Month: January 2016

Sverige: here’s 1 of 1000 reasons not to abandon your asylum policies Encountered on my way back from the swimming pool: this Sunday afternoon demo. Look hard and you’ll see that’s imprisoned PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan on the back of a Kurdish participant’s T-shirt. The main chants: ‘Erdogan – Terrorist’, ‘Turkish Army out of Kurdistan’. And yes, they’d have had a very tough time holding this demonstration back home in Turkey. All in all, one of a 1000 reasons for you to hold onto your long-established asylum & refugee policies, dear Sweden.

This Is London: Life And Death In The World City Brilliant, incisive-as-ever essay excerpted from Ben Judah’s new book on London today published in the  February 2016 edition of Prospect. His eye for the telling detail combined with empathy, informed by real understanding, for the often intertwined fates of the capital’s new immigrant communities is extraordinary. A must read – the book This Is London: Life And Death In The World City now included. ————————– London’s skyline. ©Ben Judah Pawel does not look like a builder, with his thick black glasses and plush grey mane. Pawel doesn’t sound like one… More

‘I want to feel proud of Denmark, but it’s not easy’ Syrian refugees arrive at Copenhagen’s main station. Photo: Ole Jensen/Demotix/Corbis A new Danish law allowing police to seize refugees’ assets is a frightening example of how a country with liberal traditions can lurch to the right, says Sofie Gråbøl, star of the internationally acclaimed Danish TV crime series Forbrydelsen [The Killing]. And as she says in the interview  below, “More than ever, we need to live up to the humanistic values that our society was built on. The liberal and open-minded Denmark that I still know is hoping, desperately, that… More

 ‘Policed multiculturalism’ and predicting disaster Police in Paris. Demotix/ Cesar Dezfuli. All rights reserved. Long but excellent interview with a European academic specialising in  European policy responses to terrorism. In particular the interview makes some highly instructive connections between government counter-terrorism strategies and the discourse of  ‘the failures of multiculturalism’ promoted some years back European leaders in cluding Angela Merckel and David Cameron, also highlighting the importance of putting responses to state policy – and behaviour – at the centre of any attempt to understand the root causes of  ‘radicalisation’. ————————————————————— Counter-radicalisation in France draws on British and Dutch policies… More

This just in from my old Oxford college. The Times They Are A’ Changin’ . . . The Rhodes Must Fall movement began in South Africa and has now spread to the UK. In the past few weeks its efforts to remove a statue of Cecil Rhodes from Oriel College, Oxford has attracted a great deal of criticism. This criticism too often ignores the wider historical, current and future concerns raised by the movement, and has few answers to the movement’s main aim: to ensure the equal participation of Black and minority ethnic people in societies still affected by racism. … More

This just in from my publishers Hurst: the ebook versions of my book ‘To End A Civil War‘ are now live globally across all platforms. Apparently the easiest way to find them is through Kindle stores (via Amazon). N. America: Amazon.com www.amazon.com/Kindle-Store/b?ie=UTF8&node=133140011 UK: www.amazon.co.uk/Kindle-Store/b/?ie=UTF8&node=341677031

Chief of aid donor group urges funding boost Erik Solheim, chair of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s Development Assistance Committee, speaks at the University of Ottawa on Jan. 13. Kristen Shane Wednesday, 01/20/2016 The leader of a main group of aid donors says Canada’s new government should set a path to boost aid to reach international standards. Erik Solheim, chair of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s Development Assistance Committee, said the new Liberal government should continue with the former Conservative government’s focus on leveraging private-sector investment in developing countries, and go further. If Britain’s Conservative government… More

https://twitter.com/TamilGuardian/status/687738075682856960?s=04 Tamil Guardian ‏@TamilGuardian Live tweeting from the @AtlanticCouncil event on foreign intervention in #srilanka with @SolheimDAC and @marsal61 Panel begins @AtlanticCouncil with Bharath Gopalaswamy BP: Intl involvement in #srilanka faced challenges, from lack of local support to questions of sovereignty Mark Salter begins remarks with an excerpt from his book, reflecting on visiting LTTE leader Pirabakaran’s bunker. He speaks of Army’s decision to blow up Pirabakaran’s bunker, once visited by tourists @marsal61 gives credit to Richard Armitage for working to get U.S. to talk to “terrorists”, which was absolutely needed at the time @marsal61 #srilanka failed to secure bipartisan… More

Interview with Erik Solheim and myself at the 14 January Toronto launch of my new book. Solheim Calls On Diaspora To Work For Peace by Ranjit Bhaskar in Toronto The Sri Lankan civil war holds many a lesson for the island-nation’s diaspora community in Canada and the world in general, according to Erik Solheim, former Norwegian Minister for International Development and for the Environment. Solheim’s name is synonymous with peacemaking in Sri Lanka. “My biggest sorrow was that thousands of Tamils died unnecessarily due to lack of vision from both the Sinhala and Tamil leadership,” he said in Toronto this week,… More

Excellent BBC interview with in-the-news Israeli authoress Dorit Rabinyan in which she gives a concise, clear – and in my view truthful – account of the reasons the Israeli Education Ministry has moved to stop her new novel, Borderlife, entering the national curriculum. Like thousands of others, I will definitely be buying the book once the English translation comes out. All power to her! http://bbc.in/1RcdK5H