A British woman who became a prominent defender of Syria’s Assad regime resurfaced this week as an “international observer” for Russia’s sham referendums in Ukraine.
Vanessa Beeley – described by Russian broacaster RT as “an independent investigative journalist” – told a...
Blog archive: All
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1st October 2022
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24th September 2022A British academic whose Twitter account is tagged as "Iran state-affiliated media" was the main author of a report on Islamophobia published this week with funding from the EU's Rights, Equality and Citizenship Programme. The academic in question – former professor David Miller – is a...
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17th September 2022A man has been sentenced to death in Libya after converting from Islam to Christianity, according to local news reports. Details are scarce, but Dhiaa al-Din Ahmed Miftah Balao – described as an information technology graduate – appears to have previously been a devoted Muslim and...
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25th August 2022The Egyptian authorities have got themselves in a tangle over photography. They want the country to be seen as an attractive tourist destination and if photographers would just focus on nice things, like feluccas sailing on the Nile and sunsets over the pyramids, all would be well. The problem...
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8th August 2022Shortly before Christmas in 2012 a mass shooting at Sandy Hook elementary school in the United States left 20 children and six teachers dead. Eight months later an incendiary bomb hit a school in Syria's Aleppo province, killing at least 10 students on the spot. Six other...
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1st August 2022Thirteen people charged in connection with the world's worst crane disaster have gone on trial in Saudi Arabia for a third time, after previously being acquitted twice. The latest retrial in the seven-year-old case follows a decision by the kingdom's Supreme Court to quash the earlier verdicts...
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23rd July 2022A few years ago Egypt's Supreme Council for Media Regulation decreed that gay people must not appear in print or audio or visual media "except in recognition and acknowledgment of their misconduct". In other words, if they are to be seen or heard at all, gay people should always be presented in...
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22nd July 2022Following Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait in 1990, British prime minister Margaret Thatcher advocated using banned chemical weapons against Iraqi forces, declassified documents show. Despite the 1925 Geneva Protocol prohibiting their use, Thatcher repeatedly pressed the US to be ready to...
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11th July 2022There’s a verse in the Qur’an that cautions Muslims against spreading false news and urges them to check the facts first with people of “sound judgment”. It was good advice in the time of the Prophet Muhammad and it’s good advice now in the age of social media. But is there more to the verse than...
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29th June 2022As British troops pulled out of Aden in 1967 the band of the Royal Marines struck up a tune to send them on their way – not Rule Britannia or Land of Hope and Glory but a Cockney song, Fings Ain't Wot They Used To Be. It was an ironic choice but, in the circumstances, probably the right one. "Fings...
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7th April 2022After months of apparent deadlock, the last few days have brought tentative signs of a shift in Yemen's seven-year conflict. On Friday Hans Grundberg, the UN's special envoy, announced that the protagonists had agreed to a two-month ceasefire. The truce, which came...
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21st February 2022Human rights organisations have welcomed a decision by Kuwait's constitutional court last week which overturned a law criminalising "imitation of the opposite sex". Amnesty International hailed the ruling as "a major breakthrough for transgender rights in the region" and Human Rights Watch...
