Category: Uncategorized

by KAMRAN ASDAR ALI

A person of immense courage, resilience, simplicity and sacrifice, this communist leader is a beacon in the movement for women’s rights in India.

I sometimes feel that when future generations remember all of you, will they ever think of Alys (Faiz Ahmad Faiz’ wife) or me. We have always walked with you, although you were a step ahead of us. Sometimes you would look back to perhaps make sure that we were still there, following behind you. And we would reassuringly smile back although our hearts would cry out in pain.

– Excerpt from a letter by Razia Sajjad Zaheer, wife of Sajjad Zaheer, to Faiz Ahmad Faiz in June 1951 when Faiz and Zaheer had been imprisoned in the Rawalpindi conspiracy case. Current Time 0:00/Duration 2:04

In the opening pages of her novel, Aakhir e Shab ke Humsafar, the writer Qurratulain Hyder depicts a scene in a crumbling old house in the early 1940s in the old city of Dhaka where the protagonist (a young Bengali Muslim woman, Deepali) and her Christian friend (Rosie Banerjee) are welcomed by a young man called Mahmood ul Haque. In the conversation that follows, Rosie (a reverend’s daughter), is shown as possessing progressive ideals yet holds biases regarding Muslims; she thought of them as fanatics, toadies of the British and womanisers, not always in that order. So, while speaking to the mostly young Muslim men in this gathering Rosie is surprised to notice that many among them had Left leaning political views.  

A back and forth ensues while Rosie’s hosts share a list of names of Muslim revolutionaries and radicals in India and elsewhere, like the Indian student Mirza Abbas who had been taught how to make bombs by the Russians, and of the great Indian revolutionary who died penniless in the US, Maulana Barkatullah. The Muhajareen, which included people like Shaukat Usmani, Fazal Ilahi Qurban and Ferozzuddin Mansoor, who had traveled to the Soviet Union in the early 1920s to study at the University of Eastern Toilers, were mentioned. Finally, Dada Amir Haider’s (the seaman/lashkar who became the member of the communist party in the US) name was added. 

The Wire for more

by FAYE BRADLEY

Before sunrise in Dien Phuong, Vietnam, clay artists set up their workbenches beneath swaying bamboo by the Thu?Bon River, shaping ceramic works to the sound of birdsong. Each October, when the river swells with rainwater, workers pause, move their tools and wares away, and only return once the waters recede.

Inspired by the rhythm of the rainy season, Vietnamese architecture firm Tropical Space opened a flood-resistant studio for local artist Le Huc Da, dubbed Terra Cotta Studio, in 2016. Each year, the monsoon waters consume the lower reaches of the striking cube-shaped structure — but rather than sweeping it away, the rising tide flows gently through its perforated brick walls. The studio’s lattice-brick design also harnesses airflow and shade to withstand central Vietnam’s unforgiving climate.

In 2023, the architects expanded the project with Terra Cotta Workshop, a neighboring facility featuring studio space for other local artists, as well as a large kiln and visitor center. Inside, artisans store their work on 6.5-foot?high platforms, above the highest flood levels seen in the village this century. The workshops’ electric wiring was installed three feet above the ground, and equipment can be moved safely to high shelves during monsoons.

“We did not design the structure to resist or oppose the water,” Tropical Space’s co-founder, Nguyen Hai Long, said of the original studio building in an email interview. “Instead, it stands there and quietly observes the rise and fall of the river.”

Nguyen is part of a new generation of architects in the country, turning to local materials and time-honored building techniques — not only the distinctive brickwork but also stilted foundations and floating bamboo platforms — as enduring tools of climate resilience. He said the designs of Terra Cotta Studio and Workshop were influenced by the region’s traditional merchants’ houses, which often survived seasonal floods thanks to their perforated walls.

CNN for more

by ANURADHA BHASIN

A writer whose own book has been banned speculates on the reasons and on the serious repercussions of this move.

Someone in Jammu and Kashmir’s home department must have spent months reading books on Kashmir before singling out 25 that could be banned and forfeited under Section 98 of the Bhartiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita. If that exercise was truly carried out, the person may be the most well-read in the region’s bureaucracy. 

