MEET THE CENTRE TEAM Next up are @jenimitchell.bsky.social and @drtoddlandman.bsky.social!

Recruiting now! Our first postdocs in the new Leverhulme Centre for Research on Slavery in War, at King's College London. www.kcl.ac.uk/jobs/123845-... www.kcl.ac.uk/jobs/123566-...

Good piece from the author of One Long Night: A Global History of Concentration Camps

Last month @theatlantic.com published an often problematic piece about the war in #Sudan called “the war about nothing”. This week @thecontinent.org swings back, reminding us that what is “nothing” to you is “everything” to someone else. The Continent is a free publication, subscribe to read.

This week's good news: Drones clean up Everest, another country eliminates malaria, Italy's homicide rate plummets, Ecuador and Peru protect more area, China quietly converts hundreds of coal mines into solar, first regulated psychedelic medicine for depression. fixthenews.com/303-superwood/

Very grateful to have received this funding, and be part of a terrific team of scholars from the US and Australia seeking ways to transform relationships between space actors and Indigenous communities worldwide. White paper out early next year!

"Around the world, there is an endless number of big energy projects that have not only led to the grabbing of the land of many communities, but by doing so, are also violating and attacking their cultural rights and identity." Captured well here on the new Total/China pipeline, Uganda to Tanzania.

A global minimum tax on the ultrarich could change planetary politics. Right now South Africa, Chile, France, and Spain are pushing for it

1/ Successful spaceports need to work not just for rockets — but for people and places, too. 🚀🌏 Excited to share our latest paper on spaceport site selection, co-authored with the brilliant Karen L. Jones & Dr. Lindsay DeMarchi @ Aerospace Corporation + expert contributors from across the sector. 🧵👇

"...the Parties shall launch and/or expand cooperation on...transparent, formalized end-to-end mineral value chains (from mine to processed metal) that link both countries, in partnership, as appropriate, with the U.S. government and U.S. investors." Minerals For Peace trend continues.

Looks like an interesting read, by Gretchen Heefner 'Even decades after the first manned space flight, plans for human space exploration and extraplanetary colonization are still based on what we know about stark habitats on Earth.' press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/bo...

And that is why states don't rely on bombers for their assured second-strike capability.

May 2025 reads 💙📚 hararereview.wordpress.com/2025/06/01/m...

Ten alarm fire

The Children’s Gulag. How a Canadian-funded project is mapping Russia’s network of camps where abducted Ukrainian children are being held - and helping to bring some of them home. My report www.theglobeandmail.com/world/articl...

The risk of state collapse in the Sahel is more real now than it has been since 2012, not just in one state, but several. While researchers may disagree on what the actual strategy at work for JNIM in particular is right now, the risk is incredibly high. www.rfi.fr/fr/podcasts/...

Just published in collaboration with The Guardian our two-year investigation linking Turkish seabass and seabream in UK supermarkets to devastating overfishing and social harms in Senegal! www.desmog.com/2025/05/22/r... With✍️ @hazelhealy.bsky.social on @desmog.bsky.social

Exciting times indeed. Get in touch if you have a monograph on astropolitics in mind! Thanks to @bloomsburybooksuk.bsky.social for getting behind the idea of an Astropolitics book series!

Four months after seizing Goma, the M23 coalition is still struggling to take control of this city of nearly two million people. The city is awash with small arms and the thousands of former prisoners who escaped from Munzenze Prison in the chaos of Goma’s fall to M23.

This has been rolled out in London for a few years as well, culminating in the first permanent LFRs in Croydon. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Hoovering up the cake: The latest edition of the Sunday Times Rich List raises some uncomfortable questions about how much wealth in the UK is created - and how much is simply extracted.

Retrospectively applying immigration rules in bad faith can ruin lives, as we saw with the Windrush Scandal. It would be totally irresponsible for the government to pull the rug out from under people who have worked, paid taxes and built their lives here.

The Trust continues to support researchers at risk who have come to the UK from across the globe through a grant scheme delivered by @britishacademy.bsky.social and @cara1933.bsky.social. Apply now: www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/funding/brit...

