The Week Unwrapped: Human rights, Russian troops and rude town names

Olly Mann and The Week delve behind the headlines and debate what really matters from the past seven days.

In this week’s episode, we discuss:

Human rights

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Amnesty’s global report for the past years has said that “fake news” laws in the Gulf, Hungary and Singapore, introduced to counter rumours and misinformation about the pandemic, are being used to silence government critics. It also said illiberal responses to Covid have “exposed and amplified everything that is wrong with our society”.

Crimea

Russian troops have been massing on the border with Ukraine since mid-March, but an escalation in their presence has sent President Volodymyr Zelensky into a round of frantic diplomatic activity. Kiev is calling on Nato to speed up its application to join the military alliance. But while the western powers have given their support, full membership is not forthcoming. So why is Russia building up its military - and could it herald a return to the violence of 2014?

Rude names

The french town of Ville de Bitche was unceremoniously removed from Facebook this week, a few months after the Austrian village of Fucking threw in the towel and changed its name to Fugging. So will an alliance of web and social media jokers and puritans bring an end to the world’s rudest locations - and what will be lost if they do?

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