Priests & Politicians – the Mafia of The Soul

“These politicians and these priests have been constantly in conspiracy, working together hand in hand. The politician has the political power; the priest has the religious power. The politician protects the priest, the priest blesses the politician – and the masses are exploited, sucked; their blood is sucked by both.”¹ Osho

We are asking three questions:

One, if this is illegal, why is no one prosecuted?
Two, if it is legal, who made those laws?
Three, then whose action or inaction allowed those lawmakers to have that power?

The Unfolding Story – Updated Regularly:

Read 2021 Edition HERE

September 30, 2022
Why China’s Crimes in Xinjiang Cannot Go Unpunished
“The U.N.’s long-delayed findings, finally released late last month, confirmed the most chilling allegations by ethnic Uyghurs: Systematic mass internment, disappearances, torture, cultural and religious erasure and political indoctrination of Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities. The U.N.’s human right office, which compiled the report, said these allegations may amount to crimes against humanity, the most severe violations, along with genocide and war crimes, under international law.”– The New York Times

September 30, 2022
‘There’s no doubt it’s a war crime’: horror of missile strike on Ukrainian convoy
“About 150 cars are allowed each day by the Russians to make the journey south heading for cities such as Mariupol and Melitopol. The cars and minivans were full of items to bring to families still in the south – bedding and children’s toys, clothes and even food. Some travellers would have hoped to pick up relatives to bring them back to Ukrainian-controlled territory amid fears that Russia’s annexation of four regions in Ukraine will leave many trapped. At that moment, a Russian S-300 missile ploughed into the ground 10 metres from the cars as they waited for an escort for their journey. The blast tore through metal, shattered windscreens and blew out the windows of food kiosks and shops over a wide distance.” – The Guardian

September 30, 2022
Putin annexes four regions of Ukraine in major escalation of Russia’s war
“Vladimir Putin has signed ‘accession treaties’ formalising Russia’s illegal annexation of four occupied regions in Ukraine, marking the largest forcible takeover of territory in Europe since the second world war.” – The Guardian

September 28, 2022
The Economic Toll of the Opioid Crisis Reached Nearly $1.5 Trillion in 2020
“Opioid use increased during the pandemic, leading to the highest number of opioid-related deaths on record in the United States. The data show 2020 and 2021 saw the highest numbers of fatal opioid overdoses ever reported, with 69,061 and 80,926 fatalities, respectively (see graph below), and opioids are the main driver of drug overdose deaths. In 2020, 2.7 million people over the age of 12 were reported to suffer from opioid use disorder, a significant increase compared to the 1.9 million cases in 2019.” – JEC

September 28, 2022
Return to Dust, Chinese hit film about rural hardships, disappears from streaming platforms
“Film’s sudden disappearance in China prompts censorship accusations amid heightened sensitivity ahead of key Communist party meeting.” – The Guardian

September 27, 2022
As the world moves on, Myanmar confronts a mounting, hidden toll
“The costs of the military’s takeover — and the ongoing desperate push to resist it — have continued to mount…. The military has killed more than 2,000 civilians, including some in apparent war atrocities, according to the U.N. special rapporteur on Myanmar. Nearly a million people, a quarter of them children, have been displaced, forced to live in temporary shelters where malaria, dengue and dysentery are rife…. Japan, Australia and Singapore, all of which moved swiftly to punish Russia after its invasion of Ukraine, have made no move to do the same with the Tatmadaw. The United States adopted some sanctions but has stopped short of fulfilling key requests from activists, such as penalizing the Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise, a state-owned energy company that serves as a lifeline for the junta.” – The Washington Post

September 27, 2022
Libraries Across the US Are Receiving Violent Threats
“Librarians and patrons believe the threats were part of a coordinated effort to limit information access, and come amids a recent wave of book bans. In the last two weeks, at least a dozen public libraries across the U.S. received threats that resulted in canceled events and systemwide closures. While bomb and active shooter threats to public library systems in Nashville, Fort Worth, Denver, Salt Lake City, Boston, and other cities across the country were ultimately deemed hoaxes, library workers and patrons say they’re still reeling in the aftermath.” – Vice

September 26, 2022
How U.S. Textbooks Helped Instill White Supremacy
“Yacovone’s thesis is a compelling and convincing one: that Northern publishers, universities, religious authorities and social activists were more responsible than Southern ones in disseminating an enduring ideology of white supremacy and Black inferiority — one that outlasted the institution of slavery and was expressed forcefully in school materials. In many cases, this ideology existed alongside strong beliefs in abolition and preserving the Union, tying the survival of the Republic itself to the idea of America as a white nation.” – The New York Times

September 26, 2022
How to Hit Back
The desperate, confused, righteous campaign to stop Asian hate.” – The Verge

September 24, 2022
‘These Kids Are Dying’ — Inside the Overdose Crisis Sweeping Fort Bragg
“A staggering total of 109 soldiers assigned to Fort Bragg died in 2020 and 2021. Dozens have lost their lives there to drug overdoses. Now, their families are demanding answers — and accountability.” – Rolling Stone

September 23, 2022
Jan. 6 Was Just the Beginning for the Proud Boys
“With its leadership in jail or facing charges after Jan. 6, many wrote the extremist group off. But that’s a dangerous mistake, according to a new book…. The success of the Proud Boys’ effort to normalize political violence is perhaps most evident in the Republican National Committee’s decision to classify the violence of Jan. 6 as ‘legitimate political discourse.’ But it is also apparent in the near-constant threat of violent clashes that hangs over practically every political protest or rally that draws national media attention.” – Politico

September 23, 2022
Unprecedented leak exposes inner workings of UK Labour Party
“The leaked documents, obtained by Al Jazeera, reveal how party officials smear and intimidate rivals. Al Jazeera’s Investigative Unit (I-Unit) has obtained the largest leak in British political history, exposing how unelected officials undermined democracy within the Labour Party.” – Aljazeera

September 23, 2022
This Threat to Democracy Is Hiding in Plain Sight
“In the weeks after the 2020 presidential election, Donald Trump and his allies were unable to get far in their attempts to prove widespread voter fraud. There were two reasons for that. First, there wasn’t any, as numerous investigations by journalists, expert reports and court rulings showed. But second, Republican election officials in multiple states repeatedly said that their counts and recounts were accurate, and they defended the integrity of the election…. Many top Republican Party officials and lawmakers have spent the last two years striking back, and drawn the most attention for their efforts to pass “voter integrity” laws that aim to make voting more onerous under the guise of preventing fraud…. These are pernicious laws, and they undermine Americans’ hard-won rights to vote. But just as important is the matter of who counts the votes, and who decides which votes count and which do not.. This is where Mr. Trump’s allies have focused much of their scheming since his re-election defeat. Their mission is to take over America’s election infrastructure, or at least key parts of it, from the ground up by filling key positions of influence with Trump sympathizers. Rather than threatening election officials, they will be the election officials.” – The New York Times

September 22, 2022
The Ungodly Surveillance of Anti-Porn ‘Shameware’ Apps
“Churches are using invasive phone-monitoring tech to discourage ‘sinful’ behavior. Some software is seeing more than congregants realize…. ‘I wouldn’t quite call it spyware,’ says a former member of Gracepoint who was asked to use Covenant Eyes and spoke on the condition of anonymity, due to privacy concerns. ‘It’s more like “shameware,” and it’s just another way the church controls you.'” – Wired

Churches are using invasive phone-monitoring tech to discourage “sinful” behavior. Some software is seeing more than congregants realize.

September 22, 2022
Trump says presidents can declassify docs ‘even by thinking about it’
“’If you’re the president of the United States, you can declassify just by saying it’s declassified,’ the former president added. ‘You’re the president — you make that decision.’” – The Washington Post

September 22, 2022
The online incel movement is getting more violent and extreme, report says
“The Center for Countering Digital Hate analyzed more than 1 million posts showing a rise in advocacy of rape, mass killings.” – The Washington Post

September 22, 2022
In India, Debunking Fake News and Running Into the Authorities
“Alt News, an independent website, has emerged as a leading debunker of misinformation in the nation, but highlighting hate speech against minorities has put it on a collision course with the government…. But in a reflection of the growing concerns about the independence and freedom of the news media in India, Mr. Zubair has landed in the authorities’ cross hairs. He has been arrested on charges of hurting religious sentiments and is being investigated by the police after anonymous critics and B.J.P. officials accused him of spreading communal unrest. ‘People in power want to shut me up for exposing their propaganda, their lies and their hate campaigns,’ Mr. Zubair, 40, said in an interview. ‘They want to scare other journalists and activists by targeting me.'” – The New York Times

September 21, 2022
Writer E Jean Carroll to file new lawsuit after accusing Trump of rape
“Carroll to file claim of battery and intentional infliction of emotional distress under new New York law.” – The Guardian

September 19, 2022
Nazi analogies are dangerous. But they are increasingly relevant today.
“’People ask me, is this Kristallnacht?’ she said. ‘Is this the beginning of pogroms, etc.? I don’t think those comparisons are correct. However, I do think certain comparisons are fitting… it’s certainly not 1938,’ when Nazis led the Kristallnacht pogroms throughout Germany. ‘It’s not even September 1935, and the Nuremberg Laws’ institutionalizing racist policies. ‘What it well might be is December 1932, Hitler comes to power on Jan. 30, 1933 — it might be Jan. 15, 1933.’ Lipstadt’s remarks ring true, especially after one watches the first installment of ‘The U.S. and the Holocaust,’ the latest documentary from filmmaker Ken Burns. The film strikes disturbingly close to home: the use of street thugs, the false claims of victimhood by a group persecuting others, the abhorrence of democracy, the repression of media in favor of state propaganda, the elimination of independent institutions, the slow and methodical scheme to turn one people into pariahs. The film also detailed the utterly inadequate response of the United States, which has its own troubled history with racism and antisemitism.” – The Washington Post

September 18, 2022
How Russian Trolls Helped Keep the Women’s March Out of Lock Step
“As American feminists came together in 2017 to protest Donald Trump, Russia’s disinformation machine set about deepening the divides among them…. Feminism was an obvious target, because it was viewed as a “Western agenda,” and hostile to the traditional values that Russia represented, said Mr. Baranov, who spoke about his work in hopes of warning the public to be more skeptical of material online.” – The New York Times

September 18, 2022
Trump Rally Plays Music Resembling QAnon Song, and Crowds React
“But what was once a flirtation with a movement that the F.B.I. has warned could increasingly turn violent now appears to be a full embrace.”– The New York Times

September 18, 2022
Creepy, One-Finger Salute At Trump Rally Evokes ‘Heil Hitler’ Gesture – HuffPost

September 16, 2022
Attempts to Ban Books Are Accelerating and Becoming More Divisive
“So far in 2022, there have been attempts to ban or restrict access to 1,651 different titles, the group found, up from challenges to 1,597 books in 2021, the year with the highest number of complaints since the group began documenting book challenges decades ago…. Public libraries have been threatened by politicians and community members with a loss of funding for their refusal to remove books. Members of the Proud Boys, an extremist right-wing group, showed up at a school board meeting in Illinois, where book access was on the agenda, and at a drag queen story hour in California. Librarians have been accused of promoting pedophilia. In its recent analysis, the library association cited 27 instances of police reports being filed against library staff over the content of their shelves.” – The New York Times

September 15, 2022
White conservative Christians ignore their real problem: A fleeing flock – Independent
“White evangelical Christians dominate the MAGA movement. Fear of civilizational decline, dire warnings of an existential crisis and howls that religion is under ‘attack’ form the basis of much of the MAGA ideology. And the apocalyptic language deployed by the right wing bears a striking resemblance to Christian end-times imagery…. Prominent right-wingers, including former attorney general William P. Barr and current Supreme Court Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., cite growing secularism as a threat to our entire way of life. Barr (while still in office!) raged during a speech at the University of Notre Dame: ‘This is not decay. This is organized destruction. Secularists and their allies have marshaled all the forces of mass communication, popular culture, the entertainment industry, and academia in an unremitting assault on religion and traditional values.’… These voices posit that White Christians are victims. But in fact, the church quite simply has failed to attract and retain believers.” – Independent

September 15, 2022
‘Bolsonaro promotes hatred’: violence stalks run-up to crucial Brazil election
“The brutal killing of a Lula supporter and other violent incidents are the product of a toxic climate whipped up by the far-right president, critics say. The body was found in the shade of a mango tree: a man’s life cut short in a frenzy of stabbing – and a horrifying symbol of the political violence that has gripped Brazil under its rabble-rousing president, Jair Bolsonaro. ‘He showed no sign of remorse,’ the police chief investigating the murder said of the prime suspect, a Bolsonaro-supporting lumberjack who allegedly committed the crime because he disliked the victim’s leftist views. The murder of Benedito Cardoso dos Santos, which took place last Wednesday near a remote Amazon town, has sent shock waves through South America’s most populous nation as it braces for its most important presidential election in decades on 2 October.” – The Guardian

September 15, 2022
Prosecutors urged to examine French role in Egyptian airstrikes on civilians
“Two international NGOs have asked French prosecutors and the UN to investigate the French state’s involvement in Egypt allegedly committing crimes against humanity in a secret military operation on the Egyptian-Libyan border. A 2021 leak appeared to show how French officers complained they were being asked to facilitate Egyptian airstrikes, codenamed Operation Sirli, on the Egyptian-Libyan border, even though the original counter-terrorism purpose had been subverted by the Egyptian military into taking out vehicles containing nothing more than contraband. Dozens are estimated to have been killed or injured. The complaint was filed to the French national anti-terrorist prosecutor’s office, on behalf of the US-based NGOs Egyptians Abroad for Democracy and Codepink, on Monday, the UK-based barrister Haydee Dijkstal told the Guardian…. Dijikstal said the location data collected by the French led to hundreds of people being killed and injured without any recourse to trial, and more recently their families had been deprived of any justice. ‘In the name of terrorism, ordinary people such as date farmers were targeted.’” – The Guardian

September 15, 2022
Megachurch pastor raped hundreds and forced victims to call him ‘uncle’, lawsuit claims
“Five women are suing an international megachurch and its leader Naasón Joaquín García, a convicted felon, in California state court over decades of alleged child sexual abuse and human trafficking. The 53-year-old leader of the ‘Church of the Living God, Pillar and Ground of the Truth; The Light of the World,’ or simply La Luz del Mundo, admitted to various child sex crimes earlier this year and was convicted and sentenced to nearly 17 years in prison. Among many disturbing details, the new lawsuit claimed one of the five plaintiffs said she was ‘forced to call [García] “uncle” while he was raping, assaulting, and molesting her because it excited him to be sexually abusing his niece, a family member.” – Independent

September 14, 2022
Sean Hannity accidentally SINKS Trump with DUMBEST move possible – YouTube

September 13, 2022
Revealed: how UK targeted American civil rights leader in covert campaign
“The British government targeted the American civil rights leader Stokely Carmichael and sought to weaken the Black Power movement with covert disinformation campaigns, recently declassified documents have revealed. The effort was the work of a secret unit known as the Information Research Department, based in London and part of the Foreign Office, which created and distributed literature from fake sources as part of a broader effort to destabilise cold war enemies.” – The Guardian

September 12, 2022
Rising crimes against Indian women in five charts – BBC

September 11, 2022
‘Cow is my mother’: India’s cow-related lynching incidents are on the rise. Is the BJP to blame?
“About 90 per cent of cow-related incidents in 2010-2017 were reported after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s BJP took power in May 2014. Legal analysts also point to poor policing and failure to enforce laws, along with endorsement of such attacks by high-ranking political figures.” – South China Morning Post

September 9, 2022
How conservative Facebook groups are changing what books children read in school
“Parents are gathering online to review books and lobby schools to ban them, often on the basis of sexual content.” – MIT Technology Review

September 7, 2022
How reactionary is MAGA? Try the first century B.C.
“MAGA Republican leaders take umbrage at being accused of “’semi-fascism,’ which is understandable: Twentieth-century dictators such as Mussolini and the German guy with the mustache gave fascism a bad name. But the MAGA crowd isn’t disavowing totalitarianism, per se. It’s just their taste in authoritarian figures skews toward the classics. They’re old-school — 1st century B.C. old. ‘Hail, Caesar’ goes down so much easier than ‘Heil Hitler.’” – The Washington Post

September 6, 2022
The United Nations Is Scared of Calling Out China’s Genocide
“Its findings include confirmation that those imprisoned were tortured by being beaten, that women suffered ‘violations of reproductive rights through the coercive enforcement of family planning policies’ (including sterilizations), and that camp inmates were used for forced labor—effectively enslaved—by state-run work programs…. But U.N. functionaries are in no position to out-muscle China, and they are so far unwilling to go so far as legislators with their own domestic audiences and their own mandates to call Chinese treatment of Uyghurs what it is—genocide—and to propose and execute efforts to do something in response.” – Foreign Policy

