Jeni Mitchell
@jenimitchell.bsky.social
Lecturer in War Studies, King's College London. Director, Future Threats Lab https://www.kcl.ac.uk/research/future-threats-lab / Dep Director, Leverhulme Centre for Research on Slavery in War. Future war; 🚀 space; rebellion past and present; apocalypse(s)
Recruiting now! Our first postdocs in the new Leverhulme Centre for Research on Slavery in War, at King's College London. www.kcl.ac.uk/jobs/123845-... www.kcl.ac.uk/jobs/123566-...
Post-doctoral Research Associate in Slavery and War (Concepts and Laws)
kcl.ac.uk
Good piece from the author of One Long Night: A Global History of Concentration Camps
Andrea Pitzer@andreapitzer.bsky.social · 12mo agoI wrote about the ways different concentration camp systems have ended and how to stop the massive expansion of detention happening in the U.S. right now.
Last month @theatlantic.com published an often problematic piece about the war in #Sudan called “the war about nothing”. This week @thecontinent.org swings back, reminding us that what is “nothing” to you is “everything” to someone else. The Continent is a free publication, subscribe to read.
This week's good news: Drones clean up Everest, another country eliminates malaria, Italy's homicide rate plummets, Ecuador and Peru protect more area, China quietly converts hundreds of coal mines into solar, first regulated psychedelic medicine for depression. fixthenews.com/303-superwood/
303: Superwood
Bulletproof, fire-resistant, stronger than steel. Plus, malaria vaccines get cheaper, global electricity access up, European air pollution down, genuine hope for coral reefs, and giant river otters re...
fixthenews.com
Very grateful to have received this funding, and be part of a terrific team of scholars from the US and Australia seeking ways to transform relationships between space actors and Indigenous communities worldwide. White paper out early next year!
Freeman Air and Space Institute@fasikcl.bsky.social · last yr.Congratulations to FASI associate Dr Jeni Mitchell who has been awarded project funding via the 2025 @secdefenceplus.bsky.social Grant Scheme. The project works to establish guidelines for successful collaboration between the space industry & Indigenous Communities 👇 www.kcl.ac.uk/news/kings-a...
"Around the world, there is an endless number of big energy projects that have not only led to the grabbing of the land of many communities, but by doing so, are also violating and attacking their cultural rights and identity." Captured well here on the new Total/China pipeline, Uganda to Tanzania.
Charles Onyango-Obbo@cobbo3.bsky.social · last yr.The hidden cost of oil: Families fractured by the massive Uganda pipeline project.
A global minimum tax on the ultrarich could change planetary politics. Right now South Africa, Chile, France, and Spain are pushing for it
Gabriel Zucman@gabrielzucman.bsky.social · last yr.France could raise around €20 billion per year from this tax That’s half of the €40B the government is looking for this year Globally? $302–377 billion could be raised—every year From the ultra-rich. Who currently pay very little. gabriel-zucman.eu/files/report...
1/ Successful spaceports need to work not just for rockets — but for people and places, too. 🚀🌏 Excited to share our latest paper on spaceport site selection, co-authored with the brilliant Karen L. Jones & Dr. Lindsay DeMarchi @ Aerospace Corporation + expert contributors from across the sector. 🧵👇
"...the Parties shall launch and/or expand cooperation on...transparent, formalized end-to-end mineral value chains (from mine to processed metal) that link both countries, in partnership, as appropriate, with the U.S. government and U.S. investors." Minerals For Peace trend continues.
Tomi Oladipo@tomioladipo.bsky.social · last yr.Here's the full text of the Rwanda-DRC agreement. Obviously avoids linking Rwanda directly to M23 www.state.gov/peace-agreem...
Looks like an interesting read, by Gretchen Heefner 'Even decades after the first manned space flight, plans for human space exploration and extraplanetary colonization are still based on what we know about stark habitats on Earth.' press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/bo...
Sand, Snow, and Stardust
A vivid tour of US military efforts to understand, survive, and command harsh environments worldwide—and beyond. Deserts, the Arctic, outer space—these extreme environments are often seen as inhospi...
press.uchicago.edu
The Children’s Gulag. How a Canadian-funded project is mapping Russia’s network of camps where abducted Ukrainian children are being held - and helping to bring some of them home. My report www.theglobeandmail.com/world/articl...
Satellite data shed light on Russia’s modern-day gulags for Ukrainian children
A Canadian-funded effort is tracking the movements of Ukrainian children taken during wartime
theglobeandmail.com
The risk of state collapse in the Sahel is more real now than it has been since 2012, not just in one state, but several. While researchers may disagree on what the actual strategy at work for JNIM in particular is right now, the risk is incredibly high. www.rfi.fr/fr/podcasts/...
