World News & Politics

CHUBUT RIVER, Argentina — “The waters of this territory converge in the Río Chubut,” began the refrain of a caravan traveling across Argentina’s Patagonia region in the budding first weeks of February. “And like the waters, so too will our voices flow together to be heard.” The group, made up of Indigenous Mapuche leaders, activists […]

Gen Z is exhibiting the competence, control, and commitment that it has been castigated, as a generation, for lacking.

Visual arts faculty, alumni, and staff are standing in solidarity with students as “art corners” and other creative initiatives dominate the encampments.

A new report alleges the U.N. has been complicit in the violent eviction of Indigenous people from six World Heritage Sites in Africa and Asia.

These sites “are very often the stolen ancestral lands of Indigenous peoples, who are being kept out by force, intimidation, and terror,” said Caroline Pearce, director of Survival International, the group behind the new report. She said that UNESCO, the scientific and cultural arm of the U.N., “must remove World Heritage Status from any such site where abuses are taking place.”
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A controversial bill reauthorizing the Section 702 spy program may force whole new categories of businesses to eavesdrop on the US government’s behalf, including on fellow Americans.

Manhattan, NY — Google employees organized a sit-in at the tech company’s Chelsea office in New York City and occupied the office of Google Cloud’s CEO Thomas Kurian in California on April 16, 2024. The demonstration aims to expose the internal unrest surrounding Google’s involvement in Project Nimbus, a cloud technology contract between the Israeli […]

The notoriously intelligence-friendly social media network appears to have imposed a ban on posting a recent report by Kit Klarenberg, and is automatically restricting users who re-publish his work.

Multiple Facebook users have reported being banned, or having their posts censored, after sharing an investigation by The Grayzone’s Kit Klarenberg into CIA and MI6 involvement in the creation of ISIS. Readers who post links to the piece on the social network find themselves frozen out of their accounts, on the […]

AI giant G42 is chaired by the powerful UAE royal Sheikh Tahnoon, backed by the UAE sovereign wealth fund and was heavily scrutinized over its ties to China.

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A national study published by JAMA Health Forum found that there was an abrupt surge in permanent sterilization procedures among young adults ages 18 through 30 after the Supreme Court’s Dobbs ruling, which reversed the constitutional right to an abortion.
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XZ Utils cyberattack likely not an isolated incident

The recent attempted XZ Utils backdoor (CVE-2024-3094) may not be an isolated incident as evidenced by a similar credible takeover attempt intercepted by the OpenJS Foundation, home to JavaScript projects used by billions of websites worldwide. The Open Source Security (OpenSSF) and OpenJS Foundations are calling all open source maintainers to be alert for social engineering takeover attempts, to recognize the early threat patterns emerging, and to take steps to protect their open source projects.

From Taiwan to South Korea to Silicon Valley, some of the most important nodes in the global tech economy are in disaster-prone places.

Congress has oversight over American weapons sales to allies. Some Democrats say lawmakers should try to delay or even block them until Israel agrees to conditions on its offensive in Gaza.

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The UN Human Rights Council passed its first ever resolution on Thursday 4 April over tackling discrimination against intersex people, despite opposition from several countries to the terminology used. The resolution passed in the 47-member council with 24 votes in favour, none against and 23 abstentions.

The philosopher explained, almost 300 years ago, why something like effective altruism was fatally flawed.

During college, Bankman-Fried met with one of the other “stars” of the E.A. movement, Oxford philosopher William MacAskill, co-founder of the Centre for Effective Altruism, who sold the future crypto magnate on an approach to giving called “earning to give” — that is, pursuing a large fortune in industry, only to give it away in ways that promote the greatest good.

But Rousseau’s most compelling insight was psychological. He understood that a paradox lay at the heart of the philosophy proposed by his fictional correspondent. Creating wealth required selfishness and avarice. Charity, by contrast, demanded generosity. Decades spent greedily chasing profits would render it nearly impossible to maintain one’s philanthropic impulses.