A government notification announcing a ban on the books claims that “available evidence based on investigations and credible intelligence unflinchingly indicate that a significant driver behind youth participation in violence and terrorism has been the systematic dissemination of false narratives and secessionist literature, often disguised as historical or political commentary, while playing a critical role in misguiding the youth, glorifying terrorism and inciting violence against Indian State.”

It argues that such materials “would deeply impact the psyche of youth by promoting culture of grievance, victim hood and terrorist heroism.”

What were the investigations based on? No evidence of the link between violence and the now banned books, one of them authored by me – A Dismantled State: The Untold Story of Kashmir After 370 – has been provided. What are the objectionable passages and words they found? They are either lost in obscurity or are some closely guarded secret. 

What evidence they found of the written word and terrorism or violence?

Did the ‘misguided’ youth tell them during interrogation that first they dug into such books before they picked up a gun or resorted to violence?

Or did someone in the home department or a committee of people turned into voracious reader(s) and deciphered the secret codes in the texts that preached secession, terrorism and violence? 

But more important, did anyone in the Jammu and Kashmir administration actually read any of the books, now declared as “propagating false narrative and secession”? If they had read, they would have been enriched with some intellectual depth, not the desire to heavy-handedly crackdown on knowledge and information that these books provide. At least, they would have known that some of these books are not available in India except in their exorbitantly priced foreign editions.

So, was it a typical case of an ill-thought bureaucratic decision based on mere whims and imagination where books were randomly and selectively picked up, based perhaps on a random open AI search or the advice of some ‘unpadh salahkar’ (illiterate adviser)? 

The Wire for more

DEMOCRCAY NOW

In a major victory for environmental advocates, chemical giant DuPont and its related companies have agreed to pay $2 billion to clean up four industrial sites in New Jersey that are contaminated with “forever chemicals,” or PFAS, which have been found to persist in everything from rainwater to human breast milk. It is the third such settlement New Jersey has reached in less than three years, and marks a growing movement against the widespread use of PFAS, a class of chemicals still used to produce countless industrial and consumer goods, even though they have been linked to cancer and birth defects for over half a century. For more, we’re joined by investigative journalist Mariah Blake, the author of a new book on PFAS and the fight against them, to discuss the history of the pervasive toxins and the dangers they pose to human health.

Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman.

Officials in New Jersey have won what they say is the largest environmental settlement ever achieved by a single state, when chemical giant DuPont and its affiliates agreed to pay $2 billion to clean up four industrial sites contaminated with forever chemicals, or PFAS, which are widely used in industrial and consumer products, even though they’re linked to cancer and birth defects. It’s the third PFAS-related settlement New Jersey has reached in less than three years.

This is Maya van Rossum of the Delaware Riverkeeper Network, which is part of the litigation.

MAYA VAN ROSSUM: We have PFAS contamination of the fish that live in the Delaware River. It’s so insidious. And, of course, PFAS, PFOA, various members of this man-made family of chemicals, is literally in the bodies of people in New Jersey and nationwide, having devastating health consequences. … I think that this case really is going to send a message loud and clear that’s going to reverberate across the nation.

AMY GOODMAN: Studies show how PFAS contamination is now so ubiquitous that forever chemicals have been found in rainwater and the blood of almost all humans. This comes as the Trump administration has shuttered the Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Research and Development, which helped test for PFAS.

And we’re going to talk about just what PFAS are with our next guest, Mariah Blake, investigative journalist and author of the new book, They Poisoned the World: Life and Death in the Age of Forever Chemicals. It’s on Ralph Nader’s list of books to read this summer. Her guest essay for The New York Times is headlined “This Is How to Win an Environmental Fight: Meet the Unlikely Warriors on the Front Lines of a Major Environmental Battle.” In her book, Mariah Blake reveals how the U.S. government’s top-secret Manhattan Project, that developed the atomic bomb that was dropped 80 years ago this week on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, was also responsible for the development of PFAS.

A lot to go through here. Mariah, welcome back to Democracy Now! First, start off by telling us what PFAS — P-F-A-S — are, and then talk about the victory in New Jersey. And then we’ll talk about this historic week, 80th anniversary of the dropping of the bombs on Japan, and how that links to PFAS. Start with what they are.

