Generally if I find myself awake at four in the morning, the best thing on TV is Vince Shlomi pitching the SlapChop or Billy Mays yelling at me from beyond the grave. But this morning, I caught an unapologetic and often uncomfortably unflinching documentary on what day-to-day life in a wheelchair is like. More »
The Obunga Youth Group sits on the edge of the biggest slums in Kisumu, the main city in the Nyanza Province of Western Kenya, and the epicentre of post-election violence. This week they held a forum and how to move beyond that horrific episode. With 12,000 people living on less than $1 a day, the […] More »
If, as a disabled person, you think you’re still getting the shaft out in the real world, then you better thank the Lord you didn’t land in prison. Though twenty-five-to-life can be utterly soul-destroying for anyone, no one has it worse than the disabled inmates around the world. For them, even basic human rights are […] More »
I’m back in Scotland this month, for my first trip home since Christmas. Coming home is always incredible — a constant onslaught of the long-lost familiar — but being back also reminds me of some of the reasons I left in the first place. I could give you a few of those, but lurking behind […] More »
A couple summers ago I was working for a medical ethics organization in Israel and we started receiving complaints from a group of former soldiers who were suffering from a mysterious cluster of similar medical problems: shaking, memory loss, fatigue. It turned out that while they were serving in the army, the men had received […] More »
Ever the moral hinterland, the U.S. state of Texas has recently been in the news for an exceptionally despicable practice: charging victims of sexual violence up-front payments for their own rape kits, which pack a financial wallop of up to $1800. No one has conducted an official poll on the matter, but I’m fairly confident […] More »
The details of a UK detainee’s torture at Gitmo still under wraps. Binyam Mohamed‘s case has recently brought pressure on the Obama Administration to clean up more of Bush’s legacy. This past Wednesday it was made clear by a British High Court that secret information concerning the details of Binyam Mohamed’s torture should be kept […] More »
Looking for an adventurous and educational holiday to beat the winter blues? Why not tour the chaos and misery of the mess Texaco Oil left behind in the Amazon Basin. For the last fifteen years Chevron Corp, which acquired Texaco Oil in 2001, has been in a deadlock legal battle with the citizens of Lago […] More »
Lately, it seems everyone is talking about slumdog millionaire. I haven’t seen it, but I’ve been assured it is the thing to do. Having recently returned from a little overseas adventure of my own, I’ve been thinking a lot about slums. What does it mean to live in a slum? Or a compound, a favela, […] More »
Today is the 60th anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Human Rights. On December 10th, 1948, 48 states voted in its favour. Although not one state voted against it, eight abstained: including the former Soviet Union, taking issue with the inclusion of individual property rights; apartheid-era South Africa, saying that “human dignity would […] More »
In this instalment of his twice-monthly column, Dave Bidini laments China’s unstoppable development rush. In an effort to be seen as good Olympic hosts, he writes, it is sacrificing pieces of its cultural uniqueness. Bidini’s trip ten years ago to the walled city of Yingpao is particularly illustrative: We ended up staying at the only […] More »