NB: The veracity of this report is contested, because this may be part of a campaign promoted by opponents of Sheikh Hasina. There are indeed well-respected persons who seem to have assisted this expose. Readers can make their own assessment. DS An explosive investigation reveals how a criminal gang is colluding with the security forces… Read More Bangladesh: All the Prime Minister’s Men | Al Jazeera Investigations
Nearly two-thirds of Europeans would rather repair their products than buy new ones The French capital hosts a dozen of these so-called “repair cafes” – free, monthly initiatives that allow local residents to fix household objects and electronics with the help and advice of enthusiastic volunteers. Pioneered by journalist Martine Postma in Amsterdam in 2009,… Read More Peter Yeung: The country rejecting throwaway culture
The irony of this is lost on a government drowning in its testesterone: with every nail studded barricade installed at Tikri, Ghazipur or Singhu, Delhi is making itself progressively redundant to the ongoing course of events, and perhaps even to the future shape of things in India. A subterranean tsunami is slowly building in the… Read More Avay Shukla – ARE THE FARMERS MAKING DELHI IRRELEVANT ?
While Mary Wollstonecraft earned her place at the table for pioneering women in Judy Chicago’s art installation The Dinner Party (1974–9), she would not be everyone’s ideal guest. She has a reputation as an acerbic killjoy. She deemed novels to be the ‘spawn of idleness’. She did not embrace women in sisterhood but censured them for their… Read More Book review – Mary Wollstonecraft: Philosophy, Passion, and Politics
For two decades, the U.S. government has been engaging with faith leaders in Muslim communities at home and around the world in an attempt to stamp out extremism and prevent believers vulnerable to radicalization from going down a path that leads to violence. Now, after the dangerous QAnon conspiracy theory helped to motivate the insurrection… Read More Zack Stanton: Violent Christian Extremism in the USA
Navalny, who was sentenced to two years and eight months in prison earlier this week, said in a statement posted on his Instagram account that “iron doors slammed behind my back with a deafening sound, but I feel like a free man. Because I feel confident I’m right. Thanks to your support. Thanks to my… Read More Navalny urges Russians from jail to overcome their fear / Putin Resorts to Jailing Journalists for Retweeting Jokes
A lot of the blame for COVID-19’s “second wave” has been pointed at people not following safety guidelines put out by health experts and government officials. A new report however, says don’t blame people, blame the weather. Researchers from the University of Nicosia in Cyprus find hot weather and wind have a bigger impact on… Read More The weather has a bigger impact on COVID spread than social distancing, study concludes
This Is Not Propaganda is an exploration of the wreckage of liberal democracy and a search for the signs of its revival. What can save us? Reading, for a start. In Beijing, Pomeranstev meets Angela Wu, who researches emerging technology and cultural change at New York University. She travelled across China interviewing readers of a blogging site called… Read More Book review: Peter Pomerantsev's 'This Is Not Propaganda' is quietly frightening. By Steve Bloomfield
NB: 42,480 Indian farmers and daily-wage workers dependent on agriculture committed suicide in 2019; 28 Indians dependent on farming commit suicide every day (some estimates are much higher). About 300,000 famers had committed suicide by 2014; we can estimate how many more have killed themselves since then. There is also the suspicion the figures are higher… Read More Rihanna and Greta prompt an MEA outburst — and a hashtag firestorm
A Moscow court has sentenced Alexei Navalny to two years and eight months in a prison colony in a landmark decision for Vladimir Putin’s crackdown on the country’s leading opposition figure. The move triggered marches in Moscow and the arrest of more than 1,000 protesters. Navalny, who has accused the Russian president and his allies… Read More Alexei Navalny: 1,000 arrested after protests over jailing of Russian opposition leader