MARIAH BLAKE: OK. So, PFAS, also known as forever chemicals, are a large family of substances that have some pretty remarkable properties. They’re extremely resistant to heat, stains, water, grease, electrical currents. They stand up to chemicals that are so corrosive they burn through most other materials. And this has made them extremely useful. So, they helped usher in the aerospace travel and high-speed computing. They’ve transformed thousands of everyday items, from cookware to dental floss to kitty litter.

Democracy Now for more

by JACK MENG-TAT CHIA

China and India locked in a not-so-holy geopolitical competition for Buddhism’s diplomatic high ground

In an era of geopolitical uncertainty, punctuated by trade wars, rising costs, and fractured alliances, diplomacy is increasingly being conducted not just in boardrooms and embassies but in temples and pilgrimage sites.

From May to June this year, India loaned sacred relics of the Buddha to Vietnam for a historic multi-city exposition. Drawing nearly 15 million devotees, the event underscored not only the enduring appeal of Buddhist piety but also religion’s growing role in diplomacy.

A year earlier, India had loaned similar relics to Thailand to mark Makha Bucha Day and King Vajiralongkorn’s birthday, reflecting a growing pattern of religious soft power.

China has also embraced Buddhist diplomacy to advance its foreign policy objectives and shape cultural narratives. In December last year, it sent the Buddha’s tooth relic from Beijing’s Lingguang Temple on a high-profile loan to Thailand, an event that was widely promoted and attended by Thai elites.

Beijing has also asserted its authority over Tibetan Buddhism by claiming the right to determine the Dalai Lama’s reincarnation. While religious in form, these actions reflect a deeper geopolitical strategy: the use of Buddhism in foreign policy.

Buddhist diplomacy is not a new phenomenon. Monarchs across Asia historically used Buddhist relics, texts and emissaries to assert legitimacy and affirm alliances. Today, this practice is experiencing a revival across the Asia-Pacific, which is home to nearly half a billion Buddhists.

Governments are rediscovering Buddhism as a vehicle for cultural diplomacy, narrative-building and strategic influence. While this opens new avenues for connection and cooperation, it also carries risks, especially when spiritual traditions are co-opted for political purposes or become entangled in geopolitical rivalries.

India, China and the contest for influence

India and China are the most prominent actors in this resurgence, both drawing on their Buddhist heritage to shape regional and global perceptions, often in subtle rivalry.

Under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, India has positioned itself as the Buddha’s homeland and invested in initiatives such as the “Buddhist Circuit” and relic loans to strengthen ties with Buddhist-majority nations.

Asia Times for more

by MAWADDA ISKANDAR

Abu Dhabi’s global mercenary network deploys foreign fighters to crush dissent, pursue expansionist ambitions, and support Israel’s regional geopolitical agenda.

Fleeing its notorious record and mounting international legal scrutiny, Blackwater, the world’s most infamous private military company, found safe harbor in the Persian Gulf. There, the UAE opened its coffers, welcoming the mercenary firm with open arms. A new empire was forged on a brutal foundation: safeguarding monarchies and executing foreign agendas in exchange for cash, immunity, and impunity.

In 2009, Blackwater rebranded as Xe Services LLC after a string of war crimes in Iraq, notably the Nisour Square massacre in Baghdad two years earlier. The cosmetic change masked a continuity of purpose, which is circumventing international law and orchestrating illicit operations from the shadows.

Founder Erik Prince officially stepped down but relocated to the UAE in 2010, where he launched Reflex Responses (also known as R2) and retained a 51 percent stake, ushering in a new era of industrial-scale mercenary recruitment.

City of Mercenaries

By 2011, the outlines of a covert UAE mercenary army had emerged, tasked with exerting influence across West Asia and Africa. This was no accident as Blackwater played a central role, with then-Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed (MbZ) serving as one of its chief patrons.

A host of enabling conditions made the project viable. Abu Dhabi had become a haven for fugitives and illicit finance. South America’s Colombia became the recruitment bedrock through an agreement to build a mercenary force led by former FBI agent Ricky Chambers, a close Prince ally. These mercenaries received the “Rincón” designation, granting them immunity from prosecution under the UAE’s military intelligence apparatus.

