Irina Rakobolskaya Member of the all-female Guards Night Bomber Aviation Regiment of the Red Army, dies at 96. RIP comrade

Irina Vyacheslavovna Rakobolskaya, physicist and second world war veteran, born 22 December 1919; died 22 September 2016 First posted October 17, 2016 Major Irina Rakobolskaya in the early 1940s During the second world war, Irina Rakobolskaya, who has died aged 96, was a member of the all-female Guards Night Bomber Aviation Regiment of the Red Army that… Read More Irina Rakobolskaya Member of the all-female Guards Night Bomber Aviation Regiment of the Red Army, dies at 96. RIP comrade

Noor Inayat Khan (1914-1944). Shrabani Basu on the spy who saved Europe

On Jan. 16, 1946, the French posthumously awarded Noor the Croix de Guerre, the highest civilian honor. Three years later, England awarded her the George Cross… In France, Noor is remembered as Madeleine, a heroine of the Resistance. There is a plaque outside her family home in Suresnes and a band plays outside her house… Read More Noor Inayat Khan (1914-1944). Shrabani Basu on the spy who saved Europe

Rare colour photographs from London in World War Two / The Second World War in Colour – in pictures

First posted July 2015 The blitz: rare colour photographs – in pictures As the 75th anniversary of the blitz – Germany’s sustained bombing campaign of the UK in the second world war – approaches, these beautiful and striking pictures show the famous bombsites, the tin helmets, the victory rolls and the carry-on spirit http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2015/jul/10/the-blitz-rare-colour-photographs-in-pictures Battle… Read More Rare colour photographs from London in World War Two / The Second World War in Colour – in pictures

Arun Shourie on Savarkar, Hindutva and polarisation in India | BBC News India

Arun Shourie on Savarkar, Hindutva and polarisation in India | BBC News India Arun Shourie, journalist, author, economist and former federal minister, speaks to the BBC’s Jugal Purohit about his new book ‘The New Icon: Savarkar and the Facts. Shourie revisits the controversial legacy of Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, his ideological opposition to Mahatma Gandhi, and… Read More Arun Shourie on Savarkar, Hindutva and polarisation in India | BBC News India

No Alternative?

Both Perestroika and Thatcherism, then, meant scaling back economic and social security to drive efficiency gains and shift labor and capital from declining to rising industries. If this similarity between East and West is unsettling to readers today, it is nonetheless one that, as Bartel’s archival work demonstrates, was recognized behind closed doors at the… Read More No Alternative?

American Freefall

It was never about eliminating antisemitism. It was always about silencing Palestine By Patrick Lawrence / Consortium News Some people worth citing this week. They speak of different matters, but when we put all their apples and oranges into a basket we discover they belong together, their bright colors confronting us with a challenge: It is… Read More American Freefall

Arab Failures: The Unspoken Complicity in Israel’s Genocide

Dr Ramzy Baroud Explaining Arab political failure to challenge Israel through traditional analysis—such as disunity, general weakness, and a failure to prioritize Palestine—does not capture the full picture. The idea that Israel is brutalizing Palestinians simply because the Arabs are too weak to challenge the Benjamin Netanyahu government—or any government—implies that, in theory, Arab regimes… Read More Arab Failures: The Unspoken Complicity in Israel’s Genocide

Just like McCarthy, Trump spreads fear everywhere before picking off his targets

Kenan Malik ‘Gold, mister, is worth what it is because of the human labor that goes into the finding and getting of it.” It’s a line spoken by Walter Huston in the 1948 film The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, a story about greed and moral corruption directed by his son, John Huston. That line was to have… Read More Just like McCarthy, Trump spreads fear everywhere before picking off his targets