Two data points: 1) Trump killing 11 people via drone strike off the Venezuelan coast 2) Isreal violating international law to strike Hamas in Doha These are cut from the same cloth. Once you create a state of exception you keep using it over and over Really baaaaaad shit is coming down the pipe

Applications are now open for the 2025 Colin Murray Award. Deadline: 30 September 2025. The award supports post-doctoral researchers to carry out original ‘engaged field research’ in Southern Africa. Please see the link below for more details jsas.blog

BREAKING: ICE is sending Russian dissidents back to Russia. When the dissidents arrived in Russia, the Russian authorities were given documents relating to their asylum applications in the US which under US law are confidential. This seems to be part of a secret agreement between Trump and Putin.

I’m just a girl, who did a spinal tap on a preschooler last week, asking you to fire RFK Jr.

Imagine picking a “businessman” to be your leader, but instead of a great businessman, or even a good one, you pick the absolute worst one…I mean, the laughing stock of his sector (land dev’t), known for many bankruptcies, cheating people, crooked deals, etc. Now imagine letting him be a dictator.

Call from a producer this morning: Zoe please help - we thought the panel on our show was balanced, but it turns out they’re both pro-mass detention camps for asylum seekers. Would you come on to be the anti-detention camp voice? We are in a really bad place, friends, I am telling you.

Laura Bates' book The New Age of Sexism takes a sobering look at how tech accelerates misogyny. But the book makes a pretty glaring failure, in that it overlooks the very real and harmful impact that AI has on sex workers. Which should be the real story.

This is all becoming very dangerous and the Government's failure to show any kind of resistance to it is a disgrace www.theguardian.com/world/2025/a...

My latest with the Global Observatory, on the need for urgent action in #Tigray: theglobalobservatory.org/2025/08/urge...

Apartheid South Africa banned television until 1977, partly due to a belief that TV was satanic. www.researchgate.net/publication/...

At the beginning of September, South Africa’s Western Cape High Court will hear a case that could finally end the criminalization of sex work in the country. It’s a moment decades in the making, which could bring real gains for the safety, dignity, and equality of sex workers.

I understand why Democrats are citing things like a "human trafficking investigation" as evidence of beneficial local/federal enforcement cooperation, but the one cited here appears to have not resulted in any arrests for human trafficking, but for sex-for-a-fee: police.boston.gov/2025/08/12/t...

I am genuinely impressed at the government's capacity to undermine the normative power of invoking terrorism and national security. They have done more in 30 days to problematise the concepts than 30 years of leftist scholarship.

The return to the Gilded Age continues as ICE detention centers have become a spawning ground for consumption, AKA tuberculosis. It goes without saying that ICE isn't doing what it takes to prevent this. @whitneycwimbish.bsky.social has the disturbing story: prospect.org/health/2025-...

@theguardian.com doesn't reflect the reality of what happened yesterday. The fascist group held signs saying "Kill them all" (no arrests), made obscene gestures, did nazi salutes, used abusive & obscene language (vocabulary not usually a strong skill for them). www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

There are no magic fixes, but Section 307 of the US Tariff Act delivers results. Import bans blocking forced-labor tainted goods from the US market have led to more than $62 million in back wages & fees returned to workers. Read our @opendemocracy.net oped: www.opendemocracy.net/en/beyond-tr...

Seminar (online only): Female Politicians Running for Office Thursday 10am SAST Meeting link: lnkd.in/d3gxgGUm Causes of Women's Descriptive Under-representation in Zambia, Janet Mundando Between Rhetoric and Reform: The Failure of Gender Quotas in Liberia, Lisa Kindervater

Facebook reminds me that a year ago I started a project of scanning the journals of the Central African Historical Association, based at the University of Rhodesia/Zimbabwe, which ran from 1970 to the early 1980s. I have uploaded my scans to Dropbox here: www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/ruzbp...

Happening now: protesters in Chicago are interrupting a hiring fair at the Congress Hotel, where U.S. Customs and Border protection is recruiting today. Banner reads, "stop kidnapping our neighbors!" It's quite the scene in here, and the DHS table has been blocked for several minutes already.

This is nuts. 474 people have been arrested and are now facing being charged with terrorism for showing up in a public place to peacefully protest against the most well documented genocide in human history… www.theguardian.com/world/2025/a...

UK still sharing intelligence with Israel as surveillance flights over Gaza continue - https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/uk-still-sharing-intelligence-israel-surveillance-flights-over-gaza-continue

Texas has made "trans women peeing" a higher governmental priority than human trafficking.

