Emanuel Stoakes is a UK-based independent journalist and researcher. His areas of interest are human rights, conflict resolution, social justice, racism and West Ham football club. He has written or contributed to articles published in The Daily Telegraph, TruthOut, The New Statesman, Mondoweiss, The Palestine Chronicle, Empirical Magazine and Souciant.
Soon the Great British Olympic moment will be over. The closing ceremony was held last weekend. This year’s Paralympics will be finished by early September. By the turn of the season, the magic will finally have faded. The nature of the legacy left in its wake, for London in general and the people of Newham in particular, remains to be decided (NB: some locals have already complained about being short-changed.) (More…)
Last month’s Rio+20 summit, the latest in a series of international meetings intended to combat climate change, amounted to yet another hopeless failure. No surprise there. While the G20 gatherings and World Economic Forums of this world continue to draw major players, Rio+20 was, by-and-large, snubbed. (More…)
Last week, Wired confirmed our worst fears about the US Army’s attitude towards Muslims. According to the magazine, it had “received hundreds of pages of course material and reference documents” taught to “commanders, lieutenant colonels, captains and colonels” at the prestigious Joint Forces Staff College. Within the trove are papers which show that students were receiving lectures inciting against Islam. (More…)
It’s been two weeks since the ninth anniversary of the Iraq War’s launch. Watching European news, serious reflection on a conflict that officially ended only months ago seems in short supply. This, even as the fragile, ostensibly liberated nation invaded in 2003, continues to be riven by sectarian tensions that Western meddling remains responsible for. (More…)
The Sri Lankan government is expected to be taken to task at a session of the UN Human Rights Council currently underway in Geneva, over its failure to convincingly probe allegations of abuses committed in the final weeks of its bloody civil war. (More…)
As the dust settles on America’s exit from Iraq, speculation over the possibility of the next Mideast war has resumed. The recent death of an Iranian scientist, Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan, has fuelled concerns. Especially given that Tehran knows who is to blame. Predictions that it may close the Strait of Hormuz, provoking a US response, have been making the rounds. (More…)