The bombed ruins of buildings in Mariupol after Russian attacks. Shutterstock Robert M. Dover, University of Hull The Russian military – under instruction from Vladimir Putin – is rewriting the rules of siege warfare for the 21st century. The classic definition of a siege is: “The process of surrounding and attacking a fortified place in such a way as to …

Walking connects you to your city. Cerqueira | Unsplash, FAL Aled Mark Singleton, Swansea University During lockdown in 2020, governments across the world encouraged people to take short walks in their neighbourhoods. Even before COVID hit though, amid the renewal of city centres and environmental and public health concerns, walking was promoted in many places as a form of active …

Mark Zeitoun, University of East Anglia and Ghassan Abu Sitta, American University of Beirut Gaza has often been invaded for its water. Every army leaving or entering the Sinai desert, whether Babylonians, Alexander the Great, the Ottomans, or the British, has sought relief there. But today the water of Gaza highlights a toxic situation that is spiralling out of control. …

David Bach, International Institute for Management Development (IMD) Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s recent speech to the Communist Party Congress could be one of the most consequential of the decade. He told the audience – and the world – that his economic growth-crushing zero-COVID policy is here to stay, and that Beijing is more determined than ever to reunify with Taiwan, …

Hajja Nuzha Al-Najjar in her cave-home in Masafer Yatta. In an oral history interview, she describes being shot in the leg by an Israeli settler in 2005. Mahmoud Makhamra, Author provided Aurélie Bröckerhoff, Coventry University and Mahmoud Soliman, Coventry University The people of Masafer Yatta are determined to hold on to their cave-dwelling lifestyle. “I was born in this cave …

Shutterstock/Immersion Imagery Patrick E. Shea, University of Glasgow Countries across the world are drifting towards a debt crisis. Economic slowdowns and rising inflation have increased demands on spending, making it almost impossible for many governments to pay back the money they owe. In normal times, those countries could simply take on new debt to replace the old debt. But international …

Georgina McAllister, Coventry University “Control oil, and you control nations; control food and you control people.” This aphorism, often attributed to Henry Kissinger, recently came to mind when I saw first hand how both strategies have been effectively deployed in Israel’s occupation and blockade of Gaza. As a researcher of conflict-affected food and farming systems I was in the encircled …

astarot / Shutterstock Lorenza Rossi, Lancaster University Inflation has caused the sharpest rise in food prices in the UK in 40 years, the latest official figures show. But it’s not just food costs that are soaring – or energy prices, for that matter. Consumer price inflation could also impact bills for services like internet and mobile phones. Many people aren’t …

Resistance leader: the NRF’s Ahmad Massoud. NRF/Twitter Kambaiz Rafi, SOAS, University of London It has become axiomatic that in Afghanistan, once an armed resistance group gains a foothold in an area it becomes hard to route out. This is more so if it musters a degree of local support and is in a geographically remote region. During the past year, …

President Jair Bolsonaro relaxed rules around private gun ownership. Joedson Alves/EPA Gemma Ware, The Conversation and Daniel Merino, The Conversation Soon after Jair Bolsonaro was elected president of Brazil in 2018, he began making it a lot easier for people in the country to buy guns. In this episode of The Conversation Weekly podcast, we speak to two experts about …