September 5, 2022
Drought likely to push parts of Somalia into famine by end of year, warns UN
“World is ‘in last minute of the 11th hour to save lives’, says aid chief, amid fears that crisis is worse than 2010 famine, when 250,000 died. Two areas of Somalia are likely to enter a state of famine later this year as the country battles an unrelenting drought and flare-ups of conflict, the UN humanitarian chief has warned.” – The Guardian

September 4, 2022
Far-Right Bolsonaro Will Test The Limits Of Brazilian Democracy This Week
“Brazil President Jair Bolsonaro has called for mass protests on Sept. 7, a month ahead of an election he’s desperately sought to undermine…. Right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro, who has made it clear he will not accept defeat in October’s presidential election and has spent the last two years attempting to undermine the contest with a series of baseless conspiracy theories, has called his supporters to the streets for mass rallies that will coincide with a ramped-up version of the Brazilian military’s traditional holiday celebrations. Open talk of a coup among Bolsonaro supporters has inspired fears that a leader who has mimicked former U.S. President Donald Trump throughout his presidency has targeted Sept. 7 as the date for a Brazilian version of the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection.” – HuffPost

September 2, 2022
As Biden warned about democracy’s collapse, TV networks aired reruns
“While broadcasters typically air a prime-time address by the president, they determined that this speech was more ‘political’ than newsworthy for live coverage. While President Biden warned the nation about threats to democracy in a prime-time address on Thursday, ABC was airing a game show, ‘Press Your Luck.’ As Biden spelled out his objections to former president Donald Trump and ‘MAGA Republicans,’ NBC was broadcasting a rerun of ‘Law and Order.’ CBS skipped the speech to show a rerun of ‘Young Sheldon.’ – The Washington Post

September 1, 2022
For Uyghurs, U.N. Report on China’s Abuses Is Long-Awaited Vindication
“The report’s assessment that China’s crackdown in Xinjiang could amount to ‘crimes against humanity’ gives new momentum to a campaign to pressure Beijing…. The 48-page report, which said that China had committed grave human rights abuses in Xinjiang, sharply undercuts Beijing’s aggressive efforts to discredit Uyghurs who dared to speak out. It also gives new momentum to the Uyghur activists’ cause and an opportunity for rights campaigners to put the issue before the U.N. Human Rights Council later this month and increase pressure on businesses to distance themselves from China.” – The New York Times

September 1, 2022
Witness to the Massacre in Mariupol
“Survivors describe the defining atrocity of the war in Ukraine…. No one knows how many Ukrainians were crushed beneath the rubble, burned, killed by shrapnel or blast waves or asphyxiated in and around the theater. The estimates of dead I heard from survivors ranged from 60 to 200, but The Associated Press found that it could be up to 600. With Mariupol in Russian hands, it’s unlikely that a real accounting of the dead, or for that matter any on-the-ground investigation of the bombing, will take place.” – The New York Times

August 30, 2022
More than 40% of Americans think civil war likely within a decade – The Guardian

August 30, 2022
Famine In Afghanistan Threatens Millions, UN Warns
“The U.N. humanitarian chief is warning that Afghanistan faces deepening poverty with 6 million people at risk.” – HuffPost

August 24, 2022
The world stands on a nuclear precipice – we must avoid catastrophe
“The world can still step back from the abyss. The nuclear weapon states – the US, Russia, China, France and the UK – must lead the way. In 1945 nuclear weapons were used in armed conflict for the first and only time. 355,000 people were killed in Hiroshima and Nagasaki by two nuclear bombs. Two. That number alone puts in stark perspective the world’s current arsenal of about 13,000 nuclear weapons.” – The Guardian

August 24, 2022
The changes at CNN look politically motivated. That should concern us all
“For several years, Brian Stelter’s Sunday show on CNN, Reliable Sources, has been a reliable source of intelligent criticism of Fox News, rightwing media in general, Trumpism, and the increasingly authoritarian lurch of the Republican party. Last week, CNN abruptly canceled the show and effectively fired Stelter and his staff…. It was cancelled by Chris Licht, CNN’s new chairman and CEO, who reportedly was not a fan of Stelter’s opinionated style…. Licht has told CNN staff they should stop referring to Donald Trump’s ‘big lie’…. Licht also wants more ‘straight news reporting,’ along with more conservative guests.
“What’s motivating Licht? Follow the money.
“CNN’s new corporate overseer is Warner Brothers Discovery Inc, which now owns what used to be Time Warner, including CNN. The CEO of Warner Brothers Discovery is David Zaslav. Zaslav has been prodding Licht to reposition CNN to the center, and be a network preferred by ‘everybody … Republicans, Democrats.’” – The Guardian

August 24, 2022
Modi’s India Is Where Global Democracy Dies
“In his eight years in power, Mr. Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party government has profaned Indian democracy, espousing an intolerant Hindu supremacist majoritarianism over the ideals of secularism, pluralism, religious tolerance and equal citizenship upon which the country was founded after gaining independence on Aug. 15, 1947.
“Drawing comparisons to Nazi Germany, the regime uses co-opted government machinery disinformation and intimidation by partisan mobs to silence critics while dehumanizing the large Muslim minority, fanning social division and violence. Civil liberties are systematically violated.” – The New York Times

August 24, 2022
Offshore Tax Loophole Helps Americans Cheat IRS, Senate Says
“Rich Americans are hiding “vast amounts of income” from the Internal Revenue Service by exploiting a ‘deeply troubling’ loophole in a 12-year-old US law designed to crack down on offshore tax evasion, according to a Senate Finance Committee report.” – Bloomberg

August 23, 2022
Donald Trump PAC used $650,000 in supporter money to fund official portrait: documents – Independent

August 22, 2022
GOP Senate nominee Herschel Walker hits out at landmark climate bill by asking: ‘Don’t we have enough trees?’ – independent

August 20. 2022
British Indians have a racism problem – we need to be honest about it
“My parents came to the UK from India and we all experienced racism. Yet despite this, I am heartbroken by how much racism I am seeing from British Hindus today.” – Independent

August 18, 2022
Florida calls teen ‘too immature’ for an abortion. But forced motherhood is fine?
“The Florida court’s decision is shameful, nothing less than an ideological assault on a teenager.” – The Guardian

August 18, 2022
Police call for Bolsonaro to be charged for spreading Covid misinformation
“Brazilian federal police have called for President Jair Bolsonaro to be charged with spreading fake information about a coronavirus outbreak that has killed more than 680,000 of his citizens, including bogus claims of a link between Aids and Covid vaccines. Bolsonaro’s anti-scientific response to a disease he called “a bit of a cold” has been internationally condemned and the subject of a congressional inquiry in which the far-right populist was accused of deliberately delaying vaccine purchases and promoting quack ‘cures’ such as hydroxychloroquine…. In the deleted transmission, Bolsonaro falsely claimed face masks – the compulsory use of which he repeatedly flouted – had been responsible for many of the deaths during the 1918 influenza pandemic.” – The Guardian

August 18, 2022
Outrage as rapists leave jail to heroes’ welcome. Bilkis Bano: The pain of seeing my rapists go free
“Bilkis Bano, who was gang-raped and saw 14 members of her family being murdered by a Hindu mob during the 2002 anti-Muslim riots in the western Indian state of Gujarat, is back in the headlines. On Monday, 11 convicts who were serving life sentences for rape and murder in the case, walked out of prison to a heroes’ welcome. A video that has since gone viral showed the men lined up outside the Godhra jail while relatives gave them sweets and touched their feet to show respect.” – BBC

August 17, 2022
See GOP’s ‘Just Comply’ Lie Shredded: Trump And Aides Defy FBI As Accountability Looms
“MSNBC’s Chief Legal Correspondent Ari Melber reports on how attacks on the FBI search of Trump’s home reveal a deeper double standard. MAGA leaders continue resisting lawful probes and subpoenas while lecturing other suspects to ‘just comply.’ Melber reports on faux outrage over the lawful search of Trump’s Mar-A-Lago and a record that reveals deeper problems in US policing. This an excerpt of the MSNBC special report, which also reports on police force used against Breonna Taylor and Walter Scott.” – YouTube

August 16, 2022
‘I don’t see justice in this war’: Russian soldier exposes rot at core of Ukraine invasion
“Pavel Filatyev has fled his homeland after publishing a 141-page account detailing his experiences on the frontline…. Filatyev, who served in the 56th Guards air assault regiment based in Crimea, described how his exhausted and poorly equipped unit stormed into mainland Ukraine behind a hail of rocket fire in late February, with little in terms of concrete logistics or objectives, and no idea why the war was taking place at all. ‘It took me weeks to understand there was no war on Russian territory at all, and that we had just attacked Ukraine,’ he said.” – The Guardian

August 16, 2022
Saudi woman given 34-year prison sentence for using Twitter
“A Saudi student at Leeds University who had returned home to the kingdom for a holiday has been sentenced to 34 years in prison for having a Twitter account and for following and retweeting dissidents and activists.” – The Guardian

August 15, 2022
Video Of Trump Discussing Laws About Classified Info Aged Really Well
“A resurfaced clip from August 2016 shows Trump as a presidential candidate vowing to make enforcing laws around classified information a priority. ‘In my administration, I’m going to enforce all laws concerning the protection of classified information.'” – Twitter

August 15, 2022
Iran says Salman Rushdie and supporters to blame for his attack
“The prize-winning writer spent years under police protection after Iranian leaders called for his killing over his portrayal of Islam and the prophet Muhammad in his novel The Satanic Verses.” – The Guardian

August 15, 2022
The Arizona Republican Party’s Anti-Democracy Experiment
“First, it turned against the establishment. Now it has set its sights on democracy — the principles, the process and even the word itself.” – The New York Times Magazine

August 12, 2022
‘My mother was beheaded in front of me’: a survivor recalls India’s violent partition
Zareena Parveen was 12 years old when British colonial India was carved up along religious lines. Two independent states were created: Hindu-majority India, and the Muslim-majority Dominion of Pakistan, which was made up of West Pakistan and East Pakistan (now Bangladesh). As millions rushed to cross the new borders, violence erupted between Hindu, Muslim and Sikh populations that had coexisted for thousands of years. In the months that followed, an estimated 1 million people were killed, up to 15 million were displaced and between 75,000 and 100,000 women were abducted and raped. – The Guardian

12 August 2022
Alex Jones’ Infowars sees sales soar since Sandy Hook defamation trial
“Alex Jones’ Infowars has seen its sales soar since his Sandy Hook defamation trial, where he was ordered to pay almost $50m in damages to the parents of a child murdered in the mass shooting after he spread lies about the massacre being ‘a hoax’…. In the week ending 29 July, which also marked the first week of the high-profile trial, Infowars made $962,000 in sales, according to the filings…. This marks a dramatic surge in sales since before the trial. The company previously reported that its sales reached around $595,000 each week.” – Independent

August 8, 2022
Bolsonaro Is Afraid of Going to Jail, and He’s Right to Be
“It’s getting hard to keep track of all the charges against the president and his government. To start with, there’s the small matter of a Supreme Court investigation into Mr. Bolsonaro’s allies for participating in a kind of ‘digital militia’ that floods social media with disinformation and coordinates smear campaigns against political opponents. In a related inquiry, Mr. Bolsonaro himself is being investigated for, in the words of a Federal Police report, his ‘direct and relevant role’ in promoting disinformation. Yet Mr. Bolsonaro’s wrongdoing is hardly confined to the digital world. Corruption scandals have defined his tenure, and the rot starts at home. Two of his sons….” – The New York Times

August 8, 2022
Trump wanted Pentagon generals to be like second world war Nazis, book says
“In an exchange with his former White House chief of staff John Kelly, a retired Marine Corps general, Trump reportedly complained: ‘You fucking generals, why can’t you be like the German generals?’ Kelly asked which generals, prompting Trump to reply: ‘The German generals in World War II.’” – The Guardian

August 8, 2022
Taiwan prepares for life underground amid China threat – in pictures
“Taiwan is preparing air-raid shelters in underground spaces such as basement car parks, the subway system and subterranean shopping centres as fears of a Chinese attack increase. The capital, Taipei, has more than 4,600 such shelters that can accommodate 12 million people, more than four times its population.” – The Guardian

August 6, 2022
Strikes at Ukrainian nuclear plant ‘alarming’, says UN watchdog chief
“Head of International Atomic Energy Agency says shelling at Zaporizhzhia plant underlines ‘very real risk of a nuclear disaster.’” – The Guardian

August 5, 2022
Minnesota Secretary Of State Candidate Questioned Non-English Speakers’ Right To Vote
“A law allowing disabled voters and non-English speakers to get help casting ballots ‘raises the question, should they be voting?’ GOP candidate Kim Crockett said.” – HuffPost

August 5, 2022
Shocking ‘Daily Show’ Supercut Shows Conservatives Using KKK Talking Points
“The Daily Show said today’s conservatives ― including former President Donald Trump, Fox News host Tucker Carlson and GOP lawmakers Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert ― sound a lot like some of the nation’s most infamous racists. A new supercut matches up recent comments made by voices on the right to those made by KKK figures, such as David Duke.” – HuffPost

August 5, 2022
‘They all knew’: textile company misled regulators about use of toxic PFAS, documents show
“A French industrial fabric producer that poisoned drinking water supplies with PFAS ‘forever chemicals’ across 65 sq miles (168 sq km) of southern New Hampshire misled regulators about the amount of toxic substance it used, a group of state lawmakers and public health advocates charge.” – The Guardian

August 5, 2022
US library defunded after refusing to censor LGBTQ authors: ‘We will not ban the books’
“A small-town library is at risk of shutting down after residents of Jamestown, Michigan, voted to defund it rather than tolerate certain LGBTQ+-themed books.” – The Guardian

August 4, 2022
A Very Dangerous Place to Be Pregnant Is Getting Even Scarier
“Texas leads the US in maternity ward closures, and nowhere is this more of an issue than in the western part of the state.” – Bloomberg

August 4, 2022
Classic internet censorship
“Indonesia’s regulations are another sign that strict online controls are no longer confined to autocratic countries like China, Iran, North Korea and Myanmar. They are also increasingly the realm of democracies that want to use the law and the internet to shape citizens’ discussions and beliefs.” – The New York Times

August 3, 2022
The HIV prevention drug that could save millions of people – if they can afford it
“CAB-LA injections offer stigma-free protection for those at risk – particularly women in Africa. A deal with pharmaceutical companies is crucial…. ViiV is ‘super-excited about CAB-LA PrEP and the possibilities it has for turning the tide on the HIV epidemic.’ ‘We believe that the strongest opportunity is in adolescent girls and women in sub-Saharan Africa: 6,000 adolescent girls and women are getting infected on a weekly basis still.'” – The Guardian

July 31, 2022
Trained, Armed and Ready. To Teach Kindergarten.
“More school employees are carrying guns to defend against school shootings. In Ohio, a contentious new law requires no more than 24 hours of training. A teacher in Ohio felt a growing desperation after the shooting in Uvalde, Texas. ‘We just feel helpless,’ she said.” – The New York Times

July 30, 2022
Francis Calls Abuse of Indigenous People in Canada a ‘Genocide’
“Children in the schools suffered physical, sexual and emotional abuse. Many died, and many languages died, too. Survivors of the schools, their relatives and advocates blame the church for its role in seeking to assimilate those Indigenous cultures and for driving them to the brink of extinction.” – The New York Times

July 29, 2022
U.S. Offers $10 Million Reward For Russian Election Interference Info
“The defendants were accused of a huge but hidden social media trolling campaign aimed at sowing discord on hot-button issues and at helping Trump defeat Democrat Hillary Clinton. Officials say Prigozhin provided funding for the IRA through companies he controlled.” – HuffPost

July 29, 2022
The paddock that became a grave for the people New Zealand branded ‘defective’ – and chose to forget
“Nearly 500 patients consigned to the Tokanui psychiatric hospital died there, their only legacy a memorial wall in a field.” – The Guardian

July 28, 2022
Trump wanted to stay in power ‘at all costs’ because he was making ‘millions’ off being president, Jan 6 committee member says
“’Donald Trump was engaged in bringing millions of dollars into his hotels and golf courses and other commercial licensing deals and so on from foreign governments,’ said Maryland Democrat Jamie Raskin…. ‘The founders of the Constitution were determined to prevent that from happening,’ he added. ‘That’s why we have the Foreign Emoluments Clause, which says that no president and no member of the federal government can accept presents, emoluments, which means payments, offices, or titles from foreign governments. And yet we know that Donald Trump was engaged in bringing millions of dollars into his hotels and golf courses and other commercial licensing deals and so on from foreign governments.’” – Independent

July 28, 2022
States With Abortion Bans Are Among Least Supportive for Mothers and Children
“They tend to have the weakest social services and the worst results in several categories of health and well-being.” – The New York Times

July 27, 2022
Violence against women rampant under Taliban, new report finds
“Women in Afghanistan have faced an onslaught of violence and human rights abuses since the Taliban’s return to national power less than a year ago — and the ‘scope, magnitude and severity’ of violations are ‘increasing month to month,’ according to a new report by Amnesty International.” – The Washington Post

