‘It’s in our rivers and in our cups. There’s no escape’: the deadly spread of salt water in Bangladesh

Kidney disease is on the rise in coastal communities, where some have no choice but to drink and cook with contaminated water.. The consumption of saline water in coastal Bangladesh has long been associated with various health risks, including hypertension, respiratory problems and pre-eclampsia, but its effect on kidney health remains relatively unknown. Thaslima Begum in Khulna Shadows… Read More ‘It’s in our rivers and in our cups. There’s no escape’: the deadly spread of salt water in Bangladesh

How Billionaires Silenced US Campus Protests

Thousands of students face severe consequences for protesting Gaza violence. Alan Macleod investigates the powerful financial and ideological ties to Israel driving the harsh responses from America’s top universities. By Alan MacLeod / MintPress News America’s universities are on fire. A protest movement against the violence in Gaza and U.S. colleges’ complicity in them has swept… Read More How Billionaires Silenced US Campus Protests

Undisclosed WhatsApp vulnerability lets governments see who you message

Engineers warned Meta that nations can monitor chats; staff fear Israel is using this trick to pick assassination targets in Gaza. Sam Biddle IN MARCH, WHATSAPP’S security team issued an internal warning to their colleagues: Despite the software’s powerful encryption, users remained vulnerable to a dangerous form of government surveillance. According to the previously unreported threat… Read More Undisclosed WhatsApp vulnerability lets governments see who you message

Raphael: A Portrait review – lengthy but illuminating study of Renaissance master

 there’s something admirable about Burton’s diligence and essay-like style; there are no curatorial talking heads involved, still less swooping travelling shots inside well-appointed art galleries Andrew Pulver Source: Universal Images Here is a mammoth 148-minute documentary about the Renaissance painter Raphael, which in its sheer length and detail is an impressive achievement in itself by… Read More Raphael: A Portrait review – lengthy but illuminating study of Renaissance master

Arsenal of Genocide: US Weapons That Are Destroying Gaza / NATO Spreads Nuclear Weapons and Risk

The Arsenal of Genocide: The US Weapons That Are Destroying Gaza On May 8, 2024, as Israel escalated its brutal assault on Rafah, President Biden announced that he had “paused” a delivery of 1,700 500-pound and 1,800 2,000-pound bombs, and threatened to withhold more shipments if Israel went ahead with its full-scale invasion of Rafah.  The move… Read More Arsenal of Genocide: US Weapons That Are Destroying Gaza / NATO Spreads Nuclear Weapons and Risk

More than half the world cannot speak freely, report finds

Sharp rise in number of people facing a crisis in freedom of speech, while authors particularly alarmed by deterioration in India under Narendra Modi Half the world’s population cannot freely speak their mind according to a new report on freedom of expression. In its annual report, the advocate group Article 19 found the number of people… Read More More than half the world cannot speak freely, report finds

Between Victory and Defeat

How can the left escape burnout? Hannah Proctor; Burnout: The Emotional Experience of Political Defeat SAM ADLER-BELL the left can sometimes become “more attached to its impossibility than to its potential fruitfulness, a Left that is most at home dwelling not in hopefulness but in its own marginality and failure, a Left that is thus caught… Read More Between Victory and Defeat

Documentary Details How Netanyahu Funded and Boosted Hamas

By Four Corners / ABC News (Larry’s List) Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to destroy Hamas – but he enabled its development. Four Corners asked Israeli insiders how this happened in the new documentary, The Forever War *********************************************** The Gaza genocide as explicit policy: Michael Hudson names all names The End of Innocence The Palestine Exception to… Read More Documentary Details How Netanyahu Funded and Boosted Hamas

Economic inequality in India: ‘billionaire raj’ is now more unequal than British colonial rule

WORLD INEQUALITY DATABASE Given its geographic size and population, now the largest in the world, the distribution of economic growth in India has significant implications for global inequality dynamics. This underscores the importance of accurately measuring income and wealth inequality in India. In this paper, Nitin Kumar Bharti, Lucas Chancel, Thomas Piketty, and Anmol Somanchi… Read More Economic inequality in India: ‘billionaire raj’ is now more unequal than British colonial rule

UK court approves Assange extradition appeal / Why Julian Assange’s fate matters

UK court approves Assange extradition appeal Washington, D.C., May 20, 2024—The Committee to Protect Journalists welcomes the U.K. High Court’s Monday decision to allow WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to appeal his extradition case. “We are heartened that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange will be allowed to appeal his extradition to the United States,” said CPJ CEO Jodie Ginsberg,… Read More UK court approves Assange extradition appeal / Why Julian Assange’s fate matters