In May 2011, the New York Times (NYT) exposed details of 800 men who entered the Persian Gulf state disguised as construction workers but were swiftly transferred to Zayed Military City via a Prince-run company, forming part of a $500-million deal. By July 2017, LobeLog reported hundreds of foreign fighters had been deployed to Yemen, including 450 Latin Americans from nations like Panama, El Salvador, and Chile.

By 2022, the Washington Post revealed that over 500 retired US military personnel had been hired as contractors by Persian Gulf states, including the UAE, for salaries up to $300,000 per year. Colombian fighters continued to arrive via GSSG and A4S International, then were dispatched to frontlines across West Asia.

From internal repression to regional conquest

The UAE’s first contract with Blackwater in 2010 focused on protecting the sheikhdom. MbZ, skeptical of his own army’s loyalty, brought in foreign officers to secure palaces, oil infrastructure, and suppress dissent. These mercenaries tortured political detainees, maintained weapons systems, and served as a Praetorian Guard for the Emirati elite.

The Cradle for more

by AJAMU BARAKA

Poverty is an artificial creation. Join political activist and Black Agenda Report’s contributing editor Ajamu Baraka and members of the Communist Party Marxist-Kenya on a trip to Kibera, Africa’s largest slum. It is symptomatic of a larger issue because, despite Nairobi being the wealthiest county in Kenya, contributing 27% of the country’s GDP, 60% of its 5 million residents live in squalor across 200 slums. Successive governments since independence have done little to change the status quo, leaving the people to predatory organizations that, at best, provide a band-aid to a gaping wound, or at worst, serve to depoliticize the masses.

Black Agenda Report & North-South Project for People(s)-Centered Human Rights have come together to re-release African Stream’s Mini-Doc: “Inequality in Kenya: View from Kibera,” which can be seen on the Black Agenda Report YouTube Channel.

Re-Release Premiere
August 28th • 7PM EST
August 29th • 10AM EST

Black Agenda Report for more

by JACKLIN KWAN

A survey of Scientific American’s century of quantum coverage helps explain the enduring popularity of strange physics

This year is the International Year of Quantum Science and Technology, according to UNESCO, marking 100 years since quantum mechanics was proposed. The theory hardly needed the extra publicity, though.

Look at any science magazine’s trending articles and there’s a good chance quantum stories will be among the top rankings. Cute animals aside, quantum physics might be science fans’ favorite cover story. But why?

I’m a science journalist with a physics degree, and this question fascinates me. It’s not obvious why the public is so enraptured with quantum physics, a field that is notoriously difficult to explain and even more challenging to connect to everyday experience. Yet what I call the “quantum fixation” has prevailed almost since the theory originated.

I had the opportunity to research the perennial popularity of quantum physics for my master’s dissertation in science communication, and I chose to dive into the archives of Scientific American in search of an answer. As the U.S.’s oldest continually published magazine—180 years now—it is one of the few publications old enough to have witnessed the birth of the quantum age and has helped introduce it to the public.

Over the course of a few months, I searched the archives for articles with any mention of the word quantum in the past 100 years of print coverage. In analyzing who wrote these articles, what they chose to write about and how they conveyed the often-confusing quantum world to general readers, I hoped to discover what the public found so compelling about quantum physics.

It turns out that what draws us to quantum physics are the same things its founders found repulsive about it.

Quantum Beginnings

You have to feel sorry for quantum mechanics sometimes. The scientists that founded it were among its harshest critics. In 1905 Albert Einstein first popularized the word quanta (derived from the Latin term for “how much”) to describe light as composed of discrete packets or bundles of energy known as photons.

Scientific American for more

by MOHAMED EL MOKHTAR

The Palestine Chronicle is not a militant organization. It is a modest, independent publication, sustained by small donations and animated by a singular mission: to bear witness. It tells the untold stories of Palestine, documenting dispossession, resistance, and the endurance of a people condemned to silence. In a media landscape dominated by powerful conglomerates repeating the language of governments, the Chronicle insists on a journalism of proximity — grounded in daily lives, in the rubble of Gaza, in voices otherwise erased. Its true offense, in the eyes of its detractors, is not invention but truth.

