A plutonium-packed generator disappeared on one of the world’s highest mountains in a hush-hush mission the U.S. still won’t talk about. By Jeffrey Gettleman, Hari Kumar, Agnes Chang and Pablo Robles Photographs and videos by Atul Loke. – Dec. 13, 2025 The mission demanded the utmost secrecy. A team of American climbers, handpicked by the C.I.A. for their mountaineering skills —… Read More How Did the C.I.A. Lose a Nuclear Device?
This article was authored in June 2024. It appears in our fifth print issue, Contra Temps, available here Buber had written that for “political Zionism,” “the State is the goal and Zion a ‘myth’ that inflames the masses.” That propaganda employed to shore up nationalist militarism and settler-colonialism could leverage European guilt to “distort and exploit respectable… Read More Zionism Breaks
‘class conflict is the last of the visible conflicts because it is the first in importance’: Alberto Toscano NB: A thundering reminder of the reality of life under capitalism, Chinese or non Chinese. When, if ever the world wakes up from the ideological slumber of nationalism and identity politics, it will be confronted by the… Read More ‘A little unhinged, or totally fearless’ : the chronicler of China’s 170 million migrant workers
By Irfan Chowdhury / Sapan News Citizens to Traitors: Bengali Internment in Pakistan 1971-1974By Ilyas Chattha; Cambridge University Press, 2025 Growing up in the 1980s in Bangladesh, I had heard many stories of the 1971 war. I knew about the Bengalis working, for example, in the civil service of Pakistan, like my uncle who was stranded with… Read More Silences within silences: excavating the hidden history of Bengalis interned in Pakistan after 1971
A very unusual song, both for its lyrics and its melody. It comes at the end of a new film with a superb child actor, Ana Sophia Heger, in She Rides Shotgun. Quite something. This is a Scottish group Clearest Blue Song by CHVRCHES ‧ 2015 Light is all over usLike it always wasLike it… Read More Clearest Blue
Iranian security forces have “violently arrested” Nobel Peace Prize winner and women’s rights activist Narges Mohammadi, her foundation has said. The Narges Foundation said Ms Mohammadi, 53, was detained in the eastern city of Mashhad, along with other activists. The Nobel Committee said it was “deeply concerned by today’s brutal arrest of Narges Mohammadi” and… Read More Nobel laureate Narges Mohammadi arrested in Iran
As I look back on their lives, I can now see, more clearly than when I was young, how my parents affirmed, in practice rather than in theory, the spirit of fraternity and non-discrimination Ramachandra Guha’s tribute to his parents. May their souls rest in peace This column stays away from mentioning my family, but… Read More Quiet luminescence
NB: This article is interesting but open to caveats. One does not have to be a Putinist or Russian chauvinist to object to the statement that Russia started World War II by signing the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact in August 1939 (see below); simply aware of historical facts. Were Britain and France responsible for WW2 becuase they… Read More Investigating Putinism: History Over Ideology
In post-May Paris, a mysterious Maoist activist, Fernando, brings about a dozen of people to form a revolutionary group. Studying this charismatic-led organization allows Julie Pagis to deepen our understanding of Weberian domination through sociological enlightenments by David Copello , 25 November What became of the activists of May ’68? The question of the long-term… Read More A Maoist Enigma in Post-May France
NB: Accepting an award in the name of a prime suspect in the Mahatma Gandhi murder case is but a logical step forward from playing to-ey to-ey with brazen Savarkarites and Godse-ites. Not all patriots are scoundrels; but all scoundrels are definitely patriots. Wit is no substitute for wisdom, Shashi. Your performance is becoming cringeworthy.… Read More Refusing Savarkar award exposes Shashi Tharoor’s dilemma
After the truth-shower 