July 27, 2022
A hero of the Trump right shows his true colors: Whites only
“That was too much even for Orban’s longtime adviser Zsuzsa Hegedus, who resigned and lambasted the prime minister for ‘a pure Nazi speech worthy of Goebbels.’ She said the speech could ‘please even the most bloodthirsty racists’ and suggested he was ‘advocating an openly racist policy that is now unacceptable even for the Western European extreme right.’
“But not for the American right! CPAC’s organizer confirmed to me on Wednesday that Orban is still scheduled to address the group next week. ‘Let’s listen to the man speak,’ Matt Schlapp, chairman of the Conservative Political Action Coalition, told Bloomberg News on Tuesday. Orban’s name remained on CPAC’s speakers list, along with Trump; some two dozen GOP House members; Sens. Ted Cruz (Tex.), Rick Scott (Fla.) and Bill Hagerty (Tenn.); Fox News’s Sean Hannity; Texas Gov. Greg Abbott; and former Trump aides including Steve Bannon and Stephen Miller.” – The Washington Post

July 27, 2022
Alabama Takes From the Poor and Gives to the Rich
“In states like Alabama, almost every interaction a person has with the criminal justice system comes with a financial cost…. Often, you don’t even have to break the law; you’ll pay fees to pull a public record or apply for a permit. For poor people, this system is a trap, sucking them into a cycle of sometimes unpayable debt that constrains their lives and almost guarantees financial hardship.” – The New York Times

July 27, 2022
Self-awareness in short supply as Trump calls for law and order in DC
“Trump added, ‘The radical left’s anti-police narrative is a total lie. Let’s call it “the big lie.” Have you ever heard that expression before?’
“More than 140 Capitol police and DC Metropolitan police officers were injured while defending the US Capitol, according to official figures. Officer Caroline Edwards told the January 6 committee: ‘I was slipping in people’s blood. I was catching people as they fell. It was carnage, it was chaos.’ In the days and weeks after the attack, five officers who had served at the Capitol on January 6 died. Biden said on Monday: ‘You can’t be pro-insurrection and pro-cop, You can’t be pro-insurrection and pro-democracy. You can’t be pro-insurrection and pro-American.’” – The Guardian

July 26, 2022
Can we imagine a world without borders?
“Migrants often face hardship at the border, yet the number of people making these journeys is increasing every year. A new book, ‘Against Borders’, explores how international borders are constructed and what a world without them would look like.” – Rolling Stone

July 26, 2022
Republican went to son’s same-sex wedding days after voting against equal marriage rights
“Thompson was one of 157 Republicans who voted against the Respect for Marriage Act, which passed the US House last week. On Friday, he attended his son’s wedding.” – The Guardian

July 26, 2022
Here’s why a border-free world would be better than hostile immigration policies
“A world in which everyone has the freedom to move and to stay might sound pie in the sky, but it can work.” – The Guardian

July 26, 2022
After court ruling, activists push prayer into schools
“They say church and state are already too separate.” – The Washington Post

July 24, 2022
An ‘imposter Christianity’ is threatening American democracy
“Three men, eyes closed and heads bowed, pray before a rough-hewn wooden cross. Another man wraps his arms around a massive Bible pressed against his chest like a shield. All throughout the crowd, people wave ‘Jesus Saves’ banners and pump their fists toward the sky…. It was what some call a Christian revolt…. These were photos of people who stormed the US Capitol on January 6, 2021… a burgeoning White Christian nationalist movement. This movement uses Christian language to cloak sexism and hostility to Black people and non-White immigrants in its quest to create a White Christian America.” – CNN

July 23, 2022
On the campaign trail, many Republicans talk of violence
“Pollsters have found that Americans are worried about the country sticking together; a YouGov poll released last month had a majority of both Democrats and Republicans agreeing that America would one day ‘cease to be a democracy.’… ‘If you love America, they hate you,’ says Jim Pillen, the Republican nominee for governor of Nebraska, in one TV spot. ‘If you support the police, they call you racist.'” – The Washington Post

July 21, 2022
How Donald Trump Jr. Promised—and Failed—to House the World’s Poor
“He and a partner were going to build ‘millions of houses’ for poor people in the developing world. They built virtually no units, left investors high and dry, and sued creditors rather than pay them.” – The New Republic

July 18, 2022
Allahabad HC: Free speech doesn’t cover abusing PM
“Observing that ‘the Constitution recognises freedom of speech but this right does not extend to hurling abuses against the PM and other ministers,’ the Allahabad high court has refused to quash an FIR lodged against one Mumtaz Mansoori of Jaunpur. Mansoori had been booked for making derogatory remarks against PM Narendra Modi, home minister Amit Shah and other ministers on social media.” – The Times of India

July 18, 2022
Food May Be the Ultimate Weapon in the 21st Century
“Putin is giving an object lesson in how geopolitical insecurity can cause food insecurity — which can then make a whole raft of problems worse across the globe…. The number of undernourished people in the world rose by perhaps 150 million between 2019 and 2021, due principally to the Covid-19 pandemic…. Nearly 3.1 billion people were unable to afford a healthy diet; by some estimates, the number of people on the verge of starvation has multiplied tenfold since 2019.” – Bloomberg

July 16, 2020
90 days in Russian prison: A Ukrainian teen’s tale of terror and hope
“Many of the disappeared thousands never reappear, representing a special challenge for war crimes investigators…. He heard the young man being beaten and electrocuted, the torture sometimes lasting up to three hours at a time, he said. Soon, the man said he could no longer bear it. He would rather ‘leave this earth than keep being tortured,’ he told Vlad. He had a final wish: for Vlad to tell his story. Vlad said the man then reached for the lid of a tin can and cut his wrists.” – The Washington Post

July 15, 2022
Democrats are facing asymmetrical warfare. It’s time to wake up and fight back
“Many of the basic rights and principles of our democracy have been completely overruled by a party that hasn’t won the popular vote in a presidential election in 18 years. There is a massive disconnect between the will of the people and the actions of the state. This is a situation unprecedented since the Civil Rights Era or potentially even Reconstruction, but the president has not treated it as such. Fundamentally, people, especially young people, want to feel like the president is fighting for them…. It would take decades of uninterrupted Democratic control of the presidency to flip the US supreme court. With the current coalitions and political structure, it’s effectively impossible for Democrats to ever win a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. Even a simple governing majority requires a clear Democratic wave in the popular vote, and that majority would almost certainly require more red-state Democrats like Sinema and Manchin who would block legislation. In short, ‘just vote’ and using the current institutions is impossible, and voters recognize that.” – The Guardian

July 15, 2022
The Vatican is trying to fight abuse. A case in Congo raises warning signs.
“The 14-year-old girl returned on the back of a motorbike to the convent where she lived and studied. Sobbing and in pain, she pulled aside a nun. The girl said she’d just been raped by the priest who dropped her off…. The announcement ended up being one of Djomo’s last moves as bishop of Tshumbe. Days later, he returned to his diocese and began his retirement. Olongo, meanwhile, no longer faces restrictions; he can resume ministry and have contact with minors. ‘He is free now,’ Djomo said in his brief conversation with The Post. ‘He can say Mass. I am so glad.'” – The Washington Post

July 14, 2022
Facebook Accused of ‘Whitewashing’ Long-Awaited Human Rights Report on India
“The report has been anticipated for nearly two years by rights groups who have long raised the alarm that Facebook is contributing to an erosion of civil liberties in India and to dangers faced by minorities…. Facebook’s summary of the report, the full version of which was not made public, says that Foley Hoag made ‘recommendations’ to the company…. ‘Facebook may as well have published a few blank pages on their human rights impact assessment (HRIA) on India,’ Alaphia Zoyab, the director of campaigns and media for the progressive tech lobby group Luminate, said in a tweet. ‘I’ve never read so much bull—t in four short pages. This is an insult to Indian civil society,’ Zoyab added.” – Time

July 13, 2022
Sudan woman faces death by stoning for adultery in first case for a decade – The Guardian

July 13, 2022
‘It’s inhumane’: how US prison work breaks bodies and minds for pennies
“Two out of three prisoners are forced to work, in what is often referred to as modern-day slavery.” – The Guardian

July 12, 2022
John Bolton Admits Planning Coups: ‘Not Here But, You Know, Other Places’
“‘As somebody who has helped plan coups d’etat – not here but, you know, other places – it takes a lot of work,’ the former national security adviser said.” – HuffPost

July 12, 2022
India to surpass China as most-populous nation in 2023
“This would come 4 years ahead of a previous UN estimate, with China expected to see an absolute decline in population as early as next year. The UN expects the global population to hit 8 billion on November 15 and grow to 8.5 billion by 2030.” – South China Morning Post

July 11, 2022
I asked about abortion at a Texas gun show. The answer I got was grim.
“The threat of gun violence is even more true for pregnant women…. According to a study published last year in the Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, homicide is a leading cause of death for pregnant women and those who have recently given birth…. A majority of the slain women were killed with guns, and two-thirds were killed in their homes, suggesting partners were involved, according to the authors. The rates were highest among Black women and younger women.” – The Washington Post

July 11, 2022
White-shirted group attacks protesters at China banking scandal demonstration
“Victims of what could prove one of the country’s worst financial scandals had gathered in Henan province to demand their frozen deposits be returned. Protesters say the unidentified men in white attacked them and dragged them away while local police looked on.” – South China Morning Post

July 10, 2022
Twitter’s case against India is crucial to the internet’s future
“Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party has been chipping away at free expression online for some time, most notably with the passing of a law last year extending the executive’s censorship powers. Now, the government can demand that news and information providers remove certain material within 36 hours of receiving a request, and it can initiate criminal proceedings.” – The Washington Post

July 9, 2022
India fines Amnesty International US$8 million after funding probe
“India has fined the local arm of Amnesty International nearly US$8 million after a probe into its finances the watchdog said was part of a ‘witch hunt.’ Rights groups have long claimed they face harassment from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist administration for highlighting rights abuses, including in the disputed territory of Kashmir.” – South China Morning Post

July 9, 2022
Russia-Ukraine war: Moscow politician gets 7 years for denouncing war
“Gorinov held up a note in court stating: ‘Do you still need this war?'” – BBC

July 9, 2022
Mohammed Zubair: The Indian fact-checker arrested for a tweet
“For the past 10 days, India’s leading fact-checker and journalist Mohammed Zubair, who recently spotlighted the ruling party spokesperson Nupur Sharma’s controversial comments against the Prophet Muhammad, has spent most of his time shuttling between prisons and courts.” – BBC

July 9, 2022
US probes rare, intensive audits of Trump critics
“The US is to investigate how two ex-FBI heads – both critics of Donald Trump – were subjected to rare, intensive tax audits during his presidency…. Individuals are supposed to be selected at random for the audit.” – BBC

July 9, 2022
Philippines’ Nobel laureate Maria Ressa loses appeal against cyber libel conviction
“Veteran journalist and Philippines’ first Nobel peace prize winner faces lengthy jail sentence…. Ressa has long been a vocal critic of Duterte and the deadly drug war he launched in 2016, triggering what media advocates say is a grinding series of criminal charges, investigations and online attacks against her and Rappler.” – The Guardian

July 8, 2022
The staggering scope of U.S. gun deaths goes far beyond mass shootings
“The surge in gun violence comes as firearm purchases rose to record levels in 2020 and 2021, with more than 43 million guns estimated to have been purchased during that period, according to a Washington Post analysis of federal data on gun background checks. At the same time, the rate of gun deaths in those years hit the highest level since 1995, with more than 45,000 fatalities each year.” – The Washington Post

July 8, 2022
Digital repression across borders is on the rise
“Activists who flee repression increasingly face zero-click software hacks and other digital threats…. Around the world, activists have fled authoritarian states for their safety. But in their new homes, the intimidation continues, albeit in the digital realm. Those threats—generally referred to as digital transnational repression—include phishing attacks, zero-click spyware hacks, social media page takedowns, SIM card hacks, and fake invitations to conferences.” – MIT Technical Review

July 7, 2022
China’s treatment of Uighur Muslims exposed
“China has been witnessing a humanitarian crisis. More than one million Uighur and other Muslim minorities are forcibly held in mass detention camps in the Xinjian province where they face countless human rights abuses from forced labour, coerced sterilisation, and destruction of their culture and religious identity. Recently, unknown hackers broke into Xinjian police servers, leaking thousands of photographs and documents that provide solid evidence of Chinese government policy targeting the Uighur population.” – Aljazeera

July 7, 2022
How nuclear war would affect earth today
“Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has brought the threat of nuclear warfare to the forefront. But how would modern nuclear detonations impact the world today? A new study published today provides stark information on the global impact of nuclear war.” – ScienceDaily

July 7, 2022
American Cartel: Inside the battle to bring down the opioid industry
“Righteous investigations, Rannazzisi believed. But he and his team had been crushed, their struggle to stop the destructive flow of pain pills snuffed out by a highly organized, well-financed pressure campaign. Today, America’s opioid crisis is worse than ever…. Most people don’t know the real story of the opioid epidemic. It’s not solely about Purdue Pharma and the Sackler family. It’s about how a constellation of drug companies went after the DEA, and how the DEA lost that war, not to the cartels, but to lobbyists and lawmakers and K Street attorneys.” – The Washington Post

July 7, 2022
Racist videos about Africans fuel a multimillion-dollar Chinese industry
“Chinese people love watching how other places are not as good as China.” – Rest of World

July 7, 2022
The secret police: A private security group regularly sent Minnesota police misinformation about protestors
“There are 13 private security guards for every one police officer in downtown Minneapolis, but these groups are far less regulated than police departments…. And while the Minneapolis Police Department maintains public-facing policies for First Amendment activities like demonstrations and protests, there is no such requirement for private security groups. Similarly, police are accountable for their actions to the city government, and voters, whereas private groups are not.” – MIT Technology Review

July 6, 2022
Five stand trial for sedition in Hong Kong over children’s books about sheep
“The group are accused of trying to ‘incite hatred’ with books depicting Hong Kong residents as sheep and mainland Chinese as wolves.” – The Guardian

July 6, 2022
Indian director threatened over film poster depicting goddess smoking
“Police open cases against Leena Manimekalai for ‘hurting religious sentiments’ with short film Kaali…. ‘It feels like the whole nation – that has now deteriorated from the largest democracy to the largest hate machine – wants to censor me,’ said Manimekalai. ‘I do not feel safe anywhere at this moment.'” – The Guardian

July 6, 2022
Disinformation Has Become Another Untouchable Problem in Washington
“Numerous federal agencies agree that widely promoted falsehoods threaten the nation’s security…. There is wide agreement across the federal government that coordinated disinformation campaigns threaten to exacerbate public health emergencies, stoke ethnic and racial divisions and even undermine democracy itself. The board’s fate, however, has underscored how deeply partisan the issue has become in Washington, making it nearly impossible to consider addressing the threat.” – The New York Times

July 4, 2022
Alexei Navalny’s jailers are tightening the screws
“Russia’s repression of independent voices grows harsher…. The goal, according to Leonid Volkov, Mr Navalny’s chief of staff, is to isolate him and physically cripple him…. The FSB, the successor to Stalin’s secret police, has grown even more repressive since Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine. It controls the courts and prosecution service, and supports the war with purges of ‘extremists’ and ‘traitors.’” – The Economist

July 4, 2022
Has South Africa’s Donald Trump Arrived?
“The xenophobic firebrand Nhlanhla ‘Lux’ Mohlauli is courting poor Black voters by stoking hatred of foreigners. It’s working.” – Foreign Policy

July 4, 2022
The Rebirth of Congo’s Rebellion
“The M23 rebel group is back, threatening to take much of the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo—and sparking wider regional tensions.” – Foreign Policy

June 30, 2022
Texas educators propose referring to slavery as ‘involuntary relocation’ in public schools – USAToday

June 30, 2022
A quarter of Americans open to taking up arms against government, poll says
“Survey of 1,000 registered US voters also reveals that most Americans agree government is ‘corrupt and rigged.’’ – The Guardian

June 30, 2022
Kinzinger slams fellow Republican Boebert and warns of ‘Christian Taliban’
“A Republican congressman slammed GOP colleague Lauren Boebert’s recent call to end separation of church and state in the US, warning: ‘There is no difference between this and the Taliban.’ ‘We must opposed [sic] the Christian Taliban,’ Adam Kinzinger, a US representative for Illinois, said on Wednesday.” – The Guardian

June 30, 2022
Earliest Pacific seafarers were matrilocal society, study suggests
“The world’s earliest seafarers who set out to colonise remote Pacific islandsnearly 3,000 years ago were a matrilocal society with communities organised around the female lineage, analysis of ancient DNA suggests.” – The Guardian

June 29, 2022
Why Does Israel Keep Assassinating Iranian Officials? Because It Works.
“Targeting senior leaders critical to an enemy program makes strategic sense from Israel’s perspective.” – Foreign Policy

June 29, 2022
Religious Unrest Spreads in India With Killing of Hindu Man
“Two Muslim men filmed themselves attacking a Hindu, a tailor, who had been accused of backing anti-Islamic remarks.” – The New York Times

June 28m 2022
China Owned My Mother’s Womb. Texas Owns Mine.
“On June 24, as I sat in Texas and grieved the loss of my abortion rights, my friends in China were trying to find out if four women brutally assaulted by a group of men in Tangshan earlier this month were still alive or out of the hospital.” – Foreign Policy

June 28, 2022
Arrest of Journalist in India Adds to Press Freedom Concerns
“The journalist, Mohammed Zubair, was held on charges of hurting religious sentiments and promoting enmity between religious groups, the New Delhi police said. The arrest came after an anonymous Twitter user complained that Mr. Zubair, a Muslim, had been disrespectful of a Hindu god in a tweet from 2018.” – The New York Times

June 28, 2022
Cassidy Hutchinson could read the ketchup on the wall
“’There were several times,’ she testified, ‘that I was aware of him either throwing dishes or flipping the tablecloth to let all the contents of the table go onto the floor.’ We all knew Trump fomented violence on Jan. 6, but here was evidence he was violent himself.” – The Washington Post

June 28, 2022
GOP Rep. Boebert: ‘I’m tired of this separation of church and state junk’
“She is ‘tired’ of the U.S. separation of church and state, a long-standing concept stemming only from a ‘stinking letter’ penned by one of the Founding Fathers. Speaking at a religious service Sunday in Colorado, she told worshipers: ‘The church is supposed to direct the government. The government is not supposed to direct the church. That is not how our Founding Fathers intended it.'” – The Washington Post

June 26, 2022
Prominent Activist in India Arrested Over Crusade Against Modi in Deadly Riots
A prominent Indian human rights activist who spearheaded a campaign to hold officials responsible for deadly 2002 riots in the western state of Gujarat has been arrested and faces charges of fabricating evidence against the prime minister, Narendra Modi. The activist, Teesta Setalvad, was detained by an antiterrorism squad on Saturday in Mumbai and taken north to the neighboring state of Gujarat to face charges relating to a case brought against Mr. Modi when he was the state’s top official. While he was never found responsible, for years Indians have asked whether Mr. Modi could have curtailed or stopped the sectarian riots, in which more than 1,000 people were killed.