Even if one were to accept this argument, it ignores the fact that the UK version of 'great replacement' racism cites Bowling Alone in its pseudo-academic arguments. So it's still dog whistling.

This, and also very offensive to those who have spent insane amounts of money and time complying with very strict rules and intimidation (literally called the 'hostile environment') and above all the Windrush generation threatened with deportation. Absolutely unreal.

Also references to “learning our language” ignores the fact that there are multiple indigenous languages across the UK…

This is outstanding on the vapid scientifically illiterate dreams of the tech overlord class arstechnica.com/culture/2025...

The reviews are in! Thyme Travellers: An Anthology of Palestinian Science Fiction edited by Sonia Sulaiman review by Akankshya Abismruta Sky Full of Elephants by Cebo Campbell review by Vivian Wagner Don’t Let the Forest In by C. G. Drews review by Cameron Miguel Link to latest issue in our bio!

Short thread (hopefully in plain English) on the nuclear deterrence dynamics in the India-Pakistan relationship and where this goes if escalation continues. <1>

Did AI kill your job? If so, I want to hear about it. The response to my story on the AI jobs crisis has been overwhelming. I heard from so many people impacted by AI that it made me want to collect and organize these stories to better understand the phenomenon. Share yours at: [email protected]

The new Pope likes to subtweet JD Vance. I’ll take it.

Excellent news!

This may sound grim, but it is a colossal underestimate of the impact of 4C heating Forget 40% poorer - this will leave billions dead and society and economy will have collapsed long before the 4C mark is reached www.theguardian.com/environment/...

To save runaways from slavery who were trying to make lives in the North “illegally,” local Vigilance Committees formed. They kept watch for slave catchers, secreted away those in danger, and posted placards that outed slave catchers, sometimes hounding them till they left town.

Depressing but plausible, even within academia. Looking forward to being known for my artisanal research, I guess.

Very useful maps/details here. The rise of what some call 'digital slavery' will be a key project for our forecasting team in our new Leverhulme Centre for Research on Slavery in War. Without better regulation (and more awareness!) the harm many workers suffer will only expand in scale & severity.

I've been wracking my brain for the perfect descriptor. This is it.

A very funny takedown of the very weird and not a little disturbing Anglofuturism thing - pleased to be quoted in it. thecritic.co.uk/issues/may-2...

Tech-bro delusionality is contagious, it seems

Since facing workers' rights lawsuits in Kenya, #Meta moved its moderation operations to a secret new location. We found them, in Ghana, where conditions appear to be even worse. Our joint investigation from @tbij.bsky.social and @theguardian.com out today 👇

Movie you’ve watched more than six times using gifs. (“Hard mode” no Star Wars, Star Trek, or LOTR)

Some facts: 👉 Research consistently shows no correlation between migration and crime 👉 Framing migration as a crime is a prejudiced narrative designed to divide communities 👉 Higher crime rates are often the result of factors such as poverty, social exclusion, and lack of opportunity, not migration

Latest podcast is out: Get in everyone, we are going to Resistance Summer School! Thank you to everyone who indicated they would like to take my course on Race, Media and International Affairs 101. Please fill out this quick interest form to begin to sign up! docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

A good primer on undersea cables, their status under international law and why the 1884 Convention for the Protection of Submarine Telegraph Cables and UNCLOS are insufficient to deal with this most hybrid of current security issues. www.forbes.com/sites/jillgo...

Here's a new and detailed five part investigation by France 24 into EU origin arms that were originally exported to the UAE, and then retransferred to Sudan via Libya. European weapons in Sudan (1/5): Bulgarian mortar shells in Darfur’s desert www.france24.com/en/africa/20... 1/

Seen this take a lot today (US abandons Africa) but given new Africa office will focus on critical minerals & CT, I'd say it's more the US openly embracing neocolonial extraction & violence, with no pretence that it cares about anything else. Not ceding to China & Russia but operating on same terms.

Fascinating, hadn't come across this connection before