Politics

By Joe Thorpe South Africa is renowned for its high crime rates. Tell a friend you are heading out to the ‘Rainbow Nation’ and they’ll tell you to keep a hand on your bag at all times. Much of the media hype surrounding the violent crimes is inflated and over-stated, however there is at times an air of aggression, thinly veiled, and when media storms like the one surrounding Oscar Pistorius and his murder trial, South Africa seems to live...

By David Thomson Controversial ‘Stop and Search’ policing powers have been reigned in by Theressa May after figures showed that only one in ten searches end with an arrest. May warned that she would change the law if forces do not halt 'excessive and inappropriate' use of powers while delivering this year's Stephen Lawrence Charitable Trust Criminal Justice Lecture, in memory of the murdered teenager. Many believe the power to stop and search people has been disproportionately targeted at black and ethnic minorities,...

By Joe Mellor, Deputy Editor It was an awful PMQs, but luckily for the members of Parliament, every journalist was outside Jeremy Clarkson’s house. This session might have gone unnoticed, like a Russian submarine slipping past the Farne Islands. Well I did watch PMQs, and it reminded me of splitting-up with your partner. When all hope is lost, but you need to wait a few weeks before the removal van arrives, to pass the time you throw insults at each...

By Ruby Zajac ‘¡Fuera Peña!’(Peña Out!) and ‘¡Fue el estado!’(It was the state) are two of the most common slogans in the revolutionary movement currently gripping Mexico. Five months ago, the president lost his already tenuous mandate to run the country, and most people I’ve spoken to don’t think there’s even any point in voting in the upcoming local elections - all the parties are in bed together, they tell me. The state’s involvement in the Ayotzinapa forced disappearances is...

By Jack Peat, Editor of The London Economic Certainties are few and far between in this year’s General Election, but there are two things that can be said with relative comfort; we will have a hung Parliament, and SNP will take the majority, if not all, of Labour’s stronghold seats in Scotland. It is quite unusual for political parties to be this resigned to a coalition government this early on in an election campaign. Opinion polls suggest a single party...

By Max Bluer The Nisman case has re-opened the book on the 1994 AMIA bombings. Iran is the chief suspect, but few are asking why the Islamic Republic would blow up a building thousands of miles away. Check your calendars, just to make sure that it really is the year 2015, and that the Cold War ended over twenty years ago. The case of Alberto Nisman, the Argentine jurist murdered the day before he was due to publicly accuse President...

By Jack Peat, Editor of The London Economic Since the first International Women's Day was observed in the early 1900's there has been a great deal of progress in regards to gender equality, but a century on there's still a shameful amount  yet to be achieved. Cultures around the world will come together today to celebrate the achievements of women, this year's theme 'Make it Happen' draws clear references to equality in the workplace where research has found a stark imbalance...

By Joe Mellor, Deputy Editor PMQs began with both leaders arguing about how many immigrants are entering the UK. The assumption appears to be we that don’t want more people in the country, if that’s the case then both parties have failed; the Conservatives more recently. Luckily both leaders’ were saved by Farage, who had used his flagship speech earlier in the day to scrap his proposed 50,000 quota, and now looks as confused as everyone else, about immigration control....

Today's vlog will be about two new and complementary groups in Spanish politics, the Union, Progress, and Democracy grouping and the Ciutadans or Citizens party. In this edition of this vlog, I'll be analysing who these are, how they came about, the key personalities within these groups, the differences between these groupings, and the effect they will have on Spanish politics, both at a national and regional level.