s twerking – and, of course, quinoa 1. Joanna Blythman: Can vegans stomach the unpalatable truth about quinoa? (16 January) 2. Russell Brand on Margaret Thatcher: 'I always felt sorry for her children' (9 April) 3. Chelsea Welch: Tips are not optional, they are how waiters get paid in America (1 February) 4. Glenn Greenwald: Margaret Thatcher and misapplied death etiquette (8 April) 5. Glenn Greenwald:...
Qatar World Cup migrant workers, violence against women, Syria, China in Africa and typhoon Haiyan were among the headlines and themes in a dramatic year ...
t go well. First there was the pay. Ram Kumar says there wasn't any. Then there were the conditions – 12-hour shifts, a shortage of food and finally, after a complaint to the manager, summary removal from the labour camp. It was so distressing that the 27-year-old Nepali lost his hair. After weeks in legal limbo at the Nepali embassy in Doha, he finally made it home. The nightmare was over, but a new...
s leaders in early October after a series of Guardian stories that detailed widespread labour abuses , including dozens of deaths, and claims that conditions at some sites amounted to modern day slavery. The alleged abuses generated widespread international outrage, and were condemned by international labour groups, trade union bodies, and football's organising body, FIFA, which pledged to further...
s lawyers: winning an injunction in Zurich to ban a cartoon book about his life at Fifa. Olé Andersen's satirical book – starring a Sepp doppelgänger in a "Fair Play" T-shirt – has "no aesthetic value" and threatens their client's "good reputation … If published, he could never repair the damage." Quote of the week Last week's best defence of Qatar 2022: "Any other nation that has hosted a major tournament...
s collapse An Icelandic court has sentenced four former Kaupthing bankers to jail for market abuses related to a large stake taken in the bank by a Qatari sheikh just before it went under in late 2008. Weeks before the country's top three banks collapsed under huge debts as the global credit crunch struck, Kaupthing announced that Sheikh Mohammed bin Khalifa bin Hamad Al Thani had bought 5 of its shares...
s headquarters in Amman, Jordan, with batons and tear gas. The protesting activists and journalists alleged Orange had helped stifle freedom of expression, by complying with a temporary government shut-down of nearly 300 online news websites. When my colleagues at Business & Human Rights Resource Centre invited Orange to respond to this, it said: "Nous ne souhaitons pas faire de commentaire sur ce...
s the ethical thing to do, but the cost is high. What options are there for passivhaus living? If you have an ethical dilemma, email Lucy at lucy.siegle@observer.co.uk Who wouldn't want to live in a passivhaus (passive house, or PH) ? This Swedish/German system of building gives a house an air-tight, highly insulated shell (imagine a tea cosy) that avoids pesky interruptions from things like...
US defence secretary paves the way for missile defence and other weapons systems to be sold to Gulf ...
s Geneva II peace conference, which has broad international backing despite its slim chances of success. But the Syrian government has again insisted Assad must remain president and lead any transition agreed in the Geneva talks – a position flatly rejected by the opposition. "If anyone thinks we are going to Geneva II to hand the keys to Damascus over [to the opposition], then he might as well not...
Gulf monarchies unite in a new federation following the departure of the British from the region The four-year search for a political arrangement unifying the Persian Gulf sheikhdoms could have had a worse outcome. The hope, after the Labour Government announced its decision in 1968 to withdraw the British presence from the area by the end of 1971, was a union containing Bahrain, Qatar, and the seven...
no improvement in living and working conditions' of migrants building world cup infrastructure The appalling conditions faced by thousands of migrant workers building the infrastructure for the 2022 football world cup in Qatar have not improved despite a growing outcry, according to the International Trade Union Confederation [ITUC]. Human rights organisations, Fifa and the European parliament have...
s scheme for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic stadium was too big and too expensive, saying they would shrink the design by a quarter. The 80,000-seat venue, planned for the site of the current 48,000-seat national stadium, built in 1958, is described by Hadid as "light and cohesive", its structure forming a dynamic bridge that "creates an exciting new journey for visitors". But the design has been met with...