BEN CHACKO speaks with Knesset member OFER CASSIF about rising political violence, the prospects for peace and his continuous ‘silencing by suspension’
The unremarkable death of migrants in the Sahara Desert
VIJAY PRASHAD reports on the latest figures on migrant deaths from the UN International Organisation of Migration and the under-reported deaths of migrants crossing the Sahara
Sahara Desert of Fezzan, Libya
[Luca Galuzzi / Creative Commons]
The choice between two Blairites to revamp the tepid centrism of our ruling party doesn’t even come as cold comfort as we wander the city streets suffering from their third decade of austerity and the fifth of wage stagnation, writes MATT KERR
HENRY FOWLER puts the strike of public-sector workers in New Zealand in the wider context of deteriorating employment conditions throughout the world’s major economies
MAT COWARD looks back at a protest 105 years ago this month, whose reporting by the media bears uncomfortable similarities with demos today
The Tricontinental Institute for Social Research explores the factors that are bringing today’s highly educated but often underemployed young people out onto the streets, from Chile, to Algeria, to Nepal
The nation’s leading second-hand socialist bookseller that has been running strong for 33 years is changing hands and expanding its vision — now is the time to get involved, buy, donate and support, writes ANDREW MURRAY
SABAH, Libya, is an oasis town at the northern edge of the Sahara Desert. To stand at the edge of the town and look southward into the desert toward Niger is forbidding. The sand stretches past infinity, and if there is a wind, it lifts the sand to cover the sky.
Cars come down the road past the al-Baraka Mosque into the town. Some of these cars come from Algeria (although the border is often closed) or from Djebel al-Akakus, the mountains that run along the western edge of Libya. Occasionally, a white Toyota truck filled with men from the Sahel region of Africa and from western Africa makes its way into Sabah.
Miraculously, these men have made it across the desert, which is why many of them clamber out of their truck and fall to the ground in desperate prayer. Sabah means “morning” or “promise” in Arabic, which is a fitting word for this town that grips the edge of the massive, growing, and dangerous Sahara.
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