Football has a funny habit of turning injury lay-offs into origin stories. We tell ourselves that absence makes the heart grow fonder and, somehow, that a spell on the sidelines makes a player stronger, wiser, more determined. Sometimes that is literally true. Gareth Bale spent almost a year in the gym during his early days at Tottenham and came back as a physically unstoppable force, a man who looked like he had been rebuilt in a laboratory and programmed to terrorise full-backs. But usually, the transformation happens entirely in the eyes of the beholder. Fans miss a player for months,…

On October 12, in Baku, Azerbaijan, a public discussion titled “Public Solidarity Against Disinformation: The Contribution of NGOs to the Protection of National Values and Social Responsibility” was convened by the Azerbaijan National NGO Forum. At first glance, it might have sounded like one more routine conference in a busy civic calendar, but for those who filled the hall, the meeting’s purpose was anything but routine. Azerbaijan has found itself at the center of geopolitical and economic currents far larger than its borders, and with this new visibility has come a barrage of coordinated disinformation campaigns, many of them carefully…