Ghazi Gheblawi | غازي القبلاوي

"The world was too ridiculous for me to remain too sad for too long." - Arundhati Roy (Mother Mary Comes to Me)

Cometh the hour, cometh the conman This is how democracy dies: not with a bang but a simper

The political editor of the BBC’s sycophantic coverage of Nigel Farage is a warning of a dark future coming to the UK.
Piece from me on how incitement to racial violence and the promotion of conspiracy theories that might kill children are now given a free pass.

open.substack.com/pub/nickcohe...

54 Books By Women From Each Of Africa's 54 Countries Here are 54 books by women from each of Africa’s 54 countries.

54 Books By Women From Each Of Africa's 54 Countries | The Republic rpublc.com/april-may-20...

7 Books from Around the World to Read for Women in Translation Month - Electric Literature Don’t miss these translations by women authors writing in Arabic, Kannada, Latvian, and more

“A time to recognize the literary translators whose intense, sustained work has led to the publication of these and other brilliant works of literature, which otherwise would remain unknown to a wider, international audience.” (@ilzeduarte.bsky.social)

What is World Kid Lit Month? World Kid Lit Month is a month to celebrate world literature for kids and teens, especially fiction and nonfiction translated to English from other languages.

A week to go til September, World Kid Lit Month: the month to explore and celebrate international children's literature!

Read a kids' or YA book from or set in another country, or translated from another language. Comment below if you'd like ideas!

worldkidlit.org/what-is-worl...
#WorldKidLitMonth

The evolution of famine in Gaza, in maps and charts For the first time, catastrophic levels of hunger have been confirmed in the strip

Over a third of people say they’re going days without eating in Gaza. For now, the confirmed famine is centered in the governorate of Gaza, one of five in the strip. Our maps show where it’s expected to spread by the end of September

من التمر إلى النفط.. مشروع الاستعباد العربي بالنسبة لإمارات الساحل العربي، كان الربيع العربي تهديدًا وجوديًا، ومن هناك كان الاستثمار في نموذجين؛ حكم إسلامي لا يعرف الديمقراطية، أو تفتيت الدول بإبادة ذاكرتها الجماعية.

من التمر إلى النفط.. مشروع الاستعباد العربي manassa.news/stories/2613...

Josephine Quinn · Born on the Beach: Ancient Coastlines Seas are repetitive creatures, working in cycles of tides, migration and climate change, which is normally to say the...

‘Blue Humanities has taken over large parts of the academy in the last decade, bringing the human relationship with oceans, rivers, lakes and seas to the top of the scholarly agenda just as those waters gather to end humanity for good.’

@josephinequinn.bsky.social: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

1. 🧵Listen Again: Has the war in Gaza exposed a weakness at the heart of the liberal world order? Omar El Akkad joins @faisalalyafai.bsky.social for a frank and honest discussion about his own relationship to the conflict and its global impact.

newlinesmag.com/podcast/list...

TABKHA - Recipes from under the rubble Writing from her tent in Gaza, chef Mona Zahed shares twenty of her ancestral recipes, lovingly nurtured and recalled. Each dish is illustrated by a different artist, creating a visual feast as delici...

This new cookery book from Gazan chef Mona Zahed looks beautiful. Slingshot Books writes: "100% of the proceeds from the sale of this book will go directly to the author and her community." Delivery is expected Feb. 2025.

coffeesforgaza.com/products/tab...

The Most Nihilistic Conflict on Earth Sudan’s devastating civil war shows what will replace the liberal order: anarchy and greed.

The Most Nihilistic Conflict on Earth: #Sudan’s devastating civil war shows what will replace the liberal order: anarchy and greed.

By Anne Applebaum
www.theatlantic.com/magazine/arc...

Rachel is saying what we all knew. The GOP are hiding from their constituents and the reason is because they are demanding answers.

#USDemocracy

Enter the 2025 Queen Mary Wasafiri New Writing Prize The 2025 Queen Mary Wasafiri New Writing Prize, the sixteenth edition of the prestigious prize, is open from 30 January to 30 June.

Just two weeks left to enter the Queen Mary Wasafiri New Writing Prize! If you have been working on some fiction, life writing, or poetry, now is the time to submit.

The prize is open internationally, and is accepting translations for the first time in it's fifteen-year history.

المنسيّون في قصة الآثار الليبية | مجلة الفراتس يشاع في ليبيا استخفاف أهلها بإرثهم الثقافي. يدحض هذا المقال هذه الرواية من كتُب المستكشفين والرحالة في ليبيا، الذين احتقروا أهالي البلد.

التنقيب على المنسيين.. الليبيون الذين أسقطهم الرحالة الأوروبيون من حساباتهم: كتُب الرحالة وعلماء الآثار الأوروبيين غيّبت دورَ الليبيين في اكتشاف والحفاظ على آثارهم. alpheratzmag.com/history/%d8%...

Daniel Trilling · Is this fascism? Are​ we, as Richard Seymour suggests, ‘in the early days of a new fascism’? In Disaster Nationalism, Seymour...

