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On May 7, the AP headlined “House GOP backing off some Medicaid cuts as report shows millions of people would lose health care,” and reported:

House Republicans appear to be backing off some, but not all, of the steep reductions to the Medicaid program as part of their big tax breaks bill, as they run into resistance from more centrist GOP lawmakers opposed to ending nearly-free health care coverage for their constituents back home.

This is as a new report out Wednesday from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated that millions …

(Full article …)

Jenu Kuruba families begin their long-awaited re-occupation of their ancestral homes inside the Nagarhole National Park. They carried photos of loved ones who had died after the village was evicted, so they too can return to the forest. ©Sartaz Ali Barkat/ Survival

A group of Indigenous people who were evicted from their ancestral village in Nagarhole Tiger Reserve in south India 40 years ago have returned to their former homes.

It’s believed to be the first time Indigenous people in India have asserted their rights in this …

We are cultural sector employees, in solidarity with the Palestinian people. On March 8, 2025, we sent an open letter to the president of the National Library of France (BnF) and to the Minister of Culture regarding their silence in the face of both the destruction of heritage and the massacre of human lives in Gaza, thus raising questions about culturicide.

The BnF’s colonial bias was denounced, particularly in its cultural programming and in its collaborations with Israeli institutions.

To this day, as the genocide perpetrated by the colonial State of Israel continues, neither the BnF nor the ministry has responded.

Source: …

When the United States sent the B-29 Super fortress bomber, Enola Gay, to drop “Little Boy” on an unwary Hiroshima and usher in the nuclear age, its administration neglected to plan for a major concern; how to prevent nuclear proliferation. Granted, America could not deter the Soviet Union and China from developing nuclear capabilities and did not want British and French allies from feeling deprived. The word “deterrent” guided who could develop an arsenal of mass destruction. Nuclear weapon balance would deter aggression between nuclear equipped nations.

The nuclear powered nations, with the United States in the lead, had …

When people do understand science and do not practice requisite skepticism.

It is no surprise to the Black Alliance for Peace’s (BAP) Africa Team and U.S. Out of Africa Network (USOAN) that aggression is stepping up against the countries in the anti-imperialist Alliance of Sahel States. This was reflected in the flagrantly baseless accusations against Burkina Faso’s leader Ibrahim Traoré. On April 3, 2025, U.S. AFRICOM Commander Michael Langley testified to the Senate Armed Services Committee and claimed without evidence that interim President Traoré is misusing the country’s gold mineral wealth in exchange for protection. Langley provided no details on how these supposed exchanges are carried out or from …

Israel is very adept at drawing attention away from itself and onto other countries as it carries out its genocide of Palestinians in Gaza. In a recent incident, when the ‘Conscience’, an aid boat attempting to reach the starving people of Gaza, was hit by drones (likely fired by Israel) a mile out of Maltese international waters, all attention descended upon the Maltese authorities.

The vessel was flying the flag of the Pacific Island of Palau; however, prior to the drone hit, Palau withdrew the registration, leaving the crew vulnerable to accusations of being without official papers. Israel had also made …

Footnote content. The dust had barely settled on the Australian federal election on May 3 before the hagiographers, mythmakers and revisionists got to work. If history is seen as a set of agreed upon facts, there was a rapidly growing consensus that Labor’s imposing victory had been the result of a superb campaign, sparkling in its faultlessness.

This did not quite match pre-election remarks and assessments. The government of Anthony Albanese had been markedly unconvincing, marked by dithering, short sightedness and a lack of conviction. It had, rather inexplicably, made the conservative Coalition led by that cruel, simian looking automaton Peter …

On 2 May Foreign Affairs published an article, “Will China Escalate?: Despite Short-Term Stability, the Risk of Military Crisis Is Rising,” by Tong Zhao, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (CEIP).

There are many claims made in the article by Tony Zhao who seemingly looks at China, a 5000-year old Asian civilization, through a western lens (similar to the western-centric analysis made by John Mearsheimer).

Zhao asserts that Beijing views itself vis-à-vis the United States as in a “strategic stalemate.”

Comment: What exactly is …

U.S. Government talk of ending the war in Ukraine is in reality a plan to give U.S. political puppets in Europe a bigger role in continuing the war against Russia. Many countries in Europe are already turning to war economies and slashing social programs to their citizens to fund war preparations. This policy was clearly laid out in a speech by Secretary of Defense Hegseth.

The ceasefire established in the U.S.-Israeli genocidal war in Gaza has resulted in more war against Lebanon and U.S .attacks on Yemen with increasing threats of military …

Are you overwhelmed by Israel, Trump, starvation, drones, hypersonic monstrosities, doubling our ‘defense’ budget, reducing people to things, bloodlust? Did I mention ISRAEL?

I turn to sci fi when the world looks/ feels super bleak. Mickey7 is a 2022 science fiction novel by Edward Ashton with a sequel, Antimatter Blues, and a film adaptation, Mickey 17, directed by Bong Joon-ho. As with any really good novel-film, you should start with a nice hardback in a comfortable chair and launch yourself into the cosmos, let your imagination do the travelling. The many metaphors behind it are too savory to waste on …

In a major blow to the Paris ’15 climate agreement, last year witnessed one more nail in the coffin of the celebrated agreement to slow down CO2 emissions by 2030, as CO2, for the first time in modern history, enters the scientifically established danger zone. This agreement was/is meant to curtail global warming and hopefully save major ecosystems from collapse. But now, with too much noncompliance by countries and rapidly ascending CO2 emissions, Paris ’15 is at rest in a coffin awaiting an un-ceremonial burial.  Nobody wants to attend.

CO2 emissions went bonkers in 2024, up 3.75 ppm, a new all-time-record, …

So, Donald Trump’s heralded intervention to bring resolution to the Ukraine conflict has fallen flat. Rejected by Russia, by the EU states, by Kiev. An unprecedented trifecta of failed foreign policy. His contrived scheme designed to skirt the core issues and interests at stake was a ‘non-starter’ from Day One. That should have been obvious. There was no serious thinking in the White House that might produce a coherent diplomatic strategy. There manifestly was no understanding of Moscow’s position rooted in post-Cold history and events since the U.S. sponsored Maiden coup in 2014 – nor of the intransigence among the …

Predictably, the British establishment is vilifying lawyers trying to end the proscription of Hamas’ political as well as armed wing. The lawyers have good arguments. So why is no one listening?
This is the first time I have had to begin an opinion column with both a journalistic disclosure and a legal disclaimer. But hey ho, these are dystopian times we live in.

The disclosure: I was one of 20 people who contributed expert reports for a recent legal submission to the British home secretary, Yvette Cooper, calling on her to end the proscription of Hamas as a terrorist …

If they are, then just how superior are robots?