, the less enthusiastic a public becomes for continuing the conflict. After all, it is ordinary citizens who tend to bear the economic and human costs.
And yet, as the war following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in…
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Friday, February 20, 2026
A sprawling online scam industry worth an estimated tens of billions of dollars a year is being powered by trafficked workers subjected to torture, sexual abuse and forced labour inside heavily guarded compounds in Southeast Asia, a new UN human rights report has found.
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By Human Rights Watch
Click to expand Image Cars drive through an intersection near a monument in Yaoundé, Cameroon, September12, 2025. © 2025 Welba Yamo Pascal/AP Photo Cameroonian authorities are arbitrarily detaining non-Cameroonian nationals deported from the United States and detaining and abusing journalists who tried to interview them. But US President Donald Trump’s administration doesn’t seem to care.In January and February, under a secret agreement, the US government deported to Cameroon 17 men and women—including asylum seekers and a stateless person—from 9 African countries: Angola, Democratic…
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By Global Voices Brazil
Many people on social media reacted with surprise to the story of the Argentine visitor arrested for allegedly making racial insults. Racism is a non-bailable offense in Brazil.
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By Human Rights Watch
Click to expand Image A coal-fired plant in the town of Poca near the Kanawha River, in West Virginia, US, August 28, 2018. © 2018 John Ray/AP Photo US President Donald Trump’s administration today rolled back another air-pollution protection, this time for one of the most toxic substances on earth: mercury.The action reverses then-President Joe Biden’s decision in 2024 to reduce the levels of allowable mercury air emissions for coal-fired power plants, restoring them to their previous levels. Trump had already given dozens of US power plants a presidential exemption, which environmental…
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By Human Rights Watch
Click to expand Image A 17-year-old Carrefour resident, associated with a criminal group, stands on a terrace, gazing out over the horizon in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, July 2024. © 2024 Nathalye Cotrino/Human Rights Watch A new United Nations report details how criminal groups in Haiti are exploiting the near-total absence of the state, as well as widespread hunger and violence, to recruit children who then face abuse. These criminal groups traffic children by using threats and material incentives to force them into criminal activity, sexual abuse, and sexual slavery.At least 26 criminal…
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By Fiona Brehony, PhD Candidate, Department of Geography and Environmental Studies, The Open University
As Elaine, an artist in her 80s, stood at her window in north Manchester, she noticed new apartment blocks dominating the nighttime skyline: “The moon is no longer in view; I have to crane my neck out of the window in order to see it. Or to see the reflection of the moon.”
I have been meeting with the Many Hands Craft Collective – a group of older artists, knitters and poets – most Tuesdays for almost a year. The group has been gathering at the community room in Victoria Square, Manchester, for over a decade.
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By Krisztina Rudolf, PhD candidate , Liverpool John Moores University
Liverpool is not one of the “blue zones” – a term used for regions of the world where people tend to live unusually long lives, such as parts of Sardinia, Okinawa and Ikaria.
Healthy life expectancy in Liverpool is only about 56 years. However, overall life expectancy is much higher there, with many people living into their late 70s…
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By Laura O'Flanagan, PhD Candidate, School of English, Dublin City University
Modern cinema has become less interested in idealised depictions of motherhood, and more concerned with their inner lives – however messy.
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By William Crozier, Duns Scotus Assistant Professor of Franciscan Studies, Durham University
Hundreds of thousands of pilgrims are expected to pay homage to the remains of the 11th-century saint famous for his love of the natural world.
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