Mohammed El Raai/AP/Press Association Images. All rights reserved.When the final whistle sounded, tragedy ensued in Port Said. The attack came in waves. Swarms of unidentified men armed with knives, flares and rocks flooded the football pitch in pursuit of the Al Ahly team following their 3-1 loss to Al-Masry. The first wave targeted the players, dressed in their infamous red and white attire, and chased them off the field and into the relative safety of the locker rooms. The second wave of thugs focused on the Ultras fans. They encircled the infamous anti-authoritarian Ultras supporters, outnumbered and confused, and began the bloodiest massacre in Egyptian sports history.   For those…

Back in July, disturbing research came out that found 99% of former NFL players studied were diagnosed with chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). CTE is a serious degenerative disease that can cause anything from amnesia to suicide. After hearing about the study, Baltimore Ravens offensive lineman John Urschel promptly quit the game in the prime of his career after just three seasons in the league. While the mental health of all NFL players is important, Urschel had a secret reason for protecting his brain: He’s a full-time student getting his doctorate in mathematics at the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He didn’t tell anyone that he was a full-time student during football season.…

Prince of Wales talks to children during a visit to Haggerston Girls School in Hackney, east London, 2003. Empics entertainment/ Press Association. All rights reserved.International terrorism along religious lines poses questions about the integration of minority groups in the developed world. Indeed, some of the attacks are carried out by home grown terrorists. Most recently, two suicide bombers in the Brussels airport attack were Belgian citizens. This article suggests that one way of decreasing the possibility of homegrown terrorism is by facilitating a better integration of minorities. I believe this could be achieved by public services. In the United Kingdom, children’s centres provide an excellent example. Let me explain how.…

Family members and supporters of 43 missing students in southern Guerrero State protest in Mexico City. 26 April 2016. AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell. The regional human rights institution in the Americas, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), publicly announced on 23 May that it is in deep financial crisis. If no emergency funding is found by mid-June, the Commission will lose 40% of its staff by the end of July. The impact of these forced cuts on the human rights protection and promotion in the 35 member states of the Organization of American States (OAS) will be devastating. Human rights on a shoestring The Commission has historically been operating on…

At a handful of Trump’s golf clubs, there’s a Time magazine cover with the former “Apprentice” host featured front and center. “Donald Trump: The ‘Apprentice’ is a television smash!” the headline reads. And above his head, in all caps, reads a phrase like awkward ticker tape: “TRUMP IS HITTING ON ALL FRONTS … EVEN TV!” The only problem? The cover is 100% fake. We know this because Time didn’t have a March 1, 2009, issue, which is the date printed on the fake cover golfers viewed in Trump-funded pro shops from Florida to the U.K. There are other more subtle tells, like the thin red border with no strip of…

Screen shot,Al-Ahram, the flagship state-owned newspaper announced in its main headline “Turkish army overthrows Erdogan”. On Friday, July 15, in the throes of Turkey's deep crisis which left international media befuddled by who was truly in power, numerous Egyptian media outlets jumped the gun in their reportage. They prematurely declared that the attempted coup had ended in success, heralding the Turkish army's control over the country and overthrow of President Erdogan. Within hours of the start of the attempted coup, these outlets exposed their unprofessionalism by falling prey to propaganda. Despite confirmed news sources proving that the democratically-elected government remained in charge, and people taking to the streets to support…

During his presidential campaign, Trump promised on multiple occasions to withdraw U.S. support from the international Paris Agreement on climate change. Or, in his words, “cancel the deal,” which isn’t really possible, but that’s neither here nor there. It should then come as no surprise that several reports surfaced on Thursday detailing Trump’s plan to pull out of the Paris accord. He even tweeted a hint about the controversial decision, writing, “I will be announcing my decision on the Paris Accord over the next few days. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!” Obviously, you can’t make America great if there’s no oxygen to breath or water to drink. Scientists know that, conservatives know that,…

UK Parliament / Flickr. Some rights reserved.This series of columns occasionally strays from its remit of discussing issues of peace and conflict around the world. Such a thing happened three times in 2015, with a focus on the wholly unexpected rise of the outsider candidate Jeremy Corbyn to the head of Britain's Labour Party. Almost eight months after his overwhelming victory against the three other candidates in the leadership election, it seems timely to offer a fresh assessment of his prospects. The first column on Corbyn was written six weeks before the ballot at a time when the surge in his support was exceeding all expectations. It pointed out that…

If you thought this GIF of a dog swatting his birthday cake was the pinnacle of greatness, hang on to your hats. On February 16, Giphy released a massive collection of GIFs with sign language expert Robert DeMayo acting out more than 2,000 words in American Sign Language. In each GIF, DeMayo, who runs the website and training program, Sign With Robert, stands next to a printed word and signs the word repeatedly. In this way, the GIFs operate less like entertaining snippets and more like educational flashcards. “GIFs, as a visual format untethered from audio, makes them a perfect medium for sign language,” Sign With Robert’s producer, Hilari Scarl, told…

Demonstration in front of the seat of the court truth and dignity by the victims of the regime of Ben Ali. 5 January 2017. Chokri Mahjoub Zuma Press/PA Images. All rights reserved. While listening to the victims of tyranny in the relay sessions organized by the “Truth and Dignity Commission”  in Tunis 17-18 November 2016, one can clearly see that repression during the era of the police state was shared by the vast majority of the people of Tunisia. The repressive machine did not distinguish between women and men, or differentiate between the young and the elderly, leftists and liberals, nationalists and Islamists, or between trade unionists and human rights activists. They all…