In a small town in the north of Italy, fog and humidity make parmesan cheese and ham tasty. But most of the time it smells of a tomato sauce factory and pigs. I hated life there. When I go back to my hometown, I argue with my brother who has joined a neo-fascist group, I […]

There are moments in politics that simply and neatly crystalize everything. Today it was the absurdity of Labour expelling Alastair Campbell for voting Lib Dem last week. The only analogy my mind can conjure up is the prison guards on the Berlin Wall shooting the first people flocking through the gaps on 9th Nov 1989 […]

Maryinka, a satellite town outside Donetsk, is under constant artillery attack. Today, the once million-strong city of Donetsk is under the control of the self-proclaimed “Donetsk People’s Republic” (DNR), while Maryinka is under control of Ukrainian forces. In some places, the distance between firing positions is a few dozen metres. Many streets on both sides […]

This is the only time I am going to mention Nigel Farage in this election campaign. And I’m going to do it just to ask you to please stop mentioning him too. Clearly both Brexit, and the rise of the far right that it has fuelled, are deeply concerning. We are seeing the return of […]

Musa* arrived in Greece alone. He was 16. After fleeing Afghanistan on foot, he crossed the Evros River, which runs along the border between Greece and Turkey. His first encounter in Greece was with the police. Thousands of unaccompanied children, like Musa, travel to and across Europe, through mountainous terrain and across dangerous seas in […]

Dear Liberal Democrats, My hearts sinks at all sorts of now daily encounters with how awful our politics has become – the debasement, the cruelty, the almost total absence of generosity, compassion, care and yes love for each other. The binary, the black or white, the them and the us – a world, it seems, […]

“The Bible, borders and Brexit” will “make Europe great again”, declared Ed Martin to roaring applause. The Republican pundit who co-wrote 'The Conservative Case for Trump' was speaking at a global gathering of religious conservatives in Verona this March. Italy’s deputy prime minister, Matteo Salvini, was a headline speaker. Verona, Italy’s ancient 'city of love', […]

This article is part of an editorial partnership with the Fund for Global Human Rights. Amandine Mbonimpa has not forgotten anything about the afternoon of 3 August 2015. That was when her father was shot. She had known he was in danger. Pierre-Claver Mbonimpa was the founder of a human rights organisation, APRODH, in his […]

On Saturday, the Algerian Constitutional Council has officially ceased to accept submissions of candidates seeking to participate in the upcoming presidential elections scheduled to take place on the 4th of July of this year. Key political figures and parties have suspended their participation in the controversial elections as they consider the continued popular protests to […]

A Brexit Party running mate of Nigel Farage in Thursday's European election helped spread fake news for a Bosnian Serb warlord later jailed for crimes against humanity, an investigation by SourceMaterial and openDemocracy has discovered. John Kennedy, a former Tory now standing in the South East region on a list headed by Farage, was for […]