Protests erupt across China in unprecedented challenge to Xi Jinping’s zero-Covid policy

CNN’s Beijing bureau Protests are erupting across China, including at universities and in Shanghai where hundreds chanted “Step down, Xi Jinping! Step down, Communist Party!”, in an unprecedented show of defiance against the country’s stringent and increasingly costly zero-Covid policy. A deadly fire at an apartment block in the country’s far western region of Xinjiang that… Read More Protests erupt across China in unprecedented challenge to Xi Jinping’s zero-Covid policy

Accounts by J&K Pandits rip BJP’s Valley veneer

Muzaffar Raina    A public interaction between BJP leaders and Kashmiri Pandit and Dalit employees from Jammu who have left the Valley following a spate in targeted killings turned into an embarrassment for the party, with the participants’ accounts shredding its all-is-well line in Kashmir. Speaker after speaker at Thursday’s live-streamed meeting in Jammu described how the… Read More Accounts by J&K Pandits rip BJP’s Valley veneer

Martin Luther King on Mahatma Gandhi: “My Pilgrimage to Nonviolence”, September 1958

First posted June 15, 2020 NB: Since the Black Lives Matter movement, some intellectuals have begun (yet again) their campaign to slander Gandhiji as a ‘racist’. An interview published in The Caravan in January 2019 reiterated this. Much can be said about the prejudices of various leaders, and I have appended some comments beneath that interview. Leaving India… Read More Martin Luther King on Mahatma Gandhi: “My Pilgrimage to Nonviolence”, September 1958

Iranian protesters set fire to Ayatollah Khomeini’s ancestral home

Protesters in Iran have set on fire the ancestral home of the Islamic republic’s founder Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini as two months of anti-regime demonstrations show no let up. The house in the city of Khomein in the western Markazi province was shown ablaze late on Thursday with crowds of jubilant protesters marching past, according to images… Read More Iranian protesters set fire to Ayatollah Khomeini’s ancestral home

Iranian protesters chant anti-regime slogans at boy’s funeral

Protesters at the funeral of a young boy whose family say was killed by Iranian security forces have chanted anti-regime slogans and ridiculed the official account of his death. Hundreds of mourners flocked to the city of Izeh in south-western Iran for the funeral of Kian Pirfalak, according to footage posted online. His mother said at the funeral ceremony… Read More Iranian protesters chant anti-regime slogans at boy’s funeral

It could have been worse

George Blecher The red tide never surged but the re-election of numerous brazen careerists and hardline crazies is bad news for the next two years and beyond, particularly since the Democrats have little idea about how to oppose this new breed of politician. ‘It could have been worse.’ That was the prevailing sentiment among left-liberal… Read More It could have been worse

Rahul Gandhi’s Uniting India March: Ignored by media but welcomed by social groups

The Bharat Jodo Yatra, or the United India March, launched by the Indian National Congress under the leadership of Rahul Gandhi, is getting a tremendous response. It is as if the people were waiting for such an event to reaffirm their trust and faith in the composite Indian nationalism. Indian nationalism has been undermined during… Read More Rahul Gandhi’s Uniting India March: Ignored by media but welcomed by social groups

Rapper who protested over death of Mahsa Amini faces execution in Iran

NB: Apes of Satan speak as representatives of God. The Ayatollahs’ regime is brutal and shameless. Global protests are needed to save the life of this young man and thousands like him. DS According to the UN, an estimated 14,000 people, including children, have been detained by the regime since the protests began more than… Read More Rapper who protested over death of Mahsa Amini faces execution in Iran

To those who sneer at activists blocking roads: what are you doing to save the planet?

Polly Toynbee NB: The planet needs no saving, Ms Polly, it’s not in danger. Its the environment that we need to save, from ourselves. DS Just Stop Oil protesters this week are climbing gantries on the M25, blocking the Dartford tunnel, causing long delays and getting arrested in droves. Meanwhile the public order bill that would crack down… Read More To those who sneer at activists blocking roads: what are you doing to save the planet?