‘Trying to define fascism is “like trying to nail jelly to a wall”, yet for all its slipperiness, “fascism” describes a uniquely destructive force in politics, and one for which we don’t have a better word.’

@trillingual.bsky.social
on far-right populism: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Mohamed Choukri’s Unromantic Tangier | Ursula Lindsey The Moroccan writer's works are a bracing corrective to the myth of his city as a glamorous, bohemian playground.

Ursula Lindsey on Mohamed Choukri’s hardscrabble life in the margins of Tangier

Mother of jailed British-Egyptian activist hospitalised after 242 days on hunger strike Laila Soueif continues protest against detention of Alaa Abd el-Fattah in Cairo The mother of the imprisoned British-Egyptian human rights activist Alaa Abd el-Fattah has been admitted to hospital after spending more than 240 days on hunger strike. Laila Soueif’s family said she had been admitted to St Thomas’ hospital in London on Thursday night with dangerously low blood sugar levels, but continues to refuse medical intervention that would provide her with calories. Continue reading...

Mother of jailed British-Egyptian activist hospitalised after 242 days on hunger strike

Letter From London episode 67: My dad's box Letter form London · Episode

open.spotify.com/episode/4Blw...

A Mother’s Hunger Strike Challenges Two Nations Laila Soueif’s effort to free her son, Alaa Abd el-Fattah, a British citizen, from an Egyptian prison is a study in personal protest.

Last September, the activist Alaa Abd el-Fattah completed a five-year prison sentence. But the Egyptian authorities announced that his pretrial detention didn’t count, and that he would be held until 2027. In response, his mother began a hunger strike.

Martin Rowson on Donald Trump’s Oval Office clash with Cyril Ramaphosa – cartoon The president of South Africa responded calmly to Trump’s egregious claim of genocide against white Afrikaners

Martin Rowson on Donald Trump’s Oval Office clash with Cyril Ramaphosa – cartoon

Mo Salah and the Myth of the Good Immigrant His presence brought hope, inclusion and pride to Liverpool — but no individual can live up to the demands of a divided nation

Tam Hussein: Mo Salah and the Myth of the Good Immigrant
His presence brought hope, inclusion and pride to Liverpool — but no individual can live up to the demands of a divided nation newlinesmag.com/spotlight/mo...

There is no "debate" about crimes against humanity!

A cautionary tale: Why the UK’s Rwanda bill is doomed for political failure Finally passed into law, the UK’s bill to process migrants in Rwanda has been a political disaster. European governments should remember that not only does such a policy not work to deter migration, i...

I wrote this before the last UK elections, but the thrust of this commentary is just as relevant to Starmer's island of strangers speech as it was to the Tory's Rwanda plan

ecfr.eu/article/a-ca...

Watching Keir Starmer go exponentially more towards the racist right-wing, burning his credibility and voter base, in an attempt to placate a small migration-obsessed share of the UK's electorate who would never vote for him anyway is just a bizarre political tragedy in the making

Trump administration weighs sending migrants to Libya and Rwanda, sources say | CNN Politics The Trump administration has discussed with Libya and Rwanda the possibility of sending migrants who have criminal records and are in the United States to the two countries, according to multiple sour...

Discussions between State department officials and Saddam Haftar this week apparently also concerned US plans to send migrants and asylum seekers to Libya, among other countries.
edition.cnn.com/2025/04/30/p...

Where to? | TLS

'In the imagination of the Trump administration, Greenland is a large shape on a map, within the US sphere of interest.'

Lindsey Hilsum on the future of Greenland

A crisis at the Jewish Chronicle shows the toothlessness of the press watchdog The country’s longest-standing Jewish newspaper ran fabricated stories that have prompted a widespread inquiry in Israel. But at home, the press regul...

The planting of fabricated stories on foreign media is a huge scandal in Israel. Meanwhile IPSO has just tickled the Jewish Chronicle (owner unknown) with a feather duster. What’s the point of the press regulator? My column www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/ideas/media/...

"حديد ايحكّ فبعضه": الرجولة الجريحة وسيكولوجيا الذكر الليبي

تازر: "حديد ايحكّ فبعضه": الرجولة الجريحة وسيكولوجيا الذكر الليبي
jeem.me/society/1359

Lest We Forget the Horrors: An Unending Catalog of Trump’s Cruelties, Collusions, Corruptions, and Crimes Early in President Trump’s first term, McSweeney’s editors began to catalog the head-spinning number of misdeeds coming from his administration. We...

We have updated our list of Trump's cruelties, collusions, corruptions, and crimes. It's up to 158 entries (and counting). #LestWeForgetTheHorrors
buff.ly/9xPD7jQ

El Salvador’s Exceptional Prison State The president chose security over justice. For how long will his country accept the price?

"That innocent people are disappearing into El Salvador's prisons is no secret—making the embrace of [President Nayib] Bukele a disturbing signal of just how far a strongman can go without losing political ground," Gisela Salim-Peyer writes: