Author: Derek Sayer

Lavender fields near Hitchin, England. Photo by DeFacto/Wikimedia Commons. “Here’s the smell of the blood still. All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand.” —William Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act 5, Scene 1 Lavender For some unknown, but no doubt morbidly humorous reason—the same sick humour, perhaps, that leads

Medic carrying a wounded Palestinian child in Gaza. Photo courtesy Fars Media Corporation/Wikimedia Commons. On March 18, the world’s famine watchdog the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), whose “main goal … is to provide decision-makers with a rigorous, evidence- and consensus-based analysis of food insecurity and acute malnutrition situations,”

On February 25, Aaron Bushnell, a 25-year-old serviceman of the United States Air Force, died after setting himself on fire outside the front gate of the Embassy of Israel in Washington, DC. As the whole world by now surely knows, shortly before 1 pm on Sunday, February 25, Aaron Bushnell,

Damage in Gaza caused by Israeli airstrikes, October 2023. Photo courtesy Islamic Relief Canada. After four months of war, some Western leaders seem finally to be waking up to the monstrosity of the horrors Israel has unleashed upon Gaza, in which our governments and civil societies—our corporations, our news organizations,

A young woman carries her infant while walking on Rashid Street, west of Gaza City, on January 11, 2024. Photo by Omar Al-Qattaa/UNICEF/Flickr. “There is almost no kind of outrage … which does not change its moral colour when it is committed by ‘our’ side … Whether such deeds were

The Peace Palace, seat of the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Netherlands. The court is the principal judicial body of the United Nations. Photo by the United Nations/Flickr. On January 26, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) delivered an interim ruling in response to South Africa’s charge that