June 24, 2022
Kavanaugh Gave Private Assurances. Collins Says He ‘Misled’ Her.
“’I am a don’t-rock-the-boat kind of judge,’ the justice told the senator in a discussion on Roe, according to notes from a meeting before his confirmation.” – The New York Times

June 24, 2022
12 Americans Die of an Overdose Every Hour. We Have the Knowledge to Prevent That. – The New York Times

June 24, 2022
Israeli security forces fired bullets that killed Shireen Abu Akleh, UN says
Shireen Abu Akleh was shot dead on 11 May while covering a raid in the occupied West Bank town of Jenin…. ‘The shots that killed Abu Akleh and injured her colleague Ali Sammoudi came from Israeli security forces and not from indiscriminate firing by armed Palestinians, as initially claimed by Israeli authorities,’ she said.” – Independent

June 24, 2022
Saudi Arabian dissidents ‘being sexually assaulted and murdered’ in prison
‘Women are subjected to sustained and brutal violations with no basic human rights,’ campaigner says…. The study, carried out by Grant Liberty, a human rights charity, identified 311 known prisoners of conscience in the era of Mohammad Bin Salman Al Saud – the kingdom’s leader who is the current crown prince, deputy prime minister, and minister of defence.” – Independent

June 23, 2022
Jordan Klepper Shows Trump Supporters January 6th Hearing Clips | The Daily Show – YouTube

June 23, 2022
Tangshan and Xuzhou: Fury and questions over China’s treatment of women
“Cases have triggered unprecedented levels of online criticism” as well as rare acts of activism. They’ve also raised questions, particularly among young women, about misogyny and male power. ‘It’s profoundly disrupted how Chinese people view their own society and specifically, the gender norms and stereotypes underpinning it,’ said Pichamon Yeophantong, a China researcher at the University of New South Wales.” – BBC

June 23, 2022
Haiti: dozens of inmates starve to death as malnutrition crisis engulfs prisons
“Prison in Les Cayes that ran out of food two months ago reports deaths as UN urges government to tackle food and water crisis.” – The Guardian

June 21, 2022
China’s Surveillance State Is Growing. These Documents Reveal How.
A New York Times analysis of over 100,000 government bidding documents found that China’s ambition to collect digital and biological data from its citizens is more expansive and invasive than previously known. [14.26 Video]. – The New York Times

June 20, 2022
The world must address all human rights violations
“Torture is systematically applied, and enforced disappearances are still going on. Any critical press is forbidden, journalists are imprisoned, and human rights activists such as Osman Kavala are sentenced to long prison terms. Turkey has refused to comply with a judgment by the European Court of Human Rights that Kavala should be released.” – The Boston Globe

June 16, 2022
Colombian mayor who called Hitler ‘great German thinker’ could be country’s next president – The Guardian
“In a video of the incident, the mayor can be seen quickly losing his temper, rising to his feet and unleashing a stream of profanities. Then, he steps forward, and slaps Claro hard in the face…. ‘It seems to me that he is not mentally well,” Claro told the Guardian. ‘I consider him to be a sociopath.’” – The Guardian

June 16, 2022
Ukraine war pushes global displaced to record high, U.N. says
At the end of 2021, 89.3 million people were displaced, the agency said, citing war, disasters, violence, persecution and human rights abuses as some of the factors. As of today, more than 100 million people have been forced to flee their homes — more than 1 percent of humanity.” – The Washington Post

June 15, 2022
Who Is Financing Trump’s ‘Big Lie’ Caucus? Corporations You Know.
“All told, as of this week, corporations and industry groups gave almost $32 million to the House and Senate members who voted to overturn the election….. The top 10 companies that gave money to those members… are Koch Industries, Boeing, Home Depot, Valero Energy, Lockheed Martin, UPS, Raytheon, Marathon Petroleum, General Motors and FedEx.” – The New York Times

June 14, 2022
India’s women, Muslims targeted by nationalist YouTube influencers, report finds
“India has more than 450 million YouTube users who are being exposed to videos spreading conspiracy theories and hateful content targeting Muslims and women. The videos have helped fuel a conspiracy theory that Muslims spread Covid as a form of ‘jihad’, or holy war, according to the NYU Stern Centre report.” – SCMP

June 14, 2022
Cambodia Sends U.S. Activist and Other Opposition Members to Prison
“All of them were victims of a concerted campaign by Mr. Hun Sen to eliminate the last traces of resistance to what has in effect become his one-man rule. The main opposition party, to which many of the defendants belonged, was dissolved by court order in 2017, prompting many of its members to flee abroad.” – New York Times

June 13, 2022
The Anti-Abortion Movement Killed People. Now Victims’ Families Face A Post-Roe World.
“Bombings, assassinations and kidnappings: The anti-abortion movement has always had a violent wing that left families shattered.” – HuffPost

June 13, 2022
Kimberly Guilfoyle was paid $60k to introduce Trump before Capitol riot, Jan 6 committee member claims
“Donald Trump’s political action committee allegedly pulled a “grift” on the American people, shelling out $60,000 from donated funds to Donald Trump Jr’s fiancée Kimberly Guilfoyle. The payday was for a brief, two-and-a-half minute speech before the former president’s infamous 6 January, 2021, rally in Washington.” – Independent

June 13, 2022
A Black Army vet spent 16 months in solitary. Then a jury heard the evidence against him.
“The cell was smaller than a parking space, bound by three dirty beige concrete walls and a steel door with a narrow slot to push in meals and shackle hands. There was a narrow cot, a toilet, a sink. The filmy glass on the barred window allowed little sun; the always-on fluorescent ceiling light allowed no darkness. Each day brought the clanging of chains, the shuffling and shouting of guards and inmates, the threat of violence or the reality of it.” – The Washington Post

tJtune 12, 2022
Organization Apologizes For Involvement In Tuskegee Syphilis Study
“A New York-based philanthropy is apologizing for its role 50 years after the study was revealed to the public. For almost 40 years starting in the 1930s, as government researchers purposely let hundreds of Black men die of syphilis in Alabama so they could study the disease, a foundation in New York covered funeral expenses for the deceased. The payments were vital to survivors of the victims in a time and place ravaged by poverty and racism.” – HuffPost

June 12, 2022
We will fight to the very end, Chinese defence chief warns on Taiwan independence – SCMP

June 11, 2022
Protests Over Prophet Muhammad Comments Turn Deadly in India
“Two young protesters were killed in eastern India on Friday amid demonstrations by Muslims across South Asia.” – The New York Times

June 9, 2022
Reality Check: Are the hottest cities in the world becoming uninhabitable thanks to climate change? – Science Focus

June 8, 2022
House Republicans Suggest More Prayers Would Solve Mass Shooting Problem – HuffPost

June 7, 2022
The world is finally reacting to India’s descent into hate
“To me — a journalist who has been reporting on the Indian government’s relentless attacks on the country’s more than 200 million Muslims since Modi assumed power in 2014 — this global reaction was long in the offing.” – The Washington Post

June 6, 2022
Over 82 Million U.S. COVID Vaccine Doses Have Been Discarded As Pandemic Funding Stalls
“According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, NBC News reported.” – HuffPost

June 6, 2022
Capitol attack panel to unveil new evidence against Trump at public hearings
“Committee intends to reveal previously secret White House records, photos and videos to prove how Trump broke the law.” – The Guardian

June 6, 2022
Gupta brothers arrested in Dubai over alleged corruption in South Africa
“Business owners at the centre of a scandal that led to former president Jacob Zuma’s resignation…. In a series of reports being published this year, the investigators said procurement contracts at the proprietor of all rail, ports and pipelines amounted to ‘planned offences of racketeering activity conducted by a racketeering enterprise’ linked to the Guptas. The investigators also concluded that Zuma ‘would do anything that the Guptas wanted him to do for them.'” – The Guardian

June 6, 2022
Prophet Muhammad remarks embroil India in row with Gulf states
“‘Insulting’ comments by spokespeople for ruling Bharatiya Janata party met with anger in Middle East.” – The Guardian

June 5, 2022
Woodward and Bernstein thought Nixon defined corruption. Then came Trump.
“President George Washington, in his celebrated 1796 Farewell Address, cautioned that American democracy was fragile. ‘Cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government,’ he warned. Two of his successors — Richard Nixon and Donald Trump — demonstrate the shocking genius of our first president’s foresight.” – The Washington Post

June 5, 2022
‘I’m living in the bubble’: the man who helped bring Nixon down, 50 years on
“John Dean speaks on the 1972 Watergate break-in and why he has never been more concerned about US democracy than now…. ‘I was never worried about the country and the government during Watergate but from the day Trump was nominated, I had a knot in my stomach and, until he left, I never got rid of it,” Dean, 83, tells the Guardian.'” – The Guardian

June 4, 2022
Saudi-led airstrikes in Yemen have been called war crimes. Many relied on U.S. support.
“A joint Washington Post analysis reveals for the first time that the United States supported the majority of air force squadrons involved in the Saudi coalition’s years-old air campaign…. While Russia’s bombings of a maternity hospital and other civilian targets in Ukraine have drawn widespread public indignation as war crimes, thousands of similar strikes have taken place against Yemeni civilians.” – The Washington Post

June 4, 2022
Queen’s Platinum Jubilee: A collective misremembering of empire
“…Little ink will be spilled on another feature of Elizabeth II’s reign – Operation Legacy, the systematic attempt to erase and distort the truth about the colonial enterprise through the wide-scale theft, destruction and doctoring of documents as the wind of change swept her empire away. The queen today is the Dr Jekyll to the UK’s Mr Hyde – encapsulating the glory and benevolence of the empire with the evil separated out.” – Aljazeera

June 3, 2022
Russia’s Brutal War On Ukraine Just Hit 100 Days Of Death, Destruction
“Relentless shelling, bombing and airstrikes have claimed tens of thousands of lives and reduced large swaths of many cities and towns to rubble…. Ukraine’s parliamentary commission on human rights says Russia’s military has destroyed almost 38,000 residential buildings, rendering about 220,000 people homeless. Nearly 1,900 educational facilities from kindergartens to grade schools to universities have been damaged, including 180 completely ruined. Other infrastructure losses include 300 car and 50 rail bridges, 500 factories and about 500 damaged hospitals, according to Ukrainian officials. The World Health Organization has tallied 296 attacks on hospitals, ambulances and medical workers in Ukraine this year. The U.N. refugee agency UNHCR estimates that about 6.8 million people have been driven out of Ukraine at some point during the conflict.” – HuffPost

June 3, 2022
Gina Haspel Observed Waterboarding at C.I.A. Black Site, Psychologist Testifies – The New York Times

June 2, 2022
A new nuclear era
“With his threats to use the bomb, Russia’s president has overturned the nuclear order.” – The Economist

June 2, 2022
Google’s plan to talk about caste bias led to ‘division and rancor’
“The rising Hindu nationalist movement that has spread from India through the diaspora has arrived inside Google, according to employees…. ‘Most institutions wouldn’t do what Google did. It’s absurd. The bigoted don’t get to the set the pace of conversations about civil rights,’ Soundararajan said.” – The Washington Post

June 2, 2022
Trillions At Stake In India As Women Disappear From Workforce
“Closing the employment gap between men and women a huge 58 percentage points could expand India’s GDP by close to a third by 2050. That equates to nearly $6 trillion in constant US dollar terms…. As the world climbs out of the pandemic, economists warn of a troubling data point: Failing to restore jobs for women…. This is disastrous news for India’s economy, which had started slowing before the pandemic. – NDTV

June 1, 2022
Rich Nations’ Toxic Habits Bring African Refugees to Their Doors
“The number of African migrants trying to make it to the US southern border is on track to hit a potential record this year. By 2050, 86 million Africans will be displaced because of climate events.” – Bloomberg

June 1, 2022
Racist and Violent Ideas Jump From Web’s Fringes to Mainstream Sites
“Despite some efforts by the largest tech companies to limit the spread of hateful content, it often remains only a click or two away.” – The New York Times

May 31, 2022
How India’s first all-women newsroom is creating a media revolution
Its co-founder, Kavita Bundelkhandi, learned to write when she was 12. Many of her staff are from marginalised backgrounds and include survivors of domestic abuse and violence. Her team has faced discrimination and death threats, but have gone on to produce award-winning stories about illegal mining, jungle bandits and the daily lives of rural communities. More on Outlook. – BBC

May 30, 2022
Canada’s Military, Where Sexual Misconduct Went to the Top, Looks for a New Path
“Several of Canada’s top military officers have been accused of sexual harassment, and the former top commander pleaded guilty this year to criminal charges related to accusations that he committed sexual misconduct when leading the nation’s armed forces. About a quarter of the women serving in the Canadian military said they had been sexually assaulted during their military careers, according to a government census.” – The New York Times

May 30, 2022
The truth behind Indian extremists’ anti-Muslim ‘great replacement theory’
“’It’s clear as daylight: the idea that Muslims are going to become India’s biggest community is a total hoax,’ says former Indian chief election commissioner SY Quraishi, whose 2021 book, The Population Myth, challenges this notion.” – The Guardian

May 29, 2022
We spoke directly to Wayne LaPierre at the NRA Convention and thanked him for all his thoughts and prayers. – Twitter

May 29, 2022
Chief who challenged police on race ousted as Met commissioner candidate
“A police chief who criticised his colleagues for failures on racial justice has been ousted as a candidate to be the next commissioner of the Metropolitan police… he has been told by the Home Office that his application will no longer be considered.” – The Guardian

May 28, 2022
Gun Sellers Push Quick Buy Now, Pay Later Financing
“’It is our understanding that the firearm used in the attack was manufactured by Daniel Defense….'”

