Gaza in ruins: how Israel’s two-year assault has devastated the territory / No family, no stability, no social fabric: the anguish of Gaza’s wounded orphans

IDF’s bombs and ground offensive have killed tens of thousands of people and reduced entire cities to rubble. As the number of WCNSFs – ‘wounded child, no surviving family’ – grows, charities struggle to find adults to look after them A UN commission report concluded Israel has committed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza  Jason Burke The… Read More Gaza in ruins: how Israel’s two-year assault has devastated the territory / No family, no stability, no social fabric: the anguish of Gaza’s wounded orphans

Dilip

Nobel Prize in literature goes to Hungarian novelist for work confronting ‘apocalyptic terror’

Christian Edwards The 2025 Nobel Prize in literature has been awarded to László Krasznahorkai, a Hungarian writer who said his dark and difficult novels aim to examine reality “to the point of madness.” Announcing the prize at a ceremony in Stockholm, Sweden, on Thursday, the Nobel Committee praised Krasznahorkai “for his compelling and visionary oeuvre… Read More Nobel Prize in literature goes to Hungarian novelist for work confronting ‘apocalyptic terror’

Dilip

Jennifer Aniston says social media ‘has taken down a huge portion of humanity’

The actor condemns ‘runaway train’ of unregulated slander, baseless claims and deepfakes that have dogged her in recent years Aniston was speaking to Harper’s Bazaar to coincide with a new season of The Morning Show, the TV series in which she plays a TV presenter opposite Reese Witherspoon. Aniston, who has been the target of media… Read More Jennifer Aniston says social media ‘has taken down a huge portion of humanity’

Dilip

When It Comes to Covering the Gaza War, ‘Israeli media is like a doctor hiding the patient’s condition’

London-based Israeli researcher Ayala Panievsky has been studying war coverage in Israel. Her findings explain why the country now seems out of touch with the rest of the world…‘People who view themselves as serious journalists have, for two years now, been accepting and repeating the notion that there are no innocents in Gaza, that all… Read More When It Comes to Covering the Gaza War, ‘Israeli media is like a doctor hiding the patient’s condition’

Dilip

Tony Blair just can’t kick the habit of imperial interference in the Middle East

NB: More self-serving bufoonery by a corrupt war criminal. Brittania rules – if not the waves, the graveyard of murdered Palestinians. Blair and Trump make a good circus. They and their chums among the Arab despots are the vultures of our time, circling scenes of human devastation caused by their ally Israel; and looking out… Read More Tony Blair just can’t kick the habit of imperial interference in the Middle East

Dilip

A Plane Crashed in the Desert. Thirty-Five Years Later, It Would Help Take Down Nicolas Sarkozy

The French presidential hopeful used clemency for the perpetrators of the UTA 772 bombing to secure campaign funding from Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi Diane de Vignemont The wreckage of the plane lay scattered across the ocher sand of Niger’s Tenere desert — twisted aluminum, scorched luggage, a lone shoe. There were no survivors. French investigators… Read More A Plane Crashed in the Desert. Thirty-Five Years Later, It Would Help Take Down Nicolas Sarkozy

Dilip

Against the crime of silence: Bertrand Russell’s War Crimes in Vietnam (1967)

NB: This book changed my life. I read it when I was seventeen. Along with Palestine, Vietnam’s valiant struggle against American imperialism was the epic of our generation. I will salute the Vietnamese people till the end of my days. DS “There are few parallels with the war in Vietnam. It has lasted nearly two… Read More Against the crime of silence: Bertrand Russell’s War Crimes in Vietnam (1967)

Dilip

A Dying American Empire, ‘Rotten to the Heart?’

By Alfred McCoy / TomDispatch In his novel The Autumn of the Patriarch, which is eerily evocative of our current political plight, Gabriel Garcia Marquez described how a Latin American autocrat “discovered in the course of his uncountable years that a lie is more comfortable than doubt, more useful than love, more lasting than truth, [and] became convinced… Read More A Dying American Empire, ‘Rotten to the Heart?’

Dilip

Two years after the massacre, I look back in disbelief. I, too, missed the October 8 surprise / ‘If 1948 was a war of Independence, the current war could be the one that ends Israel’

NB: I respect this writer and this film maker for speaking the truth as far as their resources allow. The term community of crime is something terrifying because it reflects the truth about the fragility of human consience; and the power that ideologies possess to pervert the conscience into its opposite; to literally create communities… Read More Two years after the massacre, I look back in disbelief. I, too, missed the October 8 surprise / ‘If 1948 was a war of Independence, the current war could be the one that ends Israel’

Dilip