by RAVI KANT

In a democracy, when the politicians thrive but the people don’t, what the system needs is not reform but rescue

When the Bharatiya Janata Party came to power in 2014, it rode a wave of discontent fueled by corruption scandals, inflation and unemployment. Narendra Modi promised a new era, one built on Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas (“Together with All, Development for All”). The promise was of governance, development and an end to “elite culture.”

A decade later, the record shows a more complex reality in which the slogan seems to have benefited the political class more than the people.

The Association for Democratic Reforms has released data showing that 93% of members elected in 2024 to the Lok Sabha, India’s lower house of parliament, are millionaires, each of whose millions of rupees in assets total more than $120,000 in US dollars. 

India’s democracy is rapidly tilting toward rule by the ultra-wealthy, plutocracy in the making. Leading this trend is the very party that claims to end the elite culture.

A democracy for the privileged

In the general election of 2024, 34 (14%) of the 240 candidates who emerged victorious from the ruling BJP declared assets equivalent to $6 million or more, 130 (54%) claimed wealth between $120,000 to $1.2 million, while another 63 (26%) reported assets between $1.2 million and $6 million.  The assets of just 13 BJP winners (5%) were under $120,000 USD. 

In the main opposition Congress Party, 93% of the 99 elected members are also millionaires. Among other parties with more than 20 seats, about 90% of winners fall in the millionaire category as well.

In 2024, winning BJP members reported an average wealth of nearly $6 million compared with $2.8 million for Congress members.

Asia Times for more

by NADDA OSMAN

Facing global condemnation for war crimes in Gaza, Israel is turning to paid influencers, content creators, and AI tools to reshape its public perception

What was supposed to be a quiet meeting between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and a cohort of pro-Israel influencers last month has had a loud impact, revealing what has been described as a desperate attempt by the government to polish Tel Aviv’s perception globally, amid mounting criticism for war crimes in Gaza.

The influencers are estimated to have been paid around $7,000 per post across various platforms, all on Israel’s behalf, according to media reports.

Records filed with the Department of Justice show that the Israeli government hired a firm called Bridges Partners LLC to manage the influencer network, which has been code-named “Esther Project”.

Bridges states its work was to “assist with promoting cultural interchange between the United States and Israel,” while contracts show up to $900,000 in payments to be divided up over several months to cover upfront payments, concept development, influencer fees, production and agency costs.

In the New York meeting with influencers, Netanyahu stressed that social media is a new tool to counter waning public support for Israel and its growing pariah status amid the two-year war on Gaza.

The UN, human rights organisations, and legal experts have all labelled Israel’s actions in Gaza as genocide, while the ICC has issued an arrest warrant for Netanyahu for crimes against humanity, and a genocide case is pending at the ICJ.

Public support for Israel in Europe and the United States is at an all-time low, with more Americans now sympathising with Palestinians rather than Israel for the first time since polling began in 1998.

In late September, more countries, such as the UK, Canada, France, Australia, and Portugal, formally recognised a Palestinian state.

Meet the influencers

A range of influencers from different sectors attended the roundtable. Among them were Lizzy Savetsky, a lifestyle and fashion figure, Miriam Ezagui, a US-based nurse who posts on TikTok about Jewish orthodox life and traditions, as well as Zach Sage Fox, who posts pro-Israel videos.

In February, Savetsky shared a video of Jewish supremacist Rabbi Meir Kahane, a violent fanatic who routinely espoused anti-Arab and Palestinian rhetoric. In a caption to one of her social media posts, Savetsky writes, “The only language Arabs understand is force and fear”, paraphrasing Kahane.

Yair Netanyahu, the Prime Minister’s son, who has been at the centre of several social media scandals in recent years, was also among the influencers. Most recently, he denied that there was a famine in Gaza, blaming images of starving children on genetic issues.

A New York City-based influencer, Debra Lea, who attended the meeting, posted a photo saying it was an “honour” to meet Netanyahu, calling him “one of the greatest politicians of all time”.

In response to a question she posed at the meeting, Netanyahu hinted at his strategy to have a larger Israeli influence on TikTok.

“Weapons change over time. We can’t fight today with swords or with cavalry, we have these new things – drones – I won’t get into that. But we have to fight with weapons that apply to the battlefield in which we’re engaged – and the most important one is social media,” he said.

‘Paid propaganda’

The meeting has garnered a critical response from media commentators and experts, who say that Israel is becoming increasingly desperate in attempts to improve its public image.

New Arab for more

by THIJS BROEKKAMP

The Netherlands faces another far-right victory in this month’s elections. But a resurgence of anti-fascist organizing suggests extremists remain a loud minority, writes Thijs Broekkamp.

On a grey afternoon in Schiedam, a small Dutch city near Rotterdam, police horses line the streets as a few hundred protesters gather to oppose the opening of an asylum centre. Across the Netherlands, demonstrations like this now occur every few days, as migration remains the dominant theme in Dutch politics. The government has twice collapsed over the issue, most recently in June, leading to new elections in late October. Ideas of a ‘great replacement’ and the notion that the Netherlands is ‘full’ are widespread, fueled by right-wing politicians. Since Trump lookalike Geert Wilders’ far-right, anti-immigration Party for Freedom (PVV) won the 2023 elections in a landslide, extremist views have become increasingly normalized.

Across from the main square in Schiedam stands a smaller counter-demonstration of about 30 people, encircled by police. It was organized by Anti-Fascist Action Netherlands (AFA), a loose network opposing racist and fascist movements. Many participants wear masks or scarves over their faces as they hold a banner that reads ‘Refugees are welcome here’. A young woman says the face coverings are in response to many cases of doxing, where right-wing protesters post people’s personal information online.

‘I’m quite nervous,’ she says. ‘It’s my first protest and the atmosphere is tense.’ 

