Report from #ConnectingEU2025 “Voices from the terrible past are rising around Europe,” were almost the first words uttered at the European Economic and Social Committee’s (EESC) ‘Connecting EU’ Seminar. Several further speakers repeated that precise phrase during the course of …
After four days strategising with the leaders of southern Africa’s journalists’ unions in Gaborone, Botswana, a moment’s downtime felt deserved. I picked up a copy of local paper, The Voice, and started to read. By page six the issues facing Africa’s journalists …
Common cause: southern African journalists’ unions join forces Read more »
Belgian motor museum doesn’t fully engage Were Top Trumps reimagined as a visitor attraction, Brussels’ Autoworld would provide a useful template. The attraction showcases 250 historic motor cars in a cavernous nineteenth-century hangar of iron and glass. Explanation, beyond notes …
Withington Baths, Manchester’s last chance to swim like an Edwardian I’m splashing around in dappled sunlight – it brings out the bottle green of the tiles. The roof’s steel rafters cast geometric shadows across the swimming pool’s water. Seven-year old …
Submersive revelation at Joyce’s swimming hole The salt swell lifted and fell. Close by a fishing boat trawled. In the misty distance, container ships churned towards port. Moments earlier, I had splashed off the granite outcrop known as The Forty …
History crowds in as you approach the Allenby crossing. It spans the Jordan river, linking the Kingdom of Jordan with the occupied West Bank. Suspended across domed concrete abutments, it resembles a space craft marooned in the desert. The Dead …
Global unions’ mission pledges support for Palestinian statehood Read more »
Musée Hergé, Louvain-la-Neuve How best to celebrate Tintin and his creator Hergé? The question nags me throughout my visit to the museum dedicated to the Belgian cartoonist, an hour by train from Brussels. Opened in 2013, the building alone rewards …
I have some advice for Tucker Carlson. He has just landed an interview with Vladimir Putin – among the most powerful and consequential people on earth. Proper journalistic attention focussed on the Russian president has the capacity to show off …
By probing Putin, Carlson could set journalism on a new course Read more »
A night-time crossing to the Hook of Holland I departed for the Stour estuary hoping to connect with the past. ‘Harwich For The Continent’ was the old slogan for the ferry port that for over a century was the principal …
The European Federation of Journalists annual meeting, Den Haag, Netherlands 11/12 May 2023 “Media self-censorship undermines press freedom”, Dutch Al-Jazeera correspondent Step Vaessen told delegates to the European Federation of Journalists annual meeting. She was addressing the gathering in The …