A survivor of the 1988 massacre says he is ready to testify before the UN about the role of Iran’s leaders in the extrajudicial killings I was only 17 in the autumn of 1981 when I was arrested in Tehran for supporting and selling the publication of the People’s Mujahedin of Iran (MEK), a… Read More Mostafa Naderi: Iran’s leaders ‘are responsible’ for executing 30,000 political prisoners
The second wave of Covid-19 ravaged India as hospitals and then crematoriums ran out of space. Families struggled to find beds, oxygen or even medicines to save their loved ones. While cities were first hit, the second wave soon reached rural parts of the country. Hundreds died due to poor or no access to good healthcare. Most… Read More Coronavirus: The 'unknown' Covid-19 deaths in rural India
Earlier this year, opposition leader Alexey Navalny’s return to Russia provoked a political crisis and mass unsanctioned rallies. It seemed that Russia’s protest movement had reached a new level: a large number of new protesters, mass participation in cities and towns across the country, and, finally, new slogans, themes and emotions – all this pointed… Read More What’s new about Russia’s new protests?
Gag orders are expected to ensure a fair trial in high profile legal cases if the judge feels that the media narrative is pushing public opinion in favour of one party. But a gag order by the Executive is harder to justify. The government has threatened to withhold pensions of officers retiring from its security and intelligence… Read More Bharat Bhushan: Threat to withhold pensions: Govt attempts to gag criticism
NB: A student of mine, Sai Mukhesh recently sent me these philosophical considerations on science, truth and society. I replied with a few scarce observations (appended beneath his text) because his queries were too vast, and my knowledge too limited, for me to say much. Aside from the reminder that Freudian psycho-analysis must not be… Read More Science, society and related matters: an exchange
People often assume that the objectivity of science requires it to be isolated from governmental politics. However, scientists have always gotten involved in politics as advisers and through shaping public opinion. And science itself – how scientists are funded and how they choose their research priorities – is a political affair. The coronavirus pandemic showed both the benefits and risks of this relationship – from the controversies surrounding hydroxychloroquine to the efforts… Read More LIV GRJEBINE: Politicized science drove lunar exploration — but polarized scientific views are worse than ever
Art and science can seem two opposites on a spectrum. One is creative and interpretive, the other exact and empirical. But an emerging technology known as Pure Structural Colour — dubbed the “boldest, brightest color on Earth” in a new exhibition — shows how interplay between the two may be revolutionary for both. Panels of… Read More Eva Rothenberg: Why the 'brightest color on Earth' may also be the future of eco-conscious art
For most of last year, the idea that the coronavirus pandemic could have been triggered by a laboratory accident in Wuhan, China, was largely dismissed as a racist conspiracy theory of the alt-right. The Washington Post in early 2020 accused Senator Tom Cotton of “fanning the embers of a conspiracy theory that has been repeatedly debunked by experts.” CNN jumped in… Read More ROWAN JACOBSEN: How Amateur Sleuths Broke the Wuhan Lab Story and Embarrassed the Media
The razing of forests and hunting of wildlife is increasingly bringing animals and the microbes they harbour into contact with people and livestock. About 70% of new infectious diseases have come from animals, including Covid-19, Sars, bird flu, Ebola and HIV. However, preventing this root cause of spillover is scarcely mentioned by leaders and authorities,… Read More World leaders ‘ignoring’ role of destruction of nature in causing pandemics // World’s soils ‘under great pressure’, says UN pollution report
Pro-democracy activist Chow Hang Tung has been arrested by Hong Kong police on the 32nd anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown. Ms Chow is vice chairwoman of the Hong Kong Alliance which organises : annual vigils for victims of Beijing’s deadly crackdown on democracy protesters. She has been arrested for promoting unauthorised assembly. It comes… Read More Tiananmen: Hong Kong vigil organiser arrested on 32nd anniversary // Louisa Lim: By banning Tiananmen vigils in Hong Kong, China is trying to rewrite history
After the truth-shower 