May 28, 2022
The Texas Law That Has Banks Saying They Don’t ‘Discriminate’ Against Guns
“Recent legislation requires firms to declare that they don’t ‘discriminate’ against the firearm industry — or risk losing lucrative business with the state.” – The New York Times

May 27. 2022
Two Professors Found What Creates a Mass Shooter. Will Politicians Pay Attention?
“Early childhood trauma seems to be the foundation, whether violence in the home, sexual assault, parental suicides, extreme bullying. Then you see the build toward hopelessness, despair, isolation, self-loathing, oftentimes rejection from peers. That turns into a really identifiable crisis point where they’re acting differently. Sometimes they have previous suicide attempts.” – Politico

May 27, 2022
Republican lawmakers are running a campaign to punish companies that address climate change
“How an Organized Republican Effort Punishes Companies for Climate Action. Legislators and their allies are running an aggressive campaign that uses public money and the law to pressure businesses they say are pushing ‘woke’ causes….. Across the country, Republican lawmakers and their allies have launched a campaign to try to rein in what they see as activist companies trying to reduce the greenhouse gases that are dangerously heating the planet.” – The New York Times

May 27, 2022
Maker of rifle in Texas massacre is deep-pocketed GOP donor
“Political contributions by the owners of Georgia-based Daniel Defense show the financial clout of the gun industry, even as NRA spending declines.” – The Washington Post

May 25, 2022
The truths Vladimir Kara-Murza spoke that Putin wants suppressed
‘Russian President Vladimir Putin’s regime is ‘not just corrupt, it’s not just kleptocratic, it’s not just authoritarian, it is a regime of murderers.’ Hours later, he was arrested in Moscow on initial charges of disobeying the police and sentenced to 15 days in jail…. Under a new law imposed by Putin after his invasion of Ukraine, that act is punishable by up to 15 years in prison.” – The Washington Post

24 May, 2022
Cruelty of Canada’s residential schools ‘unimaginable’, governor general says
“Mary Simon, first Indigenous person to hold post, attends service at Kamloops school to honor thousands of children who died.” – The Guardian

May 23, 2022
The report on Southern Baptist abuses is a portrait of brutal misogyny
“When victims organized to draw attention to their suffering, some church officials treated them as instruments of Satan, intent on distracting the church from its real mission of evangelism.” – The Washington Post

May 23, 2022
Civilian killings soar as Russian mercenaries join fight in West Africa
Documents, imagery and witness accounts point to a heightened Russian presence in Mali…. The hired guns of the Wagner Group — a covert arm of the Kremlin, according to the United States and Western allies — have been repeatedly accused of war crimes, leaving a trail of atrocities across the Middle East and Africa.” – The Washington Post

May 22, 2022
Ahead of Biden visit, Israel launches biggest eviction of Palestinians in decades
“Israel’s highest court this month gave the military permission to permanently evict more than 1,000 Palestinians here and repurpose the land for an army firing range.” – The Washington Post

May 22, 2022
Southern Baptist leaders covered up sex abuse, kept secret database, report says
A major third-party investigation that found that sex abuse survivors were often ignored, minimized and “even vilified” by top clergy in the nation’s largest Protestant denomination. The findings of nearly 300 pages include shocking new details about specific abuse cases and shine a light on how denominational leaders for decades actively resisted calls for abuse prevention and reform. Evidence in the report suggests leaders also lied to Southern Baptists over whether they could maintain a database of offenders to prevent more abuse when top leaders were secretly keeping a private list for years.” – The Washington Post

May 22, 2022
The Russian Orthodox Leader at the Core of Putin’s Ambitions
“Patriarch Kirill I has provided spiritual cover for the invasion of Ukraine, reaping vast resources for his church in return.” – The New York Times

May 22, 2022
Murder, rape and abuse in Asia’s factories: the true price of fast fashion – The Guardian

May 22, 2022
In the firing zone: evictions begin in West Bank villages after court ruling
“The long-feared demolitions, which UN experts have said may amount to war crimes, have already started. Last week, 11 homes and workshops in Fakhiet were demolished. Another nine structures in nearby al-Majaz were torn down with bulldozers by an Israeli company, to whom the state contracts out the demolition work. IDF soldiers and police, tasked with securing the perimeter, looked on.” – The Guardian

May 21, 2022
People In Counties That Backed Trump Were Twice As Likely To Die From COVID: Study
“Lower vaccination rates were critical to the death-rate difference, say researchers. Americans in counties that voted heavily for Donald Trump in 2020 were 2.26 times more likely to die of COVID-19 than in counties that voted for Joe Biden, according to a new analysis of data. The extra toll in Republican counties is significant, especially given that one million people have now died of COVID-19 in the U.S.” – HuffPost

May 21, 2022
Trump shares CPAC Hungary platform with notorious racist and antisemite
“A notorious Hungarian racist who has called Jews ‘stinking excrement,’ referred to Roma as ‘animals’ and used racial epithets to describe Black people, was a featured speaker at a major gathering of US Republicans in Budapest.” – The Guardian

May 20, 2022
Ginni Thomas urged Arizona Republicans to overturn 2020 result – report
“Ginni Thomas, the wife of the US supreme court justice Clarence Thomas, pressed Republicans in Arizona to overturn Joe Biden’s victory there in 2020, the Washington Post reported.” – The Guardian

May 19, 2022
Israel will not hold criminal inquiry into killing of journalist Shireen Abu Aqleh
“Military police say they are satisfied with assurances of Israeli troops over death of US-Palestinian despite international demands.” – The Guardian

May 19, 2022
The angry White populist who paved the way for Trump
“Fifty years ago, George Wallace was winning Democratic presidential primaries. Gunfire ended his campaign but not the political forces he unleashed.” – The Washington Post

May 19, 2022
George W. Bush called Iraq war ‘unjustified and brutal.’ He meant Ukraine.
“It was the ‘decision of one man to launch a wholly unjustified and brutal invasion of Iraq,’ former president George W. Bush said Wednesday before quickly correcting himself, saying he meant to describe Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukraine.” – The Washington Post

May 17, 2022
THE PUTIN SHOW – How the war in Ukraine appears to Russians
“After more than two decades in power, today Mr Putin is the puppet master. The state controls the country’s television channels, newspapers and radio stations. The Kremlin gives editors and producers metodichki, or guidance on what to cover and how.” – The Economist

May 17, 2022
World’s highest jailing rate found in Uyghur county of China, data leak suggests
“One in 25 people sentenced to prison on terrorism-related charges in Konasheher, Xinjiang province, where Communist party represses Muslim minority.” – The Guardian

May 17, 2022
Pro-Israel lobbying group Aipac secretly pouring millions into defeating progressive Democrats
“American Israel Public Affairs Committee has disguised its efforts to undermine pro-Palestinian candidates.” – The Guardian

May 17, 2022
U.S. Gun Production Triples Since 2000, Fueled by Handgun Purchases
“The police recovered 19,344 privately manufactured firearms, untraceable homemade weapons known as ‘ghost guns,’ in 2021, a tenfold increase since 2016. – The New York Times

May 17, 2022
Poor Countries Face a Mounting Catastrophe Fueled by Inflation and Debt
“Russia’s war in Ukraine is combining with a global tightening of credit and an economic slowdown in China to sow misery in low- and middle-income countries.” – The New York Times

May 17, 2022
Living With The Far-Right Insurgency In Idaho
A radical GOP faction, in open alliance with extremists, is seizing power and targeting its opponents with cruelty…. Fink is pretty sure he’s one of only two full-time rabbis in the entire state of Idaho…. is mortified by the Christofascist insurgency here.” – HuffPost

May 17, 2022
Pentagon Faults Review of Deadly Airstrike but Finds No Wrongdoing
“The military’s inquiry followed a New York Times investigation describing allegations that officials sought to conceal dozens of civilian casualties. A Pentagon investigation into a U.S. airstrike in Syria in 2019 that killed dozens of people, including women and children, found that the military’s initial review of the attack was mishandled at multiple levels of command and replete with reporting delays and information gaps…. The findings did not call for any disciplinary action.” – The New York Times

May 16, 2022
‘If he wins, they’ll implement a Christian version of sharia law’
“The community divided by prayers of high school football coach. US Supreme Court set to make another ruling with huge reverberations.” – Independent

May 14, 2022
Is religion the new divide between Russia and the west? – The Financial Times

May 13, 2022
How America Lost One Million People
“Every dot here represents one person who has died of Covid in the United States…. It didn’t have to be this way.” – The New York Times

May 13, 2022
Shireen Abu Akleh: Israeli forces attack mourners carrying casket of dead Al Jazeera journalist – Independent

May 13, 2022
UN experts condemn Shireen Abu Akleh’s killing: Live news
“UN human rights experts demand a prompt, transparent, thorough and independent investigation into Abu Akleh’s killing…. At least 45 journalists have been killed by Israeli forces since 2000, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Information. The Palestinian Journalists’ Union places the death toll higher at 55 killed.” – Aljazeera

May 12, 2022
Want to prevent pandemics? Stop spillovers
“Decision-makers discussing landmark agreements on health and biodiversity must include four actions to reduce the risk of animals and people exchanging viruses.” – Nature

May 12, 2022
More than 1,000 bodies have been found in Kyiv suburbs, the U.N. says.
“The bodies of more than 1,000 civilians have been recovered in areas north of Kyiv, Ukraine, that were occupied by Russian forces, the United Nations human rights chief, Michelle Bachelet, said on Thursday, including several hundred who were summarily executed and others who were shot by snipers.” – The New York Times

May 12, 2022
‘Sinkhole of corruption’: Trump Organization sells Washington hotel
“On Wednesday, the advocacy group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, or Crew, said: ‘The Trump Hotel in DC is no more. Good riddance to a sinkhole of corruption.’” – The Guardian

May 12, 2022

Republicans Criticize Biden For Not Starving Undocumented Immigrant Babies
“For providing baby formula to detained undocumented immigrants during a shortage.” – HuffPost

May 12, 2022
Trump officials and meat industry blocked life-saving Covid controls, investigation finds
Congressional investigation reveals the lengths meat industry went to downplay risks to workers and lobby receptive Trump officials…. At least 59,000 workers at five of the largest meatpacking companies – Tyson Foods, JBS USA Holdings, Smithfield Foods, Cargill, and National Beef Packing Company which are the subject of the congressional inquiry – contracted Covid in the first year of the pandemic, of whom at least 269 died.” – The Guardian

11 May, 2022
Report Catalogs Abuse of Native American Children at Former Government Schools
“An Interior Department report released on Wednesday highlighted the abuse of many of the children at the government-run schools, with instances of beatings, withholding of food and solitary confinement. It also identified burial sites at more than 50 of the former schools, and said that “approximately 19 federal Indian boarding schools accounted for over 500 American Indian, Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian child deaths.” The number of recorded deaths is expected to grow, the report said. Beginning in 1869 and until the 1960s, hundreds of thousands of Native American children were taken from their homes and families and placed in the boarding schools, which were operated by the government and churches.” – The New York Times

11 May, 2022
‘Perpetual Violence’: India’s Dangerous New Pattern of Communal Tensions
“As a national campaign by right-wing groups inflames local tensions, Muslim communities are facing the harshest punishments, according to activists, analysts and retired officials.” – The New York Times

11 May, 2022
Shireen Abu Akleh: Al Jazeera reporter killed by Israeli gunfire
“Israeli forces have shot dead Al Jazeera’s journalist Shireen Abu Akleh in the occupied West Bank, according to the Palestinian health ministry. Abu Akleh, a longtime TV correspondent for Al Jazeera Arabic, was killed on Wednesday while covering Israeli army raids in the city of Jenin in the northern occupied West Bank.” – Al Jazeera

11 May, 2022
U.S. surpasses record 100,000 overdose deaths in 2021
“More Americans died from drug overdoses in 2021 than any previous year, a grim milestone in an epidemic that has now claimed 1 million lives in the 21st century, according to federal data released Wednesday.” – The Washington Post

May 10, 2022
The Coup in the Kremlin
“How Putin and the Security Services Captured the Russian State.” – Foreign Affairs

May 10, 2022
El Salvador: woman sentenced to 30 years in prison for homicide after miscarriage – The Guardian

May 10, 2022
Did The Fox News Civility Police Forget 40 Years of Anti-Abortion Protests? | The Daily Show
“Fox News is upset about protesters outside judges’ homes and apparently has no idea what’s been going on for the last 40 years.” – HuffPost

May 10, 2022
Gun Homicides Surged To Highest Level In 25 Years During Pandemic
“As COVID-19 disproportionately ravaged low-income communities of color, gun homicides among Black men and gun suicides among Native men rose sharply.” – HuffPost

May, 10, 2022
Yemen Is Sitting on a Time Bomb Bigger Than the Exxon Valdez
“An abandoned oil tanker with more than 1 million barrels of crude is rusting off the coast…. If the tanker breaks apart, it could cause one of the largest ocean oil spills in history—bigger than the Amoco Cadiz in France in 1978, the Exxon Valdez in Alaska in 1989, or the Prestige in Spain in 2002—and cost tens of billions of dollars to clean up. It is ‘a ticking time bomb in the Red Sea….’” – Foreign Policy

May 10, 2022
Inside the sales machine of the ‘kingpin’ of opioid makers
“The largest manufacturer of opioids in the United States once cultivated a reliable stable of hundreds of doctors it could count on to write a steady stream of prescriptions for pain pills…. More than a quarter of those prescribers — 65 — were later convicted of crimes related to their medical practices, had their medical licenses suspended or revoked, or paid state or federal fines after being accused of wrongdoing…. Between 2000 and 2020, more than 270,000 people died of prescription opioid overdoses in the United States.” – The Washington Post

May 9, 2022
War in Ukraine: Twelve disruptions changing the world – McKinsey

May 9, 2022
Federal watchdog opens ‘review’ of Tex. use of covid aid on border crackdown
“Gov. Greg Abbott (R) and top state officials shifted roughly $1 billion in relief funds to help defray the costs of their crackdown on the U.S.-Mexico border…. The aid was supposed to help local governments pay their front-line workers, purchase protective equipment and offset other public health costs.” – The Washington Post

May 9, 2020
Mother Teresa: For the Love of God? review – damning testimony from a killer witness
“Did the nun really deserve her saintly reputation? She inspired a craze for self-flagellation among her ‘sisters’, says one woman in this shocking three-parter, while a street doctor is even more scathing.” – The Guardian

May 9, 2020
Putin’s Pariah Status Isn’t Slowing His Copycats in Europe
“A potentially more insidious danger exists within, in Europe’s swelling ranks of Putinist far-right personalities and parties.” – Bloomberg

May 8, 2022
The US goes ballistic: America’s gun epidemic
“As of 2017, there were already more guns than people in the US. And the situation has only gotten worse since…. Of the 45,222 deaths in 2020, approximately 54 percent were suicides and 43 percent homicides. The remainder, the Pew Research Centre notes, had either been “unintentional”, entailed “undetermined circumstances”, or “involved law enforcement” personnel – who certainly conducted their fair share of extrajudicial killings of Black Americans and others in 2020. How’s that for ‘security’?” – Aljazeera

May 7, 2022
Tortured to death: the 14 Cypriot men killed by British in 50s uprising
“At least 14 Cypriots were tortured then murdered by UK forces during an armed uprising in the late 1950s, according to newly unearthed evidence that raises fresh questions over another shocking chapter of Britain’s colonial history.” – The Guardian

May 6, 2022
Ninth journalist killed in Mexico this year as violence against media soars
“Murder of veteran Luis Enrique Ramírez – found in bag beside road…. Violence against the press has skyrocketed during president Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s administration, according to an Article 19 report published in April. During his administration alone, 34 journalists have been killed, according to Article 19’s count, including Ramírez. US senators Tim Kaine and Marco Rubio called on the US to urge Mexico to do more to protect journalists in February, criticising López Obrador for lashing out against his critics in the media.” – The Guardian

May 5, 2022
A 13-year-old girl told the police she had been gang-raped. Then a police officer allegedly raped her
“The alleged incident is the latest in a series of high-profile crimes against women and minority groups across India, epitomizing what critics allege is widespread internalized misogyny and support for patriarchal values.” – CNN

May 4, 2022
I Followed Some of Brazil’s Right-Wing Telegram Groups. I Found a Tide of Madness.
“Telegram just offers the sort of deepest rabbit hole you can go down. So I knew — from horrible, eye-sapping experience — that for many right-wing activists, fake news has become an article of faith, a weapon of war, the surest way of muddling the public discussion.” – The New York Times

May 3, 2022
India’s Official COVID-19 Death Toll Is Still an Undercount
“As the World Health Organization seeks to revise global figures, politics in New Delhi stand in the way…. India’s official count numbers 520,000 deaths, but the WHO and several previous studies have estimated that as many as 4 million Indians have died from COVID-19.” – ForeignPolicy

April 27, 2022
Minneapolis Officers Found to Engage in Racist Policing
“The investigation found that officers stopped, searched, arrested, ticketed, used force on and killed Black and Indigenous people at a higher rate than white people. Although Black individuals make up about 19 percent of the population, in 10 years of data, 63 percent of the instances where officers recorded the use of force were against Black people, the report said.” – The New York Times

April 27, 2022
A Woman’s Haunting Disappearance Sparks Outrage in Mexico Over Gender Violence
“Despite the staggering numbers, the cases of missing women are often downplayed or ignored by the media and local authorities, according to security experts, with officials frequently implicating women in their own disappearances or treating them as isolated incidents, not a systemic issue.” – The New York Times

April 26, 2022
The scientist who co-created CRISPR isn’t ruling out engineered babies someday – MIT Technology Review

April 26, 2022
The US now hosts more child sexual abuse material online than any other country – MIT Technology Review

April 23, 2022
‘It’s Life or Death’: The Mental Health Crisis Among U.S. Teens
“In 2019, 13 percent of adolescents reported having a major depressive episode, a 60 percent increase from 2007. Emergency room visits by children and adolescents in that period also rose sharply for anxiety, mood disorders and self-harm. And for people ages 10 to 24, suicide rates, stable from 2000 to 2007, leaped nearly 60 percent by 2018, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. – The New York Times

April 18, 2022
As India bulldozes Muslim homes, fears grow officials are taking leaf from Yogi Adityanath
“After communal violence flared across the country last week, authorities in Madhya Pradesh bulldozed the homes of suspected Muslim rioters without evidence. The move comes as Muslims become increasingly targeted in Modi’s India, with a trend of politicians seeking to outdo Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath, known for his virulent Islamophobia.” – SCMP

