Will the world be significantly better or different if Bill Gates steps down from the foundation, and Melinda takes the reins of this deeply undemocratic, totally unaccountable, aggressively nontransparent political organization – one that zealously solicits accolades for the miserly sums of money it donates at a glacially slow pace? Or if another “good billionaire”… Read More Tim Schwab: The Fall of the House of Gates?
One of Adolf Hitler’s most cherished dreams was to build the largest monument ever created. With the guidance of “the chief architect of the Reich” Albert Speer, he planned to remake Berlin around what he saw as the future core of the Germanic empire: the People’s Hall (Volkshalle), a dome that was to be 290… Read More Gastón Gordillo: Nazi Architecture As Affective Weapon
DISASTERS TAKE OUR BREATH AWAY. When we are shocked by wonder or horror, our fingers shoot over our mouths as if to stop breath from falling out. When we say, Oh my god, you won the lottery, or an Oscar, or the neighborhood watch found your cat, or someone you admire is accused of something terrible,… Read More TISHANI DOSHI: Out of Breath
What started as a tax reform proposal to help ease the strain of the pandemic on the economy and balance government finances ended with people taking to the streets to express their discontent. Large-scale protests in Colombia are now in their third week, and prosecutors have announced homicide charges after a national police officer was seen on… Read More Colombia's protest movement isn't going away
Dear Prime Minister, We, a group of former civil servants from the All India and Central Services, with a deep commitment to the Constitution of India and with no political affiliations, have written to you as well as other constitutional authorities on a number of occasions in the past, whenever we felt that executive actions violated… Read More Former Civil Servants Write to the PM: ‘Take Effective Action Now’ / The BJP Can Be Defeated but the RSS Project Remains
NASA astronaut Michael Collins, who stayed behind in the command module of Apollo 11 on July 20, 1969 while Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin travelled to the lunar surface to become the first humans to walk on the moon, passed away on Wednesday April 28, at age 90, his family said. Selected as part of NASA’s third… Read More In 1969 Michael Collins (1930-2021) Took This Photo of Every Single Human But Himself
An area greater than the land mass of Russia has been added to the world’s network of national parks and conservation areas since 2010, amid growing pressure to protect nature. As of today, about 17% of land and inland water ecosystems and 8% of marine areas are within formal protected areas, with the total coverage increasing… Read More Governments achieve target of protecting 17% of land globally
Hundreds of corpses have been found floating in the river or buried in the sand of its banks. Those who live close to where they have washed up, in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, fear they are Covid-19 victims. India has been overwhelmed by a devastating second wave of the pandemic in recent weeks.… Read More Geeta Pandey: India's holiest river Ganges is swollen with Covid victims
NB: The word ‘mistake’ is so ugly in the midst of corpses of children and piles of rubble. Led by the US, the western powers have an unofficial and flexible algebra for the numbers of Palestinian civilians killed, hospitals and schools in Gaza destroyed, before they call for a cease-fire. This is not a mistake… Read More Akbar S. Ahmed: Gaza Tests Biden Foreign Policy Team’s Promise To Learn From past Mistakes / Chomsky: Without US Aid, Israel Wouldn’t Be Killing Palestinians En Masse / Photo essay on the suffering of children
In the summer of 1988, the United States experienced the worst heat waves and droughts since the Dust Bowl. Ominous images of burning forests, withering fields and sweltering cities filled the American press and elicited nervous suspicion: was this the work of the so-called greenhouse effect? Had the danger of which some scientists warned already arrived?… Read More How oil capitalists conspired to spread climate change denialism — in 1988
After the truth-shower 