At the heart of this endeavor stands Ramzy Baroud. His career is the antithesis of clandestine. For decades he has written, taught, and spoken in public, producing books translated into multiple languages, contributing columns to international publications, addressing audiences in universities and public forums across continents. He is not a shadowy figure; he is a man whose work has been consistent, transparent, and intellectually rigorous. His life is not untouched by the tragedy he describes: many members of his family were killed under Israeli bombardments. Yet while mainstream media rushed to amplify unproven allegations against him, they remained deaf to his personal grief. His tragedy was ignored, his integrity overlooked, his voice distorted — because his engagement is unbearable to those who would prefer silence.

A Crime of Conscience, Not of Law

He is an engaged journalist in the noblest sense: independent, lucid, unflinching. His so-called crime is not collusion with violence but fidelity to memory. That is why he is demonized — not for what he has done in law, but for what he represents in conscience. America, unable to silence Palestinian voices through censorship alone, now instrumentalizes its justice system to achieve by indictment what it failed to achieve by argument. Having harassed universities, intimidated students, and punished professors for their solidarity with Gaza, it turns the courtroom into a new battlefield. And Congress, captive to the whims of its Zionist masters, joins the manhunt, targeting a journalist for the sole offense of telling the truth of his people. As for the mainstream press, it chooses cowardice: ignoring his family’s suffering, ignoring the emptiness of the charges, while echoing the accusations of power as if they were evidence.

Law Twisted into Weapon

The complaint filed against Ramzy Baroud and the organization (People Media Project) that runs the Palestine Chronicle rests on the Alien Tort Statute, grotesquely overstretched to criminalize editorial decisions rather than acts of war. It alleges that by publishing articles from Abdallah Aljamal — described by Israel as a Hamas operative killed during a hostage rescue — the Chronicle “aided and abetted” terrorism. But here lies the first fissure: this characterization of Aljamal comes exclusively from Israeli military sources, themselves a belligerent party. It has never been independently verified. The claim that he was both a journalist and a Hamas operative remains an allegation, not an established fact. To treat it as judicial evidence is to replace proof with propaganda.

Free Press for more

by LUKE KEMP

Societal downfalls loom large in history and popular culture but, for the 99 per cent, collapse often had its upsides

No one walks among the wild goats and darting snakes of the mountain, its steppe where grew the succulent plants grew nothing but the reed of tears … Akkad is destroyed!

This lament is from the ‘Curse of Akkad’, a poem written about the fall of the Akkadian Empire, which reigned more than 4,000 years ago in the Near East. Yet it’s more myth than reality: despite the tragic language about a destroyed city, the capital of Akkad did not disappear. It was still occupied and, later, new kings took over its rule: the Third Dynasty of Ur. That empire fell too, eventually, and is also remembered through literature written years after its demise: ‘The malicious storm which swept over the Land, the storm which destroyed cities, the storm which destroyed houses … the storm which cut off all that is good from the Land.’ This natural disaster was apparently caused by Enlil, the god of the winds. Yet there’s no archaeological evidence for this.

In fact, as far as we can tell, life continued normally for citizens of Akkad and Ur. As the archaeologist Guy Middleton points out in Understanding Collapse (2017), the empires may have died, but the average person might not have even noticed.

Until recently, many archaeologists focused on revealing the cultural glories and dynastic power of such civilisations. The Akkadians left us cuneiform records (writing inscribed with reeds onto clay) and staggering ziggurats (massive, terraced, flat-topped temples). And Ur-Namma, the first king of the Third Dynasty of Ur, left us the earliest known legal code. This means that popular perceptions of many past empires, such as Rome or the Qin, focus on their great artwork and monumental achievements, such as the Colosseum or the Great Wall of China.

In recent years, many archaeologists and historians have taken a different approach, asking: what was it like as an ordinary person to live through these imperial collapses? You may assume that a collapse in the imperial superstructure meant that people went hungry and homeless, and that is certainly the picture in the poems of lamentation and sorrow. But the physical evidence of people’s health, for instance, shows something very different.

Aeon for more