March 6, 2022
Ukraine crisis: The West fights back against Putin the disruptor
“Successive US presidents have played into his hands. Bill Clinton, the occupant of the White House when Putin came to power, handed this ultra-nationalist a popular grievance by pushing for the expansion of Nato right up to Russia’s borders. As George F Kennan, the famed architect of America’s Cold War strategy of containment, warned at the time: ‘Expanding Nato would be the most fateful error of America policy in the entire post-Cold War era.'” – BBC

March 6, 2022
Companies with female leaders outperform those dominated by men, data shows
“McKinsey research that shows companies in the top quartile for gender diversity on executive teams were 25% more likely to have above-average profitability than companies in the bottom, while companies with more than 30% female executives were more likely to outperform companies that don’t, according to research from academics from the Universities of Glasgow and Leicester. – The Guardian

March 6, 2022
The zoologist sticking her neck out in the battle of the sexes
“Our ideas about males and females are wildly out of date, says zoologist Lucy Cooke. Here, she reveals some radical truths about the birds, the bees… and the bonobos.” – The Guardian

March 6, 2022
Brazilian politician’s sexist remarks about Ukraine refugees spark outrage
“In one recording, the politician says: ‘I’ve just crossed the border on foot between Ukraine and Slovakia. Bro, I swear to you … I’ve never seen anything like it in terms of beautiful girls. The refugee queue … it’s like 200metres-long or more of just total goddesses … it’s some incredible shit … the queue outside Brazil’s best nightclub … doesn’t come close to the refugee queue here.’ In a second excerpt, Do Val says: ‘Let me tell you, they’re easy because they’re poor.’ In a third he makes obscene remarks about female security officials at the Ukraine/Slovakia border, before adding: ‘Just unbelievable, dude. As soon as this war’s over, I’m coming back.'” – The Guardian

March 5, 2022
Women and girls march to urge end to male violence and misogyny
“Sabrina Qureshi, the founder and coordinator of Million Women Rise, said: ‘Violence against women is widespread in our society, yet none of our political leaders are willing to truly take this on. We need change. From the disproportionate number of police officers who are offenders against women, to the clear back-slapping culture of hate, evidenced from the locker room to social media. Enough. We demand accountability. We demand a total overhaul and rethink of what and who the police are for.” – The Guardian

March 5, 2022
Brace for More Russian Plot Twists, Geopolitical Strategist Says
“Clocktower’s Marko Papic: ‘I give Putin 12 months’ or less. ‘When leaders ignore material constraints, they get punished’” – Apple Podcasts

March 5, 2022
New evidence shows Trump was told many times there was no voter fraud — but he kept saying it anyway
“The House Jan. 6 panel aims to prove that Trump was acting corruptly by continuing to spread misinformation about the election long after he had reason to know he had legitimately lost.” – The Washington Post

March 5, 2022
When an Indian Hindu hardliner runs your state, what’s it like if you’re Sikh, Muslim or Christian?
“Religious minorities ‘live in fear’ as crimes against them have been on the rise in India’s most populous state of Uttar Pradesh. Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, who has been accused of ‘weaponising’ relations between Hindus and non-Hindus, is up for re-election.” – South China Morning Post

March 4, 2022
Argentinian bishop sentenced to prison for sexual abuse despite pope’s defense
“Gustavo Zanchetta convicted by court in a major blow to Pope Francis, who had initially defended the bishop.” – The Guardian

March 3, 2022
The Dalit Politician Shaking Up Uttar Pradesh’s Elections
“Chandrashekhar Azad has rebranded his marginalized caste identity as something to be proud of.” – Foreign Policy

March 2, 2022
Trump Engaged In ‘Criminal Conspiracy’ Says Jan. 6 Committee
“The House Committee investigating the U.S. Capitol insurrection said Wednesday night that its evidence shows former President Donald Trump and his associates engaged in a “criminal conspiracy” to prevent Congress from certifying the results of the presidential election, spread false information about it and pressured state officials to overturn the results.” – HuffPost

March 1, 2022
The Hidden Epidemic of Brain Injuries From Domestic Violence
“Research shows that survivors of abuse can sustain head trauma more often than football players. But they are almost never diagnosed.” – The New York Times

February 28, 2022
Why Vladimir Putin has already lost this war
“The Russians may yet conquer Ukraine. But Ukrainians have shown in the past few days that they will not let them hold it.” – The Guardian

February 28, 2022
Many predicted Nato expansion would lead to war. Those warnings were ignored
“It has long been clear that Nato expansion would lead to tragedy. We are now paying the price for the US’s arrogance.” – The Guardian

February 27, 2022
Trayvon Martin anniversary: Up to 18,000 killed under ‘racist’ stand-your-ground laws since 2012. Why has nothing changed?
“In 10 years since shooting of teenager, the laws, purported to protect the public, have done the opposite. Hundreds of Americans, a disproportionately high number of them Black people, are being shot and killed as a result of controversial “stand your ground” laws that have swept across the nation since the killing of Trayvon Martin, activists say.” – Independent

February 27, 2022
Reviled, harassed, abused: Narendra Modi’s most trenchant critic speaks out
“The Indian journalist Rana Ayyub speaks about the campaign to silence her that has led to charges of sedition and ‘defaming Hindus’…. As a journalist, Ayyub has been repeatedly warning that the Modi government’s hostility to Muslims will tip into violence. And as a Muslim journalist, she knows it already has. She is not just reporting on India’s dangerous slide into authoritarianism and violent extremism, she is living it. In the past few weeks she has had police charges filed against her in multiple states and been subjected to a vicious propaganda campaign accompanied by horrific online abuse.” – The Guardian

February 26, 2022
El Salvador’s former president charged over 1989 massacre of six Jesuit priests
“Alfredo Cristiani and former military officers to face trial in long process to bring killings’ masterminds to justice…. Prosecutors also announced charges against a dozen other people, including former military officers, over the massacre. The list of charges will apparently include murder, terrorism and conspiracy.” – The Guardian

February 24, 2022
Trump and his supporters praise Putin and dismiss Biden as crisis unfolds
“A vocal group of Republicans and right-leaning commentators is expressing praise and admiration for the president’s strength and shrewdness. President Vladimir Putin, that is.” – Washington Post

February 23, 2022
U.S. Maternal Mortality Rate Among Black Women Is Nearly Triple That of White, Hispanic Peers
“In 2020, 861 women died of maternal causes in the U.S., up from 754 in 2019, according to a new CDC report…. That puts the 2020 maternal mortality rate at 23.8 deaths per 100,000 live births, a figure that is more than double the rate in countries including the U.K., Canada or France.” – Bloomberg

February 23, 2022
Why a New Era of War is Dawning — And What Putin Really Wants
“What Russia’s Invasion Really Means For the World and the Future.” – Eudaimonia and Co

February 23, 2022
How many people died believing vaccine misinformation?
“What kind of message is sent when Fox News host Tucker Carlson compares coronavirus vaccine mandates to medical experiments conducted by Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, as he didJan. 21? Or Mr. Carlson’s many previous broadcasts raising questions in a haphazard way and relying on dubious sources?… How many of the 551,168 covid deaths in the United States since Jan. 1, 2021, could have been averted with vaccines? Too many.” – The Washington Post

February 22, 2022

The West Is Sleepwalking Into War in Ukraine
“With some notable exceptions, opinion and commentary in the West have solidified around a black-and-white view of the situation in Ukraine. The near-total consensus is it’s all Russian President Vladimir Putin’s fault; Russia’s stated grievances have no legitimate basis whatsoever; and the only conceivable Western response is to refuse to make any concessions, stand up to Moscow, send more U.S. troops to Europe (though not to Ukraine itself), and proceed with tough economic sanctions if Russia invades.” – Foreign Policy

February 22, 2022
UN expert raps China, Russia for arming Myanmar despite ‘atrocity crimes’
“In a report to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva: “Despite the evidence of the military junta’s atrocity crimes being committed with impunity since launching a coup last year, UN Security Council members Russia and China continue to provide the Myanmar military junta with numerous fighter jets, armored vehicles, and in the case of Russia, the promise of further arms,… During this same period, Serbia has authorized rockets and artillery for export to the Myanmar military,” – Radio Free Asia

February 22, 2022
Ukraine crisis: Russia orders troops into rebel-held regions – BBC

February 22. 2022
South Koreans overwhelmingly want nuclear weapons to confront China and North Korea, poll finds – The Washington Post

February 21, 2022
An Obscure Corner of Wall Street Is Making Billions Trading Inflation
“The Goldman Sachs Group Inc. partner is a leading practitioner of the obscure art of inflation trading, a niche business that’s exploded — very lucratively — for some of the world’s major banks and hedge funds…. At JPMorgan Chase & Co. in New York, global head of non-linear rates Gil Holmes helped generate about $300 million from inflation trading last year, while traders at Barclays Plc and Morgan Stanley also profited, people familiar with the situation said. In all, the biggest Wall Street banks shared some $2.3 billion from the business in 2021, more than double what they made in 2019, according to data from Vali Analytics Ltd.” – Bloomberg

February 21, 2022
Uttar Pradesh: India’s Muslim victims of hate crimes live in fear
“As Uttar Pradesh, one of India’s most polarised states, votes for a new government, the spotlight is on its 40 million Muslims. BBC Hindi’s Kirti Dubey tracked the status of four cases involving hate crimes against Muslims during Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath’s tenure…. Lynchings and hate speech targeting Muslims have regularly made headlines since 2014, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) swept to power. – BBC

February 21, 2022
Online “auctions” of women are just the latest attacks on Muslims in India
“Reports of Islamophobia and misinformation against Muslims, particularly women, are rife. Something has to change…. Muslim women in particular, many of whom have been vocal about the rising tide of Hindu nationalism since Prime Minister Narendra Modi came to power in 2014.” – MIT Technology Review

February 20, 2022
Revealed: Credit Suisse leak unmasks criminals, fraudsters and corrupt politicians
“A massive leak from one of the world’s biggest private banks, Credit Suisse, has exposed the hidden wealth of clients involved in torture, drug trafficking, money laundering, corruption and other serious crimes…. They include a human trafficker in the Philippines, a Hong Kong stock exchange boss jailed for bribery, a billionaire who ordered the murder of his Lebanese pop star girlfriend and executives who looted Venezuela’s state oil company, as well as corrupt politicians from Egypt to Ukraine. One Vatican-owned account in the data was used to spend €350m (£290m) in an allegedly fraudulent investment in London property that is at the centre of an ongoing criminal trial of several defendants, including a cardinal.” – The Guardian

February 20, 2022
Benedict XVI and the German Church He Served Seek Forgiveness in Very Different Ways
“The Church hierarchy has been signalling a new openness to change, but a plea from the Pope emeritus, following the release of a report on abuse, follows an old path. The tone of his letter seems to indicate that age and solitude have mellowed the once high-handed prefect. But a close reading suggests that, instead of admitting any guilt, he took care not to, using the passive voice and the plural pronouns (‘we ourselves’) to avoid saying what he himself had done and what he had failed to do. He confesses only that he, like every believer, stands in need of God’s mercy. The letter is a ‘mea maxima culpa’ with minimal ‘culpa’ and no ‘mea’ to speak of. ‘At no time does he ask for personal forgiveness for any actions of his own!’ the prominent Irish clerical-abuse survivor Marie Collins told the Catholic news site Crux. As if to make that clear, the letter’s release included an “addendum” from Benedict’s legal team, which sought again to clear him of any responsibility.” – The New Yorker

February 17, 2022
More Polish opposition figures found to have been targeted by Pegasus spyware
“Analysis by Amnesty International linked them to Pegasus Project leak of more than 50,000 phone numbers.” – The Guardian

February 17, 2022
Kashmir men spend over 100 days in jail for cheering Pakistan win
“Three Kashmiri students languish in jail for celebrating Pakistan’s win against India at the T20 cricket World Cup in October. …Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath — known for anti-Muslim bigotry — had warned sedition law would be slapped against people who celebrated the Pakistan cricket team’s victory against India.” – Aljazeera

February 16, 2022
Why the panic among Boris Johnson’s allies? Because they know Brexit is unravelling – Michael Heseltine
“I’m the president of European Movement – Andrew Adonis is chair…. ‘If Boris goes, Brexit goes’ said it clearly enough. Adonis duly tweeted it, to the horror of the pro-Brexit press…. If the prime minister is found to have lied to parliament and to the people, what defence is there to the allegation that the Brexit cause – mired in similar controversy over lies and dissembling – was conducted with the same disregard for the truth?” – The Guardian

February 16, 2022
Money That Won Melania Trump NFT Came From Melania Trump Wallet
“The source of funds for the winning bid in Melania Trump’s first NFT auction appears to be the creators of the project themselves. A series of blockchain transactions show that the cryptocurrency used to purchase Trump’s nonfungible token came from a wallet that belongs to the entity that originally listed the project for sale.” – Bloomberg

February 16, 2022
On the Edge of a Polish Forest, Where Some of Putin’s Darkest Fears Lurk
“A U.S. missile facility in Poland is at the heart of an issue animating the Kremlin’s calculations over whether to go to war against Ukraine…. Mr. Putin has been fuming about American missiles near Russia’s border since the Romanian site went into operation in 2016, but the Polish facility, located near the village of Redzikowo, is only about 100 miles from Russian territory and barely 800 miles from Moscow itself…. Are we deploying missiles near the U.S. border? No, we are not. It is the United States that has come to our home with its missiles and is already standing at our doorstep,’ Mr. Putin said in December at his annual news conference.” – The New York Times

February 15, 2022
Qandeel Baloch: Pakistan court frees brother for the killing
“A Pakistani appeals court on Monday acquitted the brother of social media star Qandeel Baloch of her murder, a 2016 killing that sparked national outrage and changes in laws covering so-called ‘honour killings.’… Hundreds of women are killed each year in Pakistan by family members over perceived offences to honour, including elopement, fraternisation with men outside marriage or other infractions against conservative Muslim values on female modesty.” – Aljazeera

February 15, 2022
A history of the anti-vax movement and how it’s been tackled through the ages, from Elvis to Covid vaccines
“Dr Paula Larrson, a researcher at the University of Oxford, found that anti-vaccine activists at the time sought to minimise the threat of smallpox, decried the vaccine as part of a wider conspiracy theory, and claimed inoculation causes other illnesses – all of which have been used in connection with Covid-19…. One 1885 Canadian anti-vaccination pamphlet read: ‘Fathers and mothers of Montreal, you are committing a crime against your innocent and helpless children by forcing this filthy, useless and dangerous rite upon them.'” – iNews

February 15, 2022
U.S. ‘excess deaths’ during pandemic surpassed 1 million, with covid killing most but other diseases adding to the toll, CDC says – The Washington Post

February 11, 2022
Pressure on Italian Catholic church to face child sexual abuse reckoning
“Unofficial estimates say country may have highest number of victims of paedophile priests in world.” – The Guardian

February 10, 2022
El Salvador frees woman jailed for murder after a miscarriage
“The woman has already served 10 years of a 30-year sentence on charges of killing her baby. Authorities in El Salvador have freed a woman who had been jailed on charges of killing her baby after suffering a miscarriage, according to a local rights group.” – Aljazeera

February 9, 2022
China’s Anti-Graft Show Is Educational, With Unintended Lessons
A documentary created to celebrate the success of China’s anti-corruption campaign instead has aired the dirty laundry of the Communist Party…. It felt like watching Mafia dons recounting their most glorious criminal acts in a reality show. Except these were former officials of the Chinese Communist Party playing themselves in an anti-corruption documentary series. The documentary work, produced by the state, was meant to celebrate the success of China’s top leader Xi Jinping’s signature anti-corruption campaign. But the series seemed to prove the opposite: The party hasn’t figured out a way to stamp out corruption. – The New York Times

February 8, 2022
Revenge of the Patriarchs – Why Autocrats Fear Women
“It is not a coincidence that women’s equality is being rolled back at the same time that authoritarianism is on the rise…. Aspiring autocrats and patriarchal authoritarians have good reason to fear women’s political participation: when women participate in mass movements, those movements are both more likely to succeed and more likely to lead to more egalitarian democracy.” – Foreign Affairs

February 8, 2022
Evidence police in Belfast colluded with loyalists in the Troubles, report finds
“Evidence of ‘collusive behaviour’ between police and loyalist paramilitary groups related to murders during the Troubles have been uncovered by a watchdog investigation. Marie Anderson, the police ombudsman for Northern Ireland, said she was ‘deeply concerned’ by the ‘significant failures’ she had uncovered in her investigation into murders and attempted murders carried out by the Ulster Defence Association (UDA) in south Belfast in the 1990s.” – The Guardian