The stranger danger panic has convinced a whole lot of people that rapists are never people you know. And they interpret that to mean that, if they know someone—personally or parasocially—that they must be innocent. No matter how many victims come forward.

Public Lecture Series: Everything Everywhere All at Once, Semester Two, 2025 For further information please contact [email protected]  All sessions are hybrid, with meeting links being circulated close to time. There is no need to register in advance.

an absolute must read.

Important ‪@hannahjlewis.bsky.social critique of the damage caused by the victim narrative in anti trafficking discourse, especially in the context of @helenbamber.bsky.social @ecpatuk.bsky.social & ATLEU finding in 2024 only 4% of non British nationals confirmed as trafficked were granted leave

"New deterrents” are not the solution. This new deal will cause considerable further harm, resulting in the forcible transfer of people back to France. Read @vickytaylor.bsky.social's new piece for @opendemocracy.net :

Such a sharp and insightful piece on the politics of how victimhood is (mis)used in anti-trafficking. By @hannahjlewis.bsky.social for @beyondslavery.bsky.social

“Threat to humanity” It is still startling just how far and fast the US mask has slipped “Because of the fact that Rosie O’Donnell is not in the best interests of our Great Country, I am giving serious consideration to taking away her Citizenship.” www.nytimes.com/2025/07/12/u...

Don’t be fooled by Labour’s show of providing safe migration routes. It’s justifying a cruel trade in people. ✍️ @vickytaylor.bsky.social www.opendemocracy.net/en/beyond-tr...

It also hasn't escaped my notice that, while the basic assistants were given female-coded names and personas (Siri, Alexa, Cortana), the advancement to 'intelligences'—meant to think and plan and write for you—instigated a shift to neutral techy labels and male names (Grok, Chat-GPT, Claude)

I truly cannot find a better way to start this profile than by announcing the publication of my first (edited) book, which came out with @dgb-history.bsky.social a few days ago. Thanks to the support of the @snsf.ch, the book is freely available here: brill.com/display/titl...

INVESTIGATION: The Israeli army is using Chinese-made drones affixed with grenade launchers to enforce expulsion orders across Gaza, with soldiers saying they deliberately target civilians so others will ‘learn’ not to return. By Yuval Abraham @mekomit.bsky.social www.972mag.com/drones-grena...

"In the two decades since the ICC was established, the court has not once prosecuted someone for trafficking." We can't keep ignoring human trafficking in war. Read the piece by legal expert Julia Muraszkiewicz ⬇️ www.opendemocracy.net/en/beyond-tr...

Global inequality is the World Bank’s elephant in the room

Are grooming gangs the far right’s golden goose?: The far right cynically uses child sexual exploitation to push an anti-migrant and islamophobia agenda […] [Original post on newsie.social]

Forced labour bans: protecting rights or markets? 🍅 Read the next piece in our 10 year anniversary series ⤵️ www.opendemocracy.net/en/beyond-tr...

Are grooming gangs the far right’s golden goose?

“we need to show that the far-right are predators, not protectors. We need to evidence and talk about all the vile things they have said and done. Expose them, show the world what they’re really about. “ So much racist garbage around “asian grooming gangs”. www.opendemocracy.net/en/beyond-tr...

“The findings represent a striking contradiction. A government led by freedom fighters who helped liberate Black South Africans from apartheid is now overseeing a police force that tortures them, betraying a promise not to repeat atrocities” www.nytimes.com/2025/07/07/w...

"States in the global North are designing and enforcing forced labour bans with the primary aim of protecting their own markets and workers. Given this, why do so many human rights organisations continue to support them?" t.co/45MMEbL8dw

"The soldiers testified that throughout Gaza, corpses of Palestinians in civilian clothes remained scattered along roads and open ground. “The whole area was full of bodies,” said S., a reservist. .... "There is a horrific smell of death.” www.972mag.com/israeli-sold...

“No right is safe in the new legal regime the Court creates.” –Justice Sonia Sotomayor. One of the most chilling sentences I have ever read.

I am thankful to have worked alongside these amazing individuals on this reflective piece. Please read and let us know what you think.👇🏾

The pipeline from child trafficking to prison or death that SPACE describes is utterly chilling. Exploited children & young people deserve so much better. Thank you @countylinescce.bsky.social for speaking to us @beyondslavery.bsky.social

Mistakes happen in anti-trafficking work. We must learn from them

How US funding built a brittle economy in anti-trafficking

It’s a good thing Congress isn’t alive to see this

No one who works for the US government is allowed to talk about a “rules based international order”…