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Russia vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution yesterday that would have extended the mandate of a panel of experts monitoring U.N. sanctions on North Korea over its nuclear program. The mandate had been extended annually for 14 years. (AP)

Our Take
For the past decade, opposition to North Korea’s nuclear program was one of the last remaining consensus issues to survive growing geopolitical tensions between the West, on one side, and Russia and China, on the other. Of course, Moscow and especially Beijing have been accused of being lax when it comes to the enforcement of sanctions against Pyongyang. But both had at least paid lip service to the issue on the international stage.
Now, Russia’s veto has brought an end to even that, with Moscow accusing the West of seeking to “strangle” North Korea with the sanctions.

The main factor driving this shift is Russia’s growing security ties with North Korea. Amid the war in Ukraine, Pyongyang has reportedly sold millions of munitions, including short-range ballistic missiles, to Moscow, in violation of the U.N. sanctions. Now, although the sanctions remain in place, the lack of any watchdog to monitor them will make it much easier for Russia to continue and even expand these purchases.

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LONDON, March 25 (Reuters) - Global bank messaging network SWIFT is planning a new platform in the next one to two years to connect the wave of central bank digital currencies now in development to the existing finance system, it has told Reuters.

Around 90% of the world's central banks are now exploring digital versions of their currencies. Most don't want to be left behind by bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, but are grappling with technological complexities.

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https://archive.ph/kbc1X

President Xi Jinping met with a group of American business leaders in Beijing including Blackstone Inc.’s Stephen Schwarzman and Qualcomm Inc.’s Cristiano Amon as China is seeking to restore confidence in the economy and keep relations with the US on a stable footing. (...)

https://archive.is/kkjLF

Caribbean leaders are holding an emergency meeting in Jamaica today to discuss the crisis in Haiti, where armed groups are calling for the resignation of unelected Prime Minister Ariel Henry. Haiti is under a state of emergency, with tens of thousands displaced amid the fighting, and United Nations officials warn the country’s health system is nearing collapse. Ariel Henry was appointed prime minister after the 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moïse, but he is currently stranded outside the country after a trip to Kenya, where he was seeking a U.N.-backed security force to help him maintain power. For more, we speak with Haitian American scholar Jemima Pierre, who says the unrest in Haiti today can be traced to decisions made two decades ago by the United States and other outside powers. “The root of this crisis is not last week, it’s not this week, it’s not even Ariel Henry. But we have to go back to 2004 with the coup-d’état,” says Pierre. She adds that because successive security plans have been sanctioned by the United Nations Security Council, “the whole world is participating in the occupation of Haiti unwittingly.”

Israel has repeatedly attacked the occupied territories since the war in Gaza killing over 400 Palestinians, including over 100 children, and detaining nearly 8,000

Continuing with its unprovoked killing spree in the occupied territories, Israeli occupation forces killed at least six Palestinians, including three children, and injured several others at various places in the West Bank and Jerusalem between Tuesday evening and the morning of Wednesday, March 13.

Israeli forces stormed the yard of the Jenin government hospital and fired at a group of Palestinians who were standing there, killing at least two and injuring four others. The attack on the hospital was a part of a large-scale military raid on the city of Jenin on Wednesday.

Extremist Israeli politician and national security minister Itamar Ben Gvir supported the Israeli sniper who shot and killed al-Halhuli. Ben Gvir termed all Palestinians, including the three children killed in Jerusalem since Tuesday, as “terrorists” in various posts on X.
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Putin’s “partial mobilization” is continuing a brutal legacy of colonization – as well as resistance – among the country’s minority groups.

https://archive.is/bLRbQ

Soaring costs of food and housing forcing many to still rely on parents to cover expenses, as they risk retirement security

Nearly half of US parents provide some kind of financial support to their adult children, who are grappling with higher food and living costs than they did, a new study has found.