February 8, 2022
As Officials Look Away, Hate Speech in India Nears Dangerous Levels
Activists and analysts say calls for anti-Muslim violence — even genocide — are moving from the fringes to the mainstream, while political leaders keep silent…. ‘You have persons giving hate speech, actually calling for genocide of an entire group, and we find reluctance of the authorities to book these people,’ Rohinton Fali Nariman, a recently retired Indian Supreme Court judge, said in a public lecture. ‘Unfortunately, the other higher echelons of the ruling party are not only being silent on hate speech, but almost endorsing it.’” – The New York Times

February 8, 2022
Erik Prince Helped Raise Money for Conservative Spy Venture
“New details reveal the ambitions of an operation intended to infiltrate opponents of Donald Trump, including moderate Republicans as well as progressives and Democrats…. Mr. Prince took on the role of celebrity pitchman, according to interviews and documents, raising money for Mr. Seddon’s spying operation, which was aimed at gathering dirt that could discredit politicians and activists in several states. After Mr. Prince and Mr. Seddon met in August 2018 with Susan Gore, a Wyoming heiress to the Gore-Tex fortune, Ms. Gore became the project’s main benefactor.” – The New York Times

February 7, 2022
How Ethiopia used a Turkish drone in a strike that killed nearly 60 civilians
“With a flash in the dark, the building was struck by a drone-delivered bomb, killing at least 59 people and gravely injuring dozens more.” – The Washington Post

February 5, 2022
Amnesty says Israel is an apartheid state. Many Israeli politicians agree
“Groups that made little criticism of Israel’s military collaboration with South Africa’s white minority regime now profess concern that Amnesty’s report diminishes the suffering of black Africans under apartheid.” – The Guardian

February 5, 2022
Kashmir journalist arrested amid widening crackdown
“Police in Indian-administered Kashmir have arrested a prominent journalist under stringent “anti-terror” law and sedition, accusing him of ‘glorifying terrorism’ and ‘spreading fake news.’ in an intensifying crackdown on press freedom in the Himalayan region.” – Aljazeera

February 5. 2022
GOP censures Cheney, Kinzinger as it assails Jan. 6 probe
“The Republican National Committee censured two GOP lawmakers on Friday for participating on the committee investigating the violent Jan. 6 insurrection and assailed the panel for leading a ‘persecution of ordinary citizens engaged in legitimate political discourse.’… The censure accuses Cheney and Kinzinger of ‘participating in a Democrat-led persecution.'” – AP News

February 4, 2022
Former German chancellor Schroeder nominated to join Gazprom board
“…amid tensions between Moscow and the West over whether Russia is preparing to invade Ukraine. Gazprom said it had proposed Schroeder, who was Germany’s chancellor during the early years of Vladimir Putin’s presidency in Russia, as one of 11 candidates to be appointed at its annual shareholder meeting on June 30, 2022. Schroeder is also a board member at Russia’s top oil producer Rosneft and head of the shareholders’ committee of Nord Stream, the Gazprom-controlled pipeline bringing gas from Russia to Germany.” – Reuters

February 4, 2022
‘The First Thing You Need to Know About Boris Johnson Is He’s a Liar
“The video contains strong language and adult humor you wouldn’t normally see in The Times, but after being taken for fools, the British public is through being polite.” – The New York Times

February 4, 2022
‘Dear White Staffers’: Anonymous testimonials about workplace culture grip Capitol Hill
“Concerns about low pay, hostile work environments and racial and gender discrimination have gripped Capitol Hill over the past week as an Instagram account called “Dear White Staffers” has posted hundreds of testimonials from current and former aides that tell a dispiriting story about what it’s like to work in the halls of Congress.” – The Washington Post

February 4, 2022
The Exploitation of ‘Freedom’ in America
“From the start of the American experiment the language of freedom applied only to a privileged few. At the time of the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, only 2 percent of the city’s population were qualified to vote…. This freedom for the white master extended to torture, rape and lifelong control over the humans he (or she) owned. In early American history, claims for men’s freedom permitted domestic violence against women, and a husband’s prerogative and privacy allowed him to beat his wife….” – The New York Times

February 3, 2022
Amnesty International, joining other human rights groups, says Israel is ‘committing the crime of apartheid’
“London-based Amnesty International said Israel’s ‘system of oppression and domination against the Palestinian people,’ both in the occupied Palestinian territories and within its internationally recognized borders, fit the legal definition of apartheid and constituted ‘a crime against humanity.’” – The Washington Post

February 3, 2022
Former Joe Manchin aides lobbied his office, Congress on Build Back Better during lead-up to senator rejecting bill
Former aides to Sen. Joe Manchin lobbied his office and others in Congress on behalf of several corporate giants in the runup to his announcement that he wouldn’t support President Joe Biden’s $1.75 trillion climate and social spending bill. The former Manchin aides lobbied on behalf of companies like Unilever, T-Mobile, Best Buy, Kinder Morgan, Perpetua Resources and Gevo…. They’ve previously lobbied for industries such as coal, pharmaceuticals, oil and gas, tobacco and finance. Manchin himself has seen an uptick in contributions and corporations throughout the past year.” – CNBC

February 3, 2022
‘Nobody can say anything’: China cracks down on dissent ahead of Olympics
“A chill is blowing through Chinese civil society as activists, journalists and academics report receiving police warnings and censorship of their social media platforms in recent weeks as Beijing prepares to host the Winter Olympics beginning on Friday. In mid-January, the Beijing-based human rights activist Hu Jia said in a tweet that China’s state security apparatus was summoning activists around the country to question them and warn them to stay silent.” The Guardian

February 2, 2022
How The 2nd Largest Armed Force In The World Is Attacking America
“America has both the #1 and #2 armed force in the world. The first is devoted to terrorizing the world. The second is devoted to terrorizing themselves. That’s right, America has more men at arms occupying its own citizens than the entire military strength of its nearest competitor, China.” – Indi.Ca

February 2, 2022
Wealth Inequality Is the Highest Since World War II
“The tool, which calculates how economic growth is distributed across income and wealth groups, is called Realtime Inequality. It’s valuable for two reasons: It gives fresh insight into what has happened to various strata of the U.S. population during the pandemic; and it’s effectively a prototype for a measure that could someday be officially calculated and published by the federal government.” – The New York Times

February 2, 2022
Indian health workers allege widespread vaccine certificate fraud
“Health workers on the frontline of India’s Covid vaccination programme say people are being officially registered as double vaccinated without receiving both doses because of pressure to meet government targets.” – The Guardian

February 2, 2022
Fury over early release of Chicago officer convicted of Black teenager’s murder
“Jason Van Dyke, who was convicted of murder in 2018, was sentenced to six years and nine months for the murder of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald, after video showed Van Dyke shooting the teenager 16 times. Van Dyke is now set to be released on 3 February, almost three years ahead of schedule…. ‘He served just a fraction of the 18 years prosecutors originally sought, let alone the maximum 96 years Van Dyke could have received for his charges…. In October 2014, Van Dyke and another officer responded to calls of a teenager carrying a knife and allegedly damaging cars in the South Side area of Chicago. Within six seconds of exiting his police vehicle, Van Dyke shot McDonald 16 times as the teenager was walking away. Many of the bullets hit McDonald as he fell to the ground.” – The Guardian

February 1, 2022
Bomb Threats Reported At Historically Black Colleges For Second Day
“For the second day in a row, historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) were the target of bomb threats across the country, with this latest wave coming on the first day of Black History Month. Campuses were shut down and classes moved to remote learning following the threats impacting more than a dozen schools as of Tuesday morning.” – HufPost

January 30, 2022
Dominic Cummings says it is his ‘duty to get rid’ of Boris Johnson
“Dominic Cummings has said it is his ‘duty to get rid’ of Boris Johnson as prime minister, describing it as ‘sort of like fixing the drains.’ The prime minister’s former chief adviser called his former boss a ‘complete fuckwit’ whose only preoccupations were ‘Big Ben’s bongs’ and ‘looking at maps’ to ‘order the building of things’ in his honour.” – The Guardian

January 29, 2022
‘I didn’t know who I was any more’: how CIA torture pushed me to the edge of death
“Abu Zubaydah has been held by the US without charge for the past 20 years. His own words and images depict the relentless, round-the-clock, prolonged and illegal abuse he has suffered.” – The Guardian

January 28, 2022
Conservatives Are Banning Books From Schools While Whining About ‘Cancel Culture’
When a publisher stops printing an old Dr. Seuss book nobody read because it contained harmful racial stereotypes, Fox News and the entire Republican party lose their minds over ‘cancel culture.’ But when conservatives across the country start banning and censoring dozens of books at a time from school libraries, they’re just trying to protect the kids. Having already turned school boards into an angry political morass, conservatives are now targeting school libraries in what experts are calling a historic and concerted book banning effort.” – HuffPost

January 28, 2022
F.B.I. Secretly Bought Israeli Spyware and Explored Hacking U.S. Phones
“Israel used the NSO Group’s software as a tool of diplomacy. The F.B.I. wanted it for domestic surveillance…. The software, Pegasus, made by an Israeli company, NSO Group, has been able to track terrorists and drug cartels. It has also been used against human rights activists, journalists and dissidents.” – The New York Times

January 28, 2022
Putin’s case for invading Ukraine rests on phony grievances and ancient myths
“Putin’s idea is that Ukraine is a fraternal nation because of how he personally feels about the past. This is known as imperialism. It flies in the face of the basic legal principle of state sovereignty and the basic moral principle of democracy. People who speak of other nations as little brothers wish to be Big Brother.” – The Washington Post

January 28, 2022
No Place to Get Sick
“Hospitals in the Mississippi Delta have always been close to the brink. Omicron was the last thing they needed…. From 2010 to 2020, more than 130 of the 1,800 rural hospitals in America went out of business. At the start of 2020, almost half of the rest were at ‘high risk’ of closure…. The situation grew even worse as the pandemic diminished the frequency of money-making elective surgeries and a growing demand for health-care workers caused hospital payrolls to soar. Many hospitals were kept open only by infusions of federal money.” – The New York Times

January 27, 2022
The Pundits Are Wrong — America’s in Grave Danger
“The Big Lies are Getting Bigger, the Coup’s Getting More Brazen, and America’s Falling Apart.” – Eudaimonia & Co

January 26, 2022
How the Capitol attacks helped spread Christian nationalism in the extreme right
“When supporters of former President Donald Trump rallied near the White House on Jan. 6 of last year, a boisterous pocket of young men waving ‘America First’ flags broke into a chant: ‘Christ is King!’ It was one of the first indications that Christian nationalism would be a theme of the Capitol attack later that day, where insurrectionists prayed and waved banners that read ‘Proud American Christian.’” – Religion News Service

January 25, 2022
Covid denialist and Bolsonaro ally Olavo de Carvalho died of virus, says daughter
“Olavo de Carvalho, the coronavirus-denying mentor of Jair Bolsonaro and Brazil’s radical right, has died in the United States, with one of his children citing Covid-19 as the cause…. The statement did not say how Carvalho – a former astrologer who repeatedly trivialized Covid as the ‘moronavirus’ – had died. However, his estranged daughter, Heloísa de Carvalho, said coronavirus was the cause. ‘He has blood on his hands,’ she told the magazine Veja, blaming her father’s ‘denialist ideas’ and dissemination of fake news for the Brazilian government’s delay in purchasing Covid vaccines.” – The Guardian

January 24, 2022
‘In the End, You’re Treated Like a Spy,’ Says M.I.T. Scientist
“Last week, the U.S. government dismissed the case against Gang Chen, in which he was accused of concealing seven Chinese affiliations in applications for $2.7 million in grants from the Energy Department.Credit…. Dr. Chen said, in a three-and-a-half-hour interview at his M.I.T. office, the first he has given about the case, ‘The government gets what they want, right? But in the end, you’re treated like a spy. That just breaks your heart. It breaks your confidence….’ ‘We are all losers, right?’ Dr. Chen said. ‘My reputation got ruined. My students, my post-docs, they changed their career. They changed to other groups. M.I.T., the country, the U.S., we lose. I can’t calculate the loss. That loss cannot be calculated.’”– The New York Times

January 24, 2022
Japan Has Had 146 Pandemic Death per Million People. In the U.S., It’s 2,590.
What Japan Got Right About Covid-19
“I suggested a basic concept: People should avoid the three C’s which are closed spaces, crowded places and close-contact settings. The Japanese government shared this advice with the public in early March, and it became omnipresent. The message to avoid the three C’swas on the news, variety shows, social media and posters. “Three C’s” was even declared the buzzword of the year in Japan in 2020.” – The New York Times

Kenya’s ‘hidden epidemic’: Gender-based violence
“When the Covid pandemic hit Kenya, cases of gender-based violence exploded. But a combination of fear, stigma and a lack of trust in the police mean the majority of cases are never reported. It has been described as Kenya’s ‘hidden epidemic.'” – BBC

January 21, 2022
‘They cut him into pieces’: India’s ‘love jihad’ conspiracy theory turns lethal
“Hindu extremists are carrying out violent attacks to stop interfaith relationships with Muslims” – The Guardian

January 20, 2022
‘Stuck in perilous moment’: Doomsday Clock holds at 100 seconds to midnight
“The Doomsday Clock, established 75 years ago by scientists to illustrate the danger of human extinction, remains at 100 seconds to midnight according to a panel of experts. It is the third year in a row that the clock has been set at that time, which is closer to midnight than at any period during the cold war, including the Cuban missile crisis…. Continued drift towards the proliferation of nuclear weapons, the climate emergency, and the rise of biological threats.” – The Guardian

January 20, 2022
A Dam in Syria Was on a ‘No-Strike’ List. The U.S. Bombed It Anyway.
“A military report warned that striking the giant structure could cause tens of thousands of deaths…. After the strikes, dam workers stumbled on an ominous piece of good fortune: Five floors deep in the dam’s control tower, an American BLU-109 bunker-buster lay on its side, scorched but intact — a dud. If it had exploded, experts say, the whole dam might have failed…. ‘The destruction would have been unimaginable,’ a former director at the dam said. ‘The number of casualties would have exceeded the number of Syrians who have died throughout the war.’” – The New York Times

January 20, 2022
80 Years Ago the Nazis Planned the ‘Final Solution.’ It Took 90 Minutes.
“As Germany observes the anniversary of the Wannsee Conference, witnesses of the Nazi era are dying and antisemitism is resurgent in Europe and the United States.” – The New York Times

January 20, 2022
America’s Coming Age of Instability – Why Constitutional Crises and Political Violence Could Soon Be the Norm
“When Joe Biden was sworn in as president a year ago today, many Americans breathed a heavy sigh of relief. President Donald Trump had tried to steal the election, but he had failed. The violent insurrection he incited on January 6, 2021, had shaken the United States’ democratic system to its core, but left it standing in the end. One year into Biden’s presidency, however, the threat to American democracy has not receded.” – Foreign Affairs

January 20, 2022
Former Pope Benedict failed to act over abuse, new report finds
“Former Pope Benedict XVI failed to act over four child abuse cases when he was archbishop of Munich, a German probe into the Catholic Church has alleged…. Abuse continued under his tenure, it is alleged, and the accused priests remained active in church roles.” – BBC

January 20, 2022
An anti-Black backlash — with no end in sight
“We are in the midst of an aggressive, sustained backlash against recent shows of Black political power. The Senate’s rejection of a comprehensive voting rights bill on Wednesday night both leaves in place some of the most pernicious elements of that backlash and confirms that Black political power in the United States remains subject to reversal from the nation’s White majority.” – The Washington Post

January 19, 2022
Israel demolishes Palestinian home, arrests family in flash-point Jerusalem neighborhood
“Israeli police demolished a Palestinian home in predominantly Arab East Jerusalem early Wednesday, after a surprise overnight raid and the arrest of family members and protesters…. Foreign governments and human rights groups condemned the eviction, one of several proposed in the flash-point Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood.” – The Washington Post

January 19, 2022
Why Millions Think It Is Trump Who Cannot Tell a Lie
“Do Republican officials and voters actually believe Trump’s claim that Joe Biden stole the 2020 election by corrupting ballots — the same ballots that put so many Republicans in office — and if they do believe it, what are their motives? A December 2021 University of Massachusetts-Amherst survey found striking links between attitudes on race and immigration and disbelief in the integrity of the 2020 election.” – The New York Times

January 19, 2022
For the sake of a visa, I was forced into marriage in Arizona — at age 15
“When I was 15 years old and living in Arizona, I was forced by my family to become a visa bride. I am a U.S. citizen, ethnically Pashtun, born in Karachi, Pakistan, and raised in Arizona…. The United States tolerates the forced marriage of minors in other contexts as well…. Let there be no doubt about this: Girls forced into marriage are raped.” – The Washington Post

January 18, 2022
The pandemic’s true death toll: millions more than official counts
“Countries have reported some five million COVID-19 deaths in two years, but global excess deaths are estimated at double or even quadruple that figure.” – Nature

January 18, 2022
They Rejected Democracy. They Lied. Now The GOP Is Hailing Martin Luther King’s Legacy.
“Just over a year ago, 147 Republican lawmakers tried to overturn the 2020 presidential election based on a lie about widespread voter fraud that, just hours earlier, had fueled a deadly attack on the U.S. Capitol. Today, most of these lawmakers are hoping you’ll forget how they lied to Americans that day and threatened the peaceful transfer of power, the very foundation of democracy. They’d rather that you think of them as having the same ideals of an American hero, Martin Luther King Jr.” – HuffPost

