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The 16th November marked the visit of the ninth Secretary General of the United Nations, António Guterres. It was a remarkable day for SOASians, students and teachers alike. Guterres was appointed as the Secretary General of the United Nations in January this year. His relationship with the UN has been
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By Indigo Lilburn-Quick, BA History and Politics On November 15th, many SOAS students joined the National Demonstration Against Fees and Cuts following the rise in tuition fees to £9,250 a year. Although the number of students that marched is unclear, with organisers claiming 10,000 and police giving an
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By Ludovica Longo, BA Politics and Geography A £5m grant has been awarded to SOAS by the Higher Education Funding Council for England to improve and preserve engagement with the Global South through language. The money, from HEFCE’s Catalyst fund, will be invested in a project to safeguard UK
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By Zain Hussain, MSc International Politics From the 13th to the 25th August 2017, Priti Patel, The British Secretary of State for International Development visited Israel on a family holiday. However, during that time she met a number of politicians, businesses, tech start-ups and humanitarian NGOs, to learn more about
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By Mahnoor Chaudhry, BA Politics and Economics Cambridge University has been criticised after a SOAS academic was stopped from chairing a controversial event organised by its Palestine and Middle East Society. Dr Rubah Salih, who herself is Palestinian, was due to chair the discussion – entitled ‘BDS and the globalised struggle
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Although Japan’s general election, which saw Abe Shinzō’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party (in fact the conservative establishment choice, despite the name) and its Komeito junior coalition partner barely retain their two-thirds control over the House of Representatives, was held over a month ago, it is still very unclear
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By Julia Frances Everett, BA International Relations and Development Studies On 12th November, the border between Iraq and Iran was hit by a 7.3 magnitude earthquake, leaving citizens desperately searching for signs of life amongst the rubble. The earthquake struck 20 miles south of the Iranian city of Halabja
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By Izzie McIntosh, MSc Migration, Mobility and Development At the beginning of November outlets around the world, including the BBC and the Guardian, released reports on the ‘Paradise Papers’ on offshore tax havens to which they relate. The papers are comprised of 13.4 million records, leaked to German paper
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By Edna Mohamed, MA Postcolonial Studies After the Brexit vote in June in which voters chose to leave the European Union, the intensely debated outcome of the vote has introduced questions of how this will work both legally and economically. The EU withdrawal bill, formally known as the ‘Great Repeal
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Interviews conducted and edited by Indigo Lilburn-Quick (BA History and Politics) With Spain in turmoil after the Catalan referendum we asked 4 people invested in the situation their opinion. For information on what’s happening in Catalonia please see the article. The author would like to thank all those interviewed
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By Ali Mitib (BA Law and Politics) On 4th August 2017, Paula Sanderson, the Registrar of SOAS, notified the Student Union that SOAS will ‘stop outsourcing its core support services to private contractors from September 2018’. In contrast to the previous plans of SOAS management to bring only the cleaners
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By Hannah Somerville (MA Arabic Literature) Calls for clarity were issued last week as SOAS squares up to a deepening financial crisis. The university is facing a £4.7m projected deficit this year and its executive board has been tasked with finding at least £3m of savings between now and