The study – conducted by Savings.com – found that young, working-class Americans were not substantially benefiting from the recovery of the country’s economy, as “evidenced by high employment, falling inflation, and economic growth”. That has forced many of them to continue to rely on their parents to help cover costs of living.
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archive.ph/ZPt30

On 11 and 12 January 2024 the International Court of Justice (ICJ) held public hearings on the request for the indication of provisional measures submitted by South Africa in the case concerning Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in the Gaza Strip (South Africa v. Israel). On 11 January, South Africa presented its case and on 12 January, Israel staged its defence.

As part of its defence, the Israeli team presented visual material, including maps, videos, images, and annotated diagrams. We have sourced the elements of evidence from the recording of the Israeli legal team’s presentation at the ICJ as found on the United Nations website.

We found eight instances where the Israeli legal team misrepresented the visual evidence they cited, through a combination of incorrect annotations and labelling, and misleading verbal descriptions. These instances are presented and explained in this report.

Our study also reveals that the Israeli legal team presented single instances of alleged Palestinian military use of civilian infrastructure as blanket justifications for the systematic and widespread attacks on civilians, shelters, schools, and hospitals.

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Opposition to the 2nd wave of mass mobilization in Russia has increased from 60% in December 2022 to approximately three-quarters. While historical narratives may resonate, the majority of Russians are now more concerned about their quality of life and economic stability.

One of Chotiner’s best interviews ran this past November. A leader of the militant West Bank settlement movement told him that Jews have a sacred duty to occupy all the land between “the Euphrates in the east and the Nile in the southwest,” that nothing west of the Jordan River was ever “Arab place or property,” and that no Arabs, even citizens, should have civil rights in Israel.

Even the most learned and thoughtful observers of Israel and Palestine miss a basic historic foundation of the crisis.

Chotiner asked, “So rights are not some sort of universal thing that every person has. They’re something that you can win or lose.” The settler answered, “That’s right.” He followed up: “When you see Palestinian children dying, what’s your emotional reaction as a human being?” She replied: “I go by a very basic human law of nature. My children are prior to the children of the enemy, period. They are first. My children are first.” Chotiner responded with incredulity: “We are talking about children. I don’t know if the law of nature is what we need to be looking at here.” The settler, nonplussed, repeated herself: “I say my children are first.”

I USE THE WORD “FASCIST” in the literal sense. Do not flinch from it. The founders of Revisionist Zionism certainly didn’t. Respect them enough to take them at their word.

In 1928, a prominent Revisionist named Abba Ahimeir published a series of articles entitled “From the Diary of a Fascist.” They refer to the founder of their movement, Ze’ev Jabotinsky (his adopted first name is Hebrew for “wolf”), as “il duce.” In 1935, his comrade Hen Merhavia wrote that Revisionists were doing what Mussolini did: “establish a nucleus of an exemplary life of morality and purity. Like us, the Italian fascists look back to their historical heritage. We seek to return to the kingdom of the House of David; they want to return to the glory of the Roman Empire.” They even opened a maritime academy in Italy, under Mussolini’s sponsorship, for the navy they hoped to build in their new Israeli state. “[T]he views and the political and social inclinations of the Revisionists,” an Italian magazine reported, “are absolutely in accordance with the fascist doctrine … as our students they will bring the Italian and fascist culture to Palestine.”
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About 2,000 North Korean workers dispatched to China’s Jilin Province started a riot in mid-January triggered by anger over unpaid wages, a North Korean source told The Yomiuri Shimbun.

According to the source, the first large-scale demonstration by North Korean workers also highlights the rebellious spirit of the country’s young, who are not content to live in slave-like conditions. Many former female soldiers in their 20s also participated in the riot, the source added.

The riot occurred at a clothing manufacturing and seafood processing factory in Helong, Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture, within the province. The factory is located in a development zone filled with factories and is near the Tumen River that flows along the China-North Korea border. (...)

https://archive.ph/j22zJ