January 18, 2022
Israel police uses NSO’s Pegasus to spy on citizens
“Mayors, leaders of political protests against former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and former governmental employees, were among those tracked by police without a search or bugging warrant authorizing the surveillance.” – Calcalistech

January 18, 2022
An investigation sheds light into Modi’s machinery of online hate and manipulation
“On Jan. 6, the Wire, an independent Indian news site, began publishing an in-depth investigative series that accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s governing party, the BJP, of deploying a sophisticated app to hijack social media and even encrypted messaging platforms in order to manipulate public opinion and launch online campaigns against those it believed were a threat to the government, including female journalists…. In 2017, journalist Gauri Lankesh was assassinated outside her house by right-wing radicals. Lankesh was one of the most abused and targeted journalists on social media. But the threats did not stay confined to the digital space. The hate that killed her could soon come calling at our doorstep, too.” – The Washington Post

January 17, 2022
When America Invaded China
“The Boxer Rebellion still shapes Beijing’s attitude toward the United States…. The U.S. Cavalry, outside of the Great Wall of China, during the Boxer Rebellion. The trouble in China began in the summer of 1898…. Many in Washington had been waiting for a moment like this one. Some of the United States’ most powerful families had gotten rich in China. The first U.S. multimillionaire, John Jacob Astor, made part of his fortune smuggling opium into China. The Forbes, Delano, and Cabot families of Massachusetts used their narco-profits to found enduring political dynasties. By 1900 it had become an article of faith that China’s supposedly limitless market was the key to America’s global future. With the Boxer crisis, the opportunity for more assertive intervention was at hand.” – Foreign Policy

January 17, 2022
Fortunes of world’s 10 richest men more than doubled in pandemic, Oxfam claims
“The fortunes of the world’s 10 richest men – including Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates – more than doubled during the pandemic to $1.5 trillion, according to Oxfam. Their soaring profits since the pandemic began has made them six times more wealthy than the world’s poorest 3.1 billion people, the charity said, adding that since March 2020 a new billionaire has been minted almost every day. Meanwhile, 160 million more people have been forced into poverty during the pandemic, Oxfam said, citing numbers from the Forbes 2021 Billionaires List, Credit Suisse’s Global Wealth Databook and the World Bank.” – Independent

January 16, 2022
In two pandemic years, how political divisions and policy missteps have failed the world
“Since the first outbreak, the coronavirus pandemic has been marked by political failure in the US, the UK, Australia, Japan and China…. If our fate during the Covid-19 pandemic had rested in the hands of scientists and the medical profession, we would have been in good hands. Almost certainly the pandemic would by now be a fading – if painful – memory. But here we are, two years after the outbreak, reporting 320 million Covid-19 cases worldwide, and five million deaths, with the Omicron variant energetically propelling a fifth viral wave. Communities worldwide are stressed, impatient, panicked and often in despair. Many have lost jobs, careers and income, and face economic hardship, with no prospect of early recovery. The failure that has brought us to this point is not a failure of science or medicine. It is not due to an absence of knowledge of how to track or treat the virus. The failure is a failure of politics – both domestically and between countries.” – The South China Morning Post

January 15, 2022
America Doesn’t Control the Forever Wars
“The slow fall of the nation-state’s monopoly on violence will shape future conflicts.” – Foreign Policy

January 15, 2022
Seven ways Republicans are already undermining the 2024 election
“The next attempted coup will not be a mob attack, but a carefully plotted and even technically legal one. Instead of costumed rioters, the insurrectionists are men in suits and ties” – The Guardian

January 14, 2022
Indian Bishop Is Acquitted on Charges of Raping a Nun
“A Catholic bishop who was accused of repeatedly raping a nun in southern India over a two-year period was acquitted on Friday…. The church was slow to react to the nun’s accusations against Bishop Mulakkal, and it did so only after five of her fellow nuns protested publicly in support of her. Father Augustine Vattoly, who helped organize a group involved in the protests in Kerala, said the nuns had not given up. ‘The verdict is a big, big shock for us,’ Father Vattoly said. ‘But we will continue the fight against the notorious system of the church, which throws its weight behind perpetrators of injustice like Franco Mulakkal.'” – The New York Times

January 13, 2022
‘Our job is to present the truth’: the Texas principal caught in a ‘critical race theory’ firestorm
“Shortly thereafter he was pushed out of his job and his life was turned inside-out: now, Whitfield has emerged as a central figure in the debate over how history is taught in American schools…. But he still can’t quite believe that he’s essentially been kicked out of school for an email. ‘For the better part of the past two decades, all I’ve known is get up, go to school,’ he says.” – The Guardian

January 13, 2022
Misogyny, Extremism, and Gun Violence
“Far-right extremism is a growing threat in the United States. In recent years, white supremacist movements have seen a resurgence, while anti-government militias have become more active and conspiracy theories associated with violence have spread…. Increasingly, experts have identified misogyny as one such ideology that motivates violence and can be a component of far-right extremism.In 2018, the Southern Poverty Law Center began identifying male supremacy as a hate ideology, and the Anti-Defamation League released an extensive report examining misogyny and extremism.” – Everytown Research & Policy

January 13, 2022
Illinois judge sparks outrage by reversing 18-year-old’s rape conviction – The Guardian

January 13, 2022
Indonesian woman flogged 100 times for adultery, man gets 15 lashes
“Judges found it difficult to convict the man, who was then the head of the East Aceh fishery agency and also married, because he denied all wrongdoing…. Unlike the rest of the nation, Aceh follows religious law as part of a 2005 autonomy deal agreed with the central government that ended a decades-long separatist insurgency.” – The Guardian

January 13, 2022
Trump loyalists form alliance in bid to take over election process in key states
“Extreme Republicans loyal to Donald Trump and his ‘big lie’ that the 2020 election was rigged have formed a nationwide alliance aiming to take control of the presidential election process in key battleground states that could determine the outcome of the 2024 presidential race.” – The Guardian

January 12, 2022
Now Prince Andrew is facing trial, the palace must find a way to ‘de-royal’ him
“Whatever the outcome, there is no way back for the prince – and the family will be keen to limit the damage. Well, he’s surely sweating now.” – The Guardian

January 12, 2022
YouTube is major conduit of fake news, factcheckers say
“A letter signed by more than 80 groups, including Full Fact in the UK and the Washington Post’s Fact Checker, says the video platform is hosting content by groups including Doctors for the Truth, which spread Covid misinformation, and videos supporting the ‘fraud’ narrative during the US presidential election. ‘YouTube is allowing its platform to be weaponised by unscrupulous actors to manipulate and exploit others, and to organise and fundraise themselves.'” – The Guardian

January 12, 2022
In America, a child is shot every hour, and hundreds die.
“The country’s gun violence epidemic is killing more children than ever. Who they were matters just as much as how they died…. These are their stories, one for each month of a violent year.” – Washington Post

January 11, 2022
The Soldiers Came Home Sick. The Government Denied It Was Responsible.
“U.S. service members and veterans have long insisted that the military’s garbage-disposal fires in war zones made them ill…. ‘Members of Congress wouldn’t give us the time of day,’ says Rosie Torres, a founder of the advocacy group Burn Pits 360, when I asked her about Stewart’s influence. ‘If you said, “Here’s a widow,” they’d have their staff playing goalie. And then Jon Stewart walks in, and they say, “Absolutely,” and the whole staff wants to be at the meeting.’ ‘This delay is killing people,’ Stewart said.” – The New York Times

January 10, 2022
The Pope is wrong. Choosing to have few or no children is the opposite of selfish
“‘This denial of fatherhood or motherhood diminishes us, it takes away our humanity,'” he added. The Pope’s suggestion that failing to have children is selfish is far from the truth. Especially for those of us living in countries with a large environmental footprint, the choice to have a small family, or no human family at all, is one that helps everyone — particularly children, whose future depends on a more sustainable planet.” – CNN

January 10, 2022
Don’t Worry About America Having a New Civil War — It’s Already In One
“America’s Headed Towards Fascism Without Much of a Fight. So Who Needs a War?… In 1923, there was what is known as the ‘Beer Hall Putsch.’ A few thousand Nazis ‘marched on’ a famous monument, with the aim of violently overthrowing the government…. It was plotted and hatched in bars — and began in one. The putsch failed because the vague paramilitary rabble was too disorganised to really carry it through. Sound a lot like Jan 6th? It should. It’s eerily almost exactly like Jan 6th.” – Eudomonia & Co

January 10, 2022
More than 1,700 congressmen once enslaved Black people. This is who they were, and how they shaped the nation. – The Washington Post

January 10, 2022
Boris Johnson Is Revealing Who He Really Is
“Now he has, beyond any doubt, revealed who he really is: a brattish authoritarian who puts his personal whims above anything else. And whatever his future, Britain will be remade in his image…. The full scale of the impending assault on civil liberties has — understandably — not yet come into focus for much of the British public. The list of legislation is long and deliberately overwhelming. But pieced together, the picture is bleakly repressive…. He will forever be the libertine whose pursuit of personal freedom and “control” saw his countrymen robbed of theirs.” – The New York Times

January 8, 2022
“Your Silence Emboldens Hate-Filled Voices”: IIM Students, Staff To PM
“The letter comes in light of the recent Haridwar Dharam sansad event where some Hindu religious leaders urged people to take up arms against Muslims and called for genocide.” – NDTV

January 7, 2022
Democracy is on the brink of disaster. For voters, it’s politics as usual.
“Election results are following familiar patterns, despite Trump’s rise — and Jan. 6…. If citizens in a democracy don’t shift their voting patterns when the standard-bearer of one party rejects the results of an election, what would lead them to change their minds?” – The Washington Post

January 6, 2021
Christian Nationalism Is One of Trump’s Most Powerful Weapons
“The most serious attempt to overthrow the American constitutional system since the Civil War would not have been feasible without the influence of America’s Christian nationalist movement. One year later, the movement seems to have learned a lesson: If it tries harder next time, it may well succeed in making the promise of American democracy a relic of the past. Christian nationalist symbolism was all over the events of Jan. 6, as observers have pointed out. But the movement’s contribution to the effort to overturn the 2020 election and install an unelected president goes much deeper than the activities of a few of its representatives on the day that marks the unsuccessful end (or at least a temporary setback) of an attempted coup.” – The New York Times

January 6, 2022
The Jan. 6 Insurrectionists Aren’t Who You Think They Are
“The people who stormed the U.S. Capitol weren’t poor, unemployed red-staters. Many were middle-class professionals motivated by the “great replacement” conspiracy theory…. Our new analysis at the University of Chicago Project on Security and Threats of the demographics of those who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6 and multiple nationally representative surveys paint a new, startling reality: The insurrectionist movement is mainstream, not simply confined to the political fringe.” – Foreign Policy

January 6, 2022
Guatemala soldiers face rape trial after 40 years
“The trial has begun in Guatemala of five former paramilitary soldiers accused of raping 36 indigenous Mayan women during the 1980s. The abuse is alleged to have taken place over five years at the height of the civil war between the military government and left-wing guerrillas. Prosecutors say the victims’ lives were shattered, and that one was only 12 years old when the abuse began.” – BBC
[“After the election of Ronald Reagan, the U.S. undertook more active measures to ensure close relations with the Guatemalan government. In April 1981, President Reagan’s national security team agreed to supply military aid to the Guatemalan regime in order to exterminate leftist guerrillas and their ‘civilian support mechanisms,’ according to a document from the National Archives.” – Consortium News: “How Reagan Promoted Genocide”]

January 6 , 2022
US faces likely trajectory from anocracy to civil war
“There is, of course, the long-standing debate over whether the absence of universal suffrage in the country’s past (slavery, Jim Crow laws, systemic exclusion of minorities and ethnic groups from voting etc.) can still qualify its history, until quite recently, as democratic in the contemporary sense of the word. But even if we overlook all that, an often cited global data series called Polity and funded by the Central Intelligence Agency – to quantitatively measure other countries on a scale of full autocracy to full democracy – has dethroned the US from that time-honoured designation…. The US is now an anocracy, sometimes also called an illiberal democracy or a hybrid regime (part democratic, part autocratic).” – South China Morning Post

January 6, 2022
How Trump paved the way for return of the far-right in South America
“He saw my father, tied over some wooden trestles after a torture session, dying…. ‘First we shall kill all the subversives; then we shall kill their collaborators; then their sympathisers; then those who remain indifferent; and finally, we will kill those who are undecided.’ – General Ibérico Saint-Jean, International Herald Tribune, 26 May 1977.” – Independent

January 5, 2022
New evidence of Belgian complicity in 1961 killing of Burundian PM
“A popular prime minister of Burundi, Prince Louis Rwagasore, was shot dead just over 60 years ago with the complicity of Belgium, the departing colonial power, a researcher has claimed. The Belgian state has an ‘overwhelming responsibility’ for the assassination of Rwagasore, according to Ludo De Witte, a Flemish sociologist who has spent five years investigating the killing. His previous work on the assassination of Congo’s first elected prime minister, Patrice Lumumba, led to a parliamentary inquiry that concluded Belgium had a “moral responsibility” for the death of the charismatic leader.” – The Guardian

January 5, 2022
Geoff Hoon ‘told to burn memo that said Iraq invasion could be illegal’
“Tony Blair’s former defence secretary Geoff Hoon has claimed he was told to burn a memo from the attorney general that cast doubt on the legality of the Iraq war.” – The Guardian

January 4, 2021
Detained, missing, close to death: the toll of reporting on Covid in China
“Activists say crackdown is driven by Xi Jinping, who has ‘declared a war on independent journalism.” – The Guardian

January 4, 2022
The U.S. Has a Police Brutality Problem. So Does Bangladesh.
“Across Bangladesh, hundreds of people have died at the hands of the country’s elite police unit. They are allowed to kill without consequences…. Dhaka’s denial of extrajudicial killings is imperiling its relations with Washington and exposing the country’s corrupt police and undemocratic institutions.” – Foreign Policy

January 4, 2022
A nuclear Taiwan is too terrifying to contemplate
“According to a Taiwanese academic, if the island isn’t sure that the US will come to its defence or about its own capacity to fight back an attacker alone, the island should develop its own nuclear weapons to create a deterrent ‘balance of terror.’… Now, if a university professor openly pontificates on the possibility of “the balance of terror” across the Taiwan Strait, you can be sure that Taiwan’s generals and top politicians are pretty advanced along that line of thinking, if not actual planning for a very long time.” – South China Morning Post

January 4, 2022
Rep. Eric Swalwell Issues Chilling Warning About 2022 Midterms
“The California Democrat slammed Republicans for choosing ‘violence over voting.’… The 2022 midterms are ‘not only the most important election, if we don’t get it right, it could be the last election,’ he added.” – HuffPost

January 4, 2022
Online ‘Auction’ Is Latest Attack on Muslim Women in India
“India’s online space is rife with misogyny and harassment of women. But the two “auctions” have amplified concern about the organized nature of the virtual bullying, and how targeted smears and threats of violence, particularly sexual violence, are deployed to try to silence women, especially those critical of some of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s policies. ” – The New York Times

January 3, 2022
US could be under rightwing dictator by 2030, Canadian professor warns
“The US could be under a rightwing dictatorship by 2030, a Canadian political science professor has warned, urging his country to protect itself against the ‘collapse of American democracy.’ ‘We mustn’t dismiss these possibilities just because they seem ludicrous or too horrible to imagine,’ Thomas Homer-Dixon, founding director of the Cascade Institute at Royal Roads University in British Columbia, wrote in the Globe and Mail. ‘In 2014, the suggestion that Donald Trump would become president would also have struck nearly everyone as absurd. But today we live in a world where the absurd regularly becomes real and the horrible commonplace.’” – The Guardian

January 1, 2022
1 in 3 Americans say violence against government can be justified, citing fears of political schism, pandemic
A year after a pro-Trump mob ransacked the Capitol in the worst attack on the home of Congress since it was burned by British forces in 1814, a Washington Post-University of Maryland poll finds that about 1 in 3 Americans say they believe violence against the government can at times be justified…. The percentage of adults who say violence is justified is up, from 23 percent in 2015 and 16 percent in 2010 in polls by CBS News and the New York Times. – The Washington Post

January 1, 2022
China’s Ban on ‘Sissy Men’ Is Bound to Backfire
“In a slur-laden directive, television regulators in September banned “sissy men and other abnormal aesthetics” from appearing on television. Then in late November regulators cracked down on celebrities’ online profiles, their fan groups and advertising, citing “abnormal aesthetics” and threatening to shut down the online accounts of those who failed to fall in line…. The party appears to believe that national rejuvenation is only possible if young men work diligently toward its orders and priorities: Mr. Xi has said “a nation is strong if its youth are strong.” By that (flawed) logic, femininity is a sign of weakness that, if unchecked, bodes ill for the nation’s future.” – The New York Times