The Slow Newsletter

Good afternoon. Welcome back to Tortoise’s weekly Slow Newsletter.?

Visible Women

When the pandemic hit, Caroline Criado Perez was inundated with messages from female healthcare workers telling her that their PPE – things like masks and goggles – didn’t fit. In this first episode of her brand new investigative series, join Caroline as she goes on the hunt for missing data and asks: can we fix PPE?

Over the course of 12 episodes looking at everything from cars and concussion to PPE and playgrounds, Caroline will investigate how we close the gender data gap that her bestselling book, Invisible Women, did so much to expose.?

Listen and follow wherever you get your podcasts.

Visit Rwanda

The gender gap has been around a very long time. But one thing that’s not new, despite the government’s claims, is the Rwanda deportation policy. The political howl around the Johnson government’s knowingly divisive immigration policy keeps growing louder – the Archbishop of Canterbury has called it “ungodly”; a former government minister branded it “ugly”; and the Prince of Wales privately called it “appalling”. So much for the adjectives, what about the facts?

In this week’s Slow Newscast – Visit Rwanda: Britain’s harsh welcome for refugees – Hashi Mohamed sets out to answer what the Home Office knew when it announced the Rwanda policy. Did it know about Israel’s expensive, deadly and ultimately failed policy of deporting its illegal immigrants to Rwanda? Did it know of the human traffickers and the record of starvation, murder and rape for those deported to Rwanda who, overwhelmingly, set back out on the road to Europe? Did it know of the cost per refugee, both in the case of Israel and Australia’s abandoned exercise in operating an offshore dumping ground for unwanted immigrants? Spoiler alert: the answers point to a mixture of cynicism, incompetence and cruelty in the Home Office. Listen for yourself wherever you get your podcasts.

ThinkIns

At Tortoise HQ we’re all still reeling from the excitement of having just hosted our first, proper festival. It was, according to the reviews, an absolute storming success. Tickets for KITE 2023 are on sale at a 25% super earlybird discount. Grab them while you can.

In the meantime, there’s plenty more ideas to fill a room at Tortoise.

On Tuesday we’re joined by Rory Stewart to ask: Is global order out of control?

On Thursday Chris Patten, Governor of Hong Kong from 1992 to 1997, is sharing notes from his diary.

Plus our own Luke Gbedemah will be making sense of consciousness (in an hour?!) following the hoo-hah over Google’s AI. I hope you’ll join us.

Have a lovely weekend.

Katie