Nadia Kabir Barb

Have you ever felt as if you had woken up in an alternative reality? Or that you might be trapped in the twilight zone?

If you saw your father hit your mother, how would you feel? Or if you knew that your sister or daughter was being abused by her

Whether we are idealists or realists, we have to accept that there are those who choose to abuse their right by spreading hate and others who choose to use their position of power to restrict and silence voices of dissent.

Over the past decade, whether it is France, Denmark, Germany or the Netherlands, there has been a re-emergence and rise of right wing (and, to a lesser extent, far left) political parties in Europe and a rejection of the centrist globalising liberal “elite”.

The queues in front of the immigration desks were long, practically filling the hall, and people waited impatiently to get through to the equally overcrowded baggage reclaim area. At any other time, this scene would have elicited a frown or had me groaning in dismay but on this occasion the buzz of activity and the sheer number of people provided a huge sense of relief.

There is a conspiracy theorist lurking inside most of us. Some have the unshakeable belief that Elvis Presley faked his own death or that a UFO landed in Roswell, New Mexico and the US government covered up the story.

Now that the dust has settled on the EU referendum results, we can take stock of the full extent of the damage. Not only has

Over a week ago two men, Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, known to be the ringleaders from the 'Bali Nine' were executed in Indonesia for their part in smuggling almost 18 lbs of heroin (valued at 3.1 million US dollars) from Indonesia to Australia.

My name is Nadia Kabir Barb and I am a carboholic. There I said it, it's official.

There is a saying that “In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes”, but another thing I think that we can be sure about is that change is inevitable. Given time, the weather, people, places, fashion, you name it – they all change.

I have always been a Sci-fi fan and geek and a question that has crossed my mind on numerous occasions is whether there are any other life forms out there.

2015 has not started the way one might have hoped. We had barely completed the first week of the New Year when the news of the attack on the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo shocked the world. Three armed gunmen bearing Kalashnikovs attacked the magazine's offices in Paris leaving twelve people dead including the editor of the magazine and two national police officers. The attackers were subsequently identified as two brothers: Chérif and Said Kouachi together with Hamyd Mourad. They claimed to be part of Al Qaeda.