Rohini Hensman: The Historical Background to Putin’s Invasion of Ukraine / Chris Hedges: The Greatest Evil Is War

NB: An excellent and well-researched essay. The clinically neutral experts on mass media and academia might do themselves a favour by reading it. Beneath this essay is a comment I wrote yesterday to an article in Scheerpost by Michael Brenner, an American professor of international relations. Here is a far more humane essay on the… Read More Rohini Hensman: The Historical Background to Putin’s Invasion of Ukraine / Chris Hedges: The Greatest Evil Is War

Rebecca Solnit: It’s time to confront the Trump-Putin network / George Monbiot: We must confront Russian propaganda / Moscow police detain children for laying flowers at Ukrainian embassy

NB: The UN General Assembly has condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and called for withdrawal. Putin is a gangster in absolute power, and those Indian commentators who find excuses for this brutal invasion in the name of ‘national interest’ are ethical nihilists. By the way, it was the Soviet Union, not ‘Russia’,  which stood by India’s… Read More Rebecca Solnit: It’s time to confront the Trump-Putin network / George Monbiot: We must confront Russian propaganda / Moscow police detain children for laying flowers at Ukrainian embassy

Kamini Walia: The growing scourge of anti-microbial resistance needs urgent attention

Ever since the pandemic struck, concerns have been raised about the improper use of antimicrobials amongst Covid-19 patients. The worry is that unnecessary prescription of antimicrobials will lead to a further increase in the already high levels of drug resistance in most parts of the world. In the past few years, alarmingly high resistance rates in pathogens… Read More Kamini Walia: The growing scourge of anti-microbial resistance needs urgent attention

Rafael Behr: The age of levity is over. The Russia-Ukraine war will shake politics into a new sobriety / Owen Jones: Putin’s aggression makes clear the case for an anti-war movement

Western conviction that this is not supposed to happen in Europe any more has not stopped it happening. The shock is producing dramatic policy changes across the continent.    The past has invaded the present. Russia’s military aggression has burst over Ukraine like a storm cloud gathered from a different, darker time. It is raining terror… Read More Rafael Behr: The age of levity is over. The Russia-Ukraine war will shake politics into a new sobriety / Owen Jones: Putin’s aggression makes clear the case for an anti-war movement

More rights defenders murdered in 2021, with 138 activists killed just in Colombia

A Colombian conservationist who saved a rare species of parrot from extinction, a young feminist activist in Afghanistan, and two poets in Myanmar who used words to protest against the military coup were among 358 human rights defenders murdered in 35 countries last year, analysis has found.  The environmentalist Gonzalo Cardona Molina, 55; Frozan Safi, a 29-year-old Afghan economics… Read More More rights defenders murdered in 2021, with 138 activists killed just in Colombia

Press Release: Commemorating Two Years of the Northeast Delhi Communal Riots

This February marks two years of the communal carnage that shook several localities of Northeast Delhi. To mark the carnage, and take forward the much-needed discourse on the lives of the victims, a group of concerned citizens and organisations – comprising National Federation of Indian Women (NIFW), All India Democratic Women’s Association (AIDWA), Constitutional Conduct… Read More Press Release: Commemorating Two Years of the Northeast Delhi Communal Riots

Nesrine Malik: Let the horror in Ukraine open our eyes to the suffering of war around the world

Too many frame the invasion as an attack on ‘civilisation’, uniquely awful because it happened in Europe. That approach demeans us all    Vladimir Putin’s bloody invasion of Ukraine has sharpened two terrifying realisations. The first is that Putin does not function within the realm of the usual finely balanced checks and balances, sticks and carrots,… Read More Nesrine Malik: Let the horror in Ukraine open our eyes to the suffering of war around the world

Sergey Faldin: Putin is digging his own grave in Ukraine / Berlin stands up against Putin at huge anti-war rally / Indian Student Killed In Shelling In Kharkiv

The reason you don’t see a revolution happening in Moscow is not that people don’t care about what’s happening in Ukraine. On the contrary, my social media feed is filled with posts from Russians opposing the war. “What happened?” they say. “How did we get to this? This is madness!” People are saying they feel guilty… Read More Sergey Faldin: Putin is digging his own grave in Ukraine / Berlin stands up against Putin at huge anti-war rally / Indian Student Killed In Shelling In Kharkiv

IPCC issues ‘bleakest warning yet’ on impacts of climate breakdown

Climate breakdown is accelerating rapidly, many of the impacts will be more severe than predicted and there is only a narrow chance left of avoiding its worst ravages, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has said. Even at current levels, human actions in heating the climate are causing dangerous and widespread disruption, threatening devastation to swathes… Read More IPCC issues ‘bleakest warning yet’ on impacts of climate breakdown

Shyam Saran: Russia’s friends are finding it harder to look the other way / Chinese historians speak out against Russian invasion

Ukraine is enveloped in the inevitable fog of war and it is difficult to assess whether Russian forces are on the threshold of overwhelming the much less capable Ukrainian forces. Vladimir Putin’s calculations – that the shock and awe of the Russian invasion would lead to the collapse of the Ukrainian government and surrender of… Read More Shyam Saran: Russia’s friends are finding it harder to look the other way / Chinese historians speak out against Russian invasion