Le grand invité Afrique - Jihadisme en Afrique de l'Ouest: dans la région, «il existe un risque d'effondrement d'un État»
En cette année 2025, le péril jihadiste est en expansion dans les pays côtiers d'Afrique de l'Ouest, constate l'Institut de recherche stratégique (IRS), qui est basé en Côte d'Ivoire. Les groupes jiha...
rfi.fr
Just published in collaboration with The Guardian our two-year investigation linking Turkish seabass and seabream in UK supermarkets to devastating overfishing and social harms in Senegal! www.desmog.com/2025/05/22/r... With✍️ @hazelhealy.bsky.social on @desmog.bsky.social
Revealed: UK Supermarket Seabass Linked to Devastating Overfishing in Senegal
Waitrose, Co-op, Lidl, Asda and Aldi among retailers selling fish fed on west African catch
desmog.com
Exciting times indeed. Get in touch if you have a monograph on astropolitics in mind! Thanks to @bloomsburybooksuk.bsky.social for getting behind the idea of an Astropolitics book series!
Bloomsbury Politics & Area Studies@bloomsburypol.bsky.social · last yr.🔭 Keep your eye out for this new #Astropolitics series edited by @bleddb.bsky.social coming later this year! Details here 👉 bit.ly/4drqhlh #Politics #OuterSpace
Four months after seizing Goma, the M23 coalition is still struggling to take control of this city of nearly two million people. The city is awash with small arms and the thousands of former prisoners who escaped from Munzenze Prison in the chaos of Goma’s fall to M23.
Seizing is easy, ruling is harder
Months after seizing Goma, M23 is still struggling to control it. The city remains unstable due to widespread small arms and thousands of escaped inmates from Munzenze Prison
continent.substack.com
This has been rolled out in London for a few years as well, culminating in the first permanent LFRs in Croydon. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · last yr.“For two years, New Orleans police secretly relied on facial recognition technology to scan city streets in search of suspects, a surveillance method without a known precedent in any major American city that may violate municipal guardrails around use of the technology…”
Hoovering up the cake: The latest edition of the Sunday Times Rich List raises some uncomfortable questions about how much wealth in the UK is created - and how much is simply extracted.
Hoovering up the cake
The latest edition of the Sunday Times Rich List raises some uncomfortable questions about how much wealth in the UK is created and how much is simply extracted
faircomment.co.uk
Retrospectively applying immigration rules in bad faith can ruin lives, as we saw with the Windrush Scandal. It would be totally irresponsible for the government to pull the rug out from under people who have worked, paid taxes and built their lives here.
1.5m foreign workers already in UK could face longer wait for permanent settlement
People who have moved to UK since 2020 may face extra five-year wait to stay indefinitely under Labour crackdown
theguardian.com
The Trust continues to support researchers at risk who have come to the UK from across the globe through a grant scheme delivered by @britishacademy.bsky.social and @cara1933.bsky.social. Apply now: www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/funding/brit...
Even if one were to accept this argument, it ignores the fact that the UK version of 'great replacement' racism cites Bowling Alone in its pseudo-academic arguments. So it's still dog whistling.
George Eaton@georgeeaton.bsky.social · last yr.Why Starmer’s “island of strangers” remark owed more to Robert Putnam’s Bowling Alone than Enoch Powell. www.newstatesman.com/politics/lab...
This, and also very offensive to those who have spent insane amounts of money and time complying with very strict rules and intimidation (literally called the 'hostile environment') and above all the Windrush generation threatened with deportation. Absolutely unreal.
Dominic Dean@drdominicdean.bsky.social · last yr.Starmer talks of restoring trust, but claiming the UK had ‘open borders’ under Tory govts is the sort of malicious untruth that destroys trust and poisons politics. It calcifies the need for different bits of society to operate in different versions of reality, making good-faith dialogue impossible.
Also references to “learning our language” ignores the fact that there are multiple indigenous languages across the UK…
Helene von Bismarck@helenebismarck.bsky.social · last yr.Not the main point today, I know, but could I just emphasize that the UK is not an island. Unless you have forgotten Northern Ireland. Which you probably have.
This is outstanding on the vapid scientifically illiterate dreams of the tech overlord class arstechnica.com/culture/2025...
Silicon Valley billionaires literally want the impossible
Ars chats with physicist and science journalist Adam Becker about his new book, More Everything Forever.
arstechnica.com
The reviews are in! Thyme Travellers: An Anthology of Palestinian Science Fiction edited by Sonia Sulaiman review by Akankshya Abismruta Sky Full of Elephants by Cebo Campbell review by Vivian Wagner Don’t Let the Forest In by C. G. Drews review by Cameron Miguel Link to latest issue in our bio!
Short thread (hopefully in plain English) on the nuclear deterrence dynamics in the India-Pakistan relationship and where this goes if escalation continues. <1>