‘A “secure” border is not in Trump’s interest ahead of the election: he wants voters to fear an invasion from the Global South – “shithole countries”, as he called them in 2018.’

Pooja Bhatia on the situation at the US-Mexico border:
lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v46/…

‘Ecuador’s violation of the Vienna Convention, which protects embassies and their staff, had no precedent in Latin America. Even in Chile under Pinochet, foreign embassies which gave asylum to the regime’s opponents were respected.’

John Perry:

lrb.co.uk/blog/2024/apri…

Written on the walls of al-Shifa Hospital:

‘If the pain I am feeling befell a mountain, by God, it would crumble.’

An update from Selma Dabbagh on the situation in Gaza:
lrb.co.uk/blog/2024/apri…

On the LRB podcast this week, Pooja Bhatia joins Thomas Jones to discuss Haitian immigration to Chile and the US, the self-defeating nature of US immigration policy and the double binds Haitian refugees find themselves in.

Listen ad-free on our website: lrb.co.uk/podcasts-and-v…

‘The arrival of these desperate people is portrayed as an existential threat that justifies spending £1.8 mil­lion on the deportation of a single asylum seeker to Rwanda and billions of pounds on border security.’

Frances Webber on the Ibrahima Bah case: lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v46/…

“It’s always midnight now, all the time.”

The luminous Michael Hofmann (with a little more teeth here) on the collapse of the humanities in Florida, for London Review of Books Blog:
lrb.co.uk/blog/2024/apri…

This week on the Past Present Future podcast, David Runciman and Lea Ypi continue their examination of the history of freedom with a look at the free market. Is it really possible to be free in a world dominated by credit and debt? Listen via the links: linktr.ee/ppfideas

“Wombats have offered solace where little other solace could be found. Theodor Adorno was a frequent visitor to Frankfurt Zoo after WW2. He wrote to the director in 1965: ‘Would it not be nice if Frankfurt Zoo could acquire a pair of wombats?’”

lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v40/…

‘As the Port Talbot story shows, Tata always in the end bends to the demands of capital. But what the company does have, which its more recent rivals do not, is a historical consciousness to which the excesses of capital appear shameful.’

Akshi Singh: lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v46/…

If God is a snail
This memorial to the food/fashion writer (for London Review of Books), Angela Clark is so archly hilarious you'll want more.
lrb.co.uk/podcasts-and-v…

‘Sometimes when I read novels set in the past, a contemporary smugness sets in. But when the past comes uncomfortably close to the events you’re living through, you realise how new so many of our institutions and customs are, and how fragile.’

On Zola:
lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v46/…

‘Alejandro Mayorkas, the secretary of homeland security, might do better to admit there are multiple border crises. Migrants do not pose a threat to the United States. Quite the reverse: the border is unsafe for migrants.’

Pooja Bhatia on Haitian refugees:
lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v46/…

‘Research by the Children’s Commission­er found that 2847 children aged between eight and seventeen were strip-searched between 2018 and 2022; 38 per cent of them were Black.’

Frances Webber on the failure to treat children of colour as children:

lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v46/…

‘“La Débâcle” was an overwhelming novel to read during an overwhelming time because it shows with arresting clarity how indefensible the human scheme of conquest is.’

Brandon Taylor (Brandon) on reading Zola while bombs fell on Gaza:
lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v46/…