In Global China Lab's monthly digest, there's a round-up of many brilliant articles on China's ethnic politics published in @madeinchinajournal.com and other venues. If you haven't already check this out mailchi.mp/thepeoplesma...

That’s one hell of a cover…..

Hilarious how for years serious people have said that you can't rely on renewables because they are prone to disruptions in supply www.ft.com/content/19f1...

Strikes me as an absurd threat, either we need the 4000 new training places or we don’t

We are looking to appoint an Assistant Professor in Human Geography with expertise in the field of Health Geography that will complement and extend current work in our Geographies of Life research cluster. Application deadline May 10th, further details here: durham.taleo.net/careersectio...

'the overall conclusion is that the scale of deaths in the first wave could have been much lower and the devastating second wave could have been largely avoided' @chrischirp.bsky.social substack.com/home/post/p-...

Plate 29 From my book, ‘The Edge of Ruin’ … Nenthead Mine, Cumbria In the 18th century, the Quaker-founded London Lead Company built England’s first purpose-built industrial village at Nenthead to house the families of mine workers. In one of England’s highest villages, workers were...

A reminder that eels are *the* most smuggled animal on earth, and that the global black market for eels is worth an estimated $4-5 billion. Interpol has called it “Europe’s ivory trade.”

"They are easy to see, but it’s less easy to perceive the immense environmental harm of the shipping industry..." @rebeccasolnit.bsky.social on Richard Misrach's photographs of international shipping: aperture.org/editorial/ri...

In honor of Habermas, a meme I made

Jürgen Habermas, a philosopher and public intellectual who was one of the most influential and cited thinkers in postwar Germany, died on Saturday. He was 96.

Could be worse. In order to avoid controversy, all Euro notes feature bridges. In order further to avoid controversy, they're all fictional. Or they were until the folk of the Dutch town of Spijkenisse took it upon themselves to build them. Now all Euro notes feature bridges from just one Dutch town

“The only thing prohibiting transit in the straits right now,” says Pete Hegseth, “is Iran shooting at shipping.” Other than THAT, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play? www.wsj.com/livecoverage...

As We Fade by Saodat Ismailova is filmed on the sacred mountain of Sulaiman-Too in Kyrgyzstan. Projected onto 24 silk panels, combining drone film with archival footage of various rituals forming a complex multifaced tapestry of then and now. #BalticGateshead www.facebook.com/share/r/1HxT...

#China’s new “ethnic unity” law, to be passed this week, will accelerate the attempted forced assimilation of the country’s ethnic minorities into the dominant Han culture, according to academics and human rights groups. A piece by me: CLICK LINK TO READ www.bbc.com/news/article...

Made it to Friday but at what cost

If anyone is friends with any Georgian air traffic controllers, buy them a nice bottle of wine. As guardians of pretty much the only narrow gap still available between Europe and Asia that avoids both Iran, the Gulf, Ukraine and Russia, they are under some substantial pressure.

"Make people dependent enough, and then make it shitty" Still giggling at this hilarious video from the Norwegian Consumer Council "A Day in the Life of an Ensh*ttificator" which seems a perfect embodiment of Silicon Valley and tech generally these days www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4Up...

The Rebellion! exhibition opens in June at Newcastle City Library and will be there for three months. It is an exploration of protest as an essential part of our cultural identity in the face of draconian anti-protest legislation.

This #MapMonday we have even #MoreMaps for you! 🗺️✨ We've georeferenced the 1,329 first edition Six-inch maps of England and Wales we added in November. Now you can use a special toggle button in our viewers to compare these maps side-by-side. Explore the new tool > maps.nls.uk/additions/#194

Typical plumber, always lets you down when they get offered a bigger job

Russian media rhetoric toward Kazakhstan intensifies as famine history and sovereignty debates test regional ties amid Moscow’s shifting foreign policy doctrine https://ow.ly/Kvrj50YmzFL #Kazakhstan #Russia #CentralAsia #Geopolitics #History #FamineHistory

found an excuse to include one of my favourite papers of all time in my lecture on algorithmic discrimination: Keyes et al (2019): A Mulching Proposal: Analysing and Improving an Algorithmic System for Turning the Elderly into High-Nutrient Slurry. dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/...

🌎 World Water Day 2026: Water and Gender 💧 How does gender shape water access, governance, cooperation and sustainability worldwide? Join us online on Monday 23rd March 2026 for this special event hosted by @ihrr.bsky.social & @geogdurham.bsky.social at @durham.ac.uk. 🧵👇 @un-water.bsky.social

One for you @diegothegeographer.bsky.social

Out now, with free access till 11 April, reflecting many conversations with Feifei Hua and Xianyang Hu on how the 摇火车 ['shake the train'] square dance phenomena took off from one district in Xi'an and what it says about dentity, self-expression and place n contemporary China tinyurl.com/4v8tucb5

"Once completed, the China–Kyrgyzstan–Uzbekistan railway will, at the very least, enhance regional connectivity. But how important is the project for Kyrgyzstan, through which, according to recent reporting, 304 km of the line will pass?" My latest @timesca.com 🔽 timesca.com/china-kyrgyz...

When you put it like this, a $75 million bribe to Melania and gutting the Washington Post seems like a small price to pay.

We're recruiting 2 PhD candidates in human geography here in Uppsala, one position focused on urban/housing issues and one in political ecology. Please spread the word/repost etc. Being a PhD student in Sweden is a good gig.

Iran Worried U.S. Might Be Building 8,500th Nuclear Weapon https://theonion.com/iran-worried-u-s-might-be-building-8-500th-nuclear-wea-1819573283/

Save the date! Join interdisciplinary researchers, artists and practitioners for this event, addressing the multifaceted dimensions of extraction through our past and present culture and visual media. More details 👇 @adambridgen.bsky.social @durham.ac.uk

The book is a "compendium of... the unfinished + abandoned projects that have languished in notebooks, memories + email drafts—presented with unsentimental retrospection. It’s perhaps fitting that the only formal catalogue raisonné of Calle’s work documents this negative space..."

China's Xinhua news agency has just published this editorial cartoon in response to Trump's rejection of climate policies. It is pretty clear that China views this as a HUGE geopolitical fumble by the US leaving the field clear for China's to win the global race to clean-tech hegemony

Cyberfraud representing an estimated two-thirds of Laos’s GDP really underscores that deviant globalization IS “development.” www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

Trump’s tariffs are hurting Americans, according to research from the US Federal Reserve: nearly 90 percent of the tariffs’ economic burden fell on U.S. firms and consumers. This WSJ article is free to read... www.wsj.com/opinion/dona...

Happy birthday to one of my favourite haters, Charles Darwin

Check out this quick petition to defend Europe's environmental laws against pressure from polluters. 1 minute to sign. Would really help if you shared it too! #HandsOffNature handsoffnature.eu?utm=.share.b...

Kyrgyzstan faces possible EU trade restrictions over alleged sanctions circumvention even as Bishkek seeks dialogue to avoid becoming the first Central Asian state targeted https://ow.ly/S6RN50Y9rHb #Kyrgyzstan #EU #Sanctions #CentralAsia #Trade #Geopolitics

i was actually shocked to see the numbers on new research from Global Energy Monitor on new gas projects in the US: nearly 100 gigawatts of power—enough to power tens of millions of homes—are currently in development explicitly to power data centers. At the end of 2023 that number was 4 gigawatts

Fascinating peace on critical art of Saule Suleimenova @ Times of Central Asia. She is among the era-defining artist. timesca.com/unbent-unbow...

The climatologist told me historians will wonder why we didn’t do more. The epidemiologist told me historians will wonder why we didn’t do more. The activist told me historians will wonder why we didn’t do more. The historian told me that nobody listens to historians.

The first display of my Rebellion! exhibition, exploring protest as part of our cultural identity, will be at Newcastle City Library from June to August this year. #Photography

Ich thynke but litel of a Mondaye bleake Tuesday grey and Wednesdaye eke Thursdaye Ich care nat for thee Yet Fridaye - Ich am yn love [twangy, moody lute arpeggio] Mondaye thou kanst fall awaye Tuesdaye, Wednesdaye, myne herte slaye No mirthe ys founde upon Thursdaye Yet Fridaye - Ich am yn love

"Precarious Accumulation," by Nellie Chu, tells the story of migrant entrepreneurs in China's fast fashion industry whose dreams of economic freedom are confronted by the reality of precarity, exploitation, and marginalization. Read the intro for free now: buff.ly/wIreaaM

Tajikistan faces a deepening plastic waste crisis as most trash goes uncollected or unrecycled with only a small fraction of plastic reentering the economy https://ow.ly/KwHM50Y1lGg #Tajikistan #PlasticWaste #Environment #CentralAsia #WasteManagement #PlasticPollution

Funded PhD opportunity here at @durham.ac.uk with some good people 'The potential for modern-day deer forests in facilitating and maintaining net gain in the uplands of the North Pennines' www.findaphd.com/phds/project...

Our new paper audits ChatGPT’s place-based judgements using 20 million pairwise comparisons. We find systematic geographic biases in how places are described and evaluated. journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/... (authors: Francisco W. Kerche, Matthew Zook, Mark Graham)

Russian ideologue Alexander Dugin’s remarks questioning Central Asian sovereignty have sparked backlash in Uzbekistan and renewed concerns over imperial rhetoric from Moscow https://ow.ly/gVYA50XZMYH #CentralAsia #Uzbekistan #Russia #Geopolitics #DuginRemarks #SovereigntyDebate #ImperialRhetoric

And thou mayest aske thyself, 'How do Ich werke thys?' And thou mayest aske thyself, 'Wher ys that large destrier?' And thou mayest telle thyself, 'Thys nys not my beautiful castle!' And thou mayest telle thyself, 'Thys nys not my swift goshawk!'