The woman has good reason to be on edge. A few weeks earlier, chaos erupted during a large anti-immigration rally in The Hague. Masked men set police cars on fire, waved flags of the NSB – the Dutch fascist and Nazi party from World War II – attacked journalists, vandalized the offices of D66, a centrist political party and attempted to storm the parliament building.

But these events appear to have awakened the left-wing protest movement, which is less visible and organized than the far right. Only five of the 16 AFA branches remain since the network’s founding in the 1990s – marches that once drew hundreds of people now only bring in around a dozen. Their decline is linked to the shift of far-right activity from street-level violence to parliamentary politics, making traditional local anti-fascist street protests less relevant and effective.  At the same time the mainstreaming of far-right rhetoric means the fascist label no longer sparks the same level of public concern.

Continental Reach

The events in Schiedam are a familiar scene across the continent, where seven European Union states have far-right governments in power – including the Netherlands. Once celebrated as a beacon of tolerance, Dutch society is wrestling with rising racism. Since 2001, anti-Islamic sentiment has grown, workplace discrimination remains a problem and battles over racist traditions like Zwarte Piet (Blackface) have intensified. The 2021 benefits scandal – in which thousands of mostly migrant families were wrongly accused of fraud – exposed institutional racism at the heart of a supposedly liberal government.

When Wilders founded the PVV in 2006, other parties refused to work with him because of his extremist agenda. Yet over time, mainstream parties – especially the centrist People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) – gradually adopted tougher language on migration  to win back voters drifting to the right. In 2023, after caving to public pressure to address the housing crisis and the growing number of refugees, the liberal VVD no longer ruled out cooperation, forming a coalition government with the PVV and two other parties. This sharp right turn made Wilders seem less radical and granted legitimacy to his party. 

New Internationalist for more

by TOM ENGELHARDT

Or Golfing While Rome Burns

Yes, in the ever more ominously unsettled (dis-)United States of Donald J. Trump, I recently went to the “hate America” rally in New York City. Or at least that’s what Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives Mike Johnson insisted it was. Who knew that so unbelievably many Americans, millions of us across the United States, would “hate” this country enough to go out and march in the recent No Kings demonstrations, even in places where we might have feared being in distinct danger from the troops of “our” president?

In the days before the latest No Kings demonstrations, no matter whom I talked to or where they lived, they seemed to be planning to go to their local version of that march/rally. My neighbors, other city people, suburbanites, even friends living in the countryside. And despite the people I knew who had marched in the first round of No Kings rallies, as I did, that wasn’t true then. This time, just about everybody turned out, or so it seemed! 

Oh, wait! I suddenly thought of someone who wasn’t there. Oops, let me take that back. He was there, he just didn’t know it. He was on sign after sign after sign, doing this, doing that, doing the inconceivable — or do I mean, sadly enough, the all-too-conceivable?

Take this one that I copied down, for example:

“Tyrant

Rapist

Usurper

Madman

Pedophile”

And I’m sure you know just what the first letters of those five words spell out!

“Only Butterflies Should Become Monarchs”

For me, that march began not at 50th Street and Seventh Avenue where I came out of the subway, but at the subway platform uptown where I was waiting to get on a train to the march. I suddenly noticed that the elderly woman (and I say that advisedly as an elderly man) standing next to me was carrying a handmade sign — the first of literally thousands I would see that day — that said, “No dictators/no kings” and, when I asked her about it, she promptly replied, “I would have called Trump a cunt, but he lacks the depth and warmth.” 

I finally made it off that subway train with literally hundreds of other soon-to-be protesters and ever so slowly managed to make my way up the packed stairs onto an instantly packed Seventh Avenue at the edge of New York’s Times Square. At least as far as I could tell, President Trump wasn’t there himself, preparing to march down Seventh Avenue in his old hometown of New York City with staggering numbers of other New Yorkers and me. News reports, based on police estimates, suggested that “more than 100,000” of us in my hometown and “nearly seven million” Americans in “more than 2,700” demonstrations nationwide actively protested — and when it comes to anti-Trump demonstrations, those doing the figures never exaggerate but almost invariably underestimate. (All I can tell you is that it was a stunning vista, with protesters, unbelievable numbers of whom carried homemade signs, literally packing the streets in a rally that would stretch from 47th Street to 14th Street with no space to spare.)

And yet, though he wasn’t in New York that day, it isn’t that Donald Trump never appears anywhere. In fact, only the previous Saturday, I’d actually (almost) seen him. I was visiting an old friend in Washington, D.C., and we were taking a walk along a canal that leads to the Potomac River when suddenly we came upon a man with an elaborate camera on a stand and began chatting. He was, it turned out, working for a TV news network and his camera was pointed at an extended grassy area across the Potomac, which, he told us, was a golf course. At that very moment, it seemed, America’s king — oops, sorry, Donald Trump — was evidently playing a round of golf there and the cameraman was waiting for him to make it to the seventh hole, which, he said, was right where we were then looking.

Hey, and it was a relief to know that Donald Trump, just two years younger than me, was outdoors, too. As it happens, in my 81-plus years on this planet, I’ve only been on a golf course once in my life. Still, on that recent trip, I was indeed nearly in the presence of “our” president who, on the weekend of the No Kings demonstrations, was at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida for a $1 million-a-plate dinner and undoubtedly playing golf again. And on that more recent Saturday, when I took that long walk (or, in terms of pacing, more like a crawl) down Seventh Avenue in his former hometown, from 47th street to 14th street, with — or so it seemed to me — a trillion other New Yorkers, I felt as if I were again in “his” presence, given all the fantastic handmade signs people were carrying, which said things like: “Only butterflies should become Monarchs” (with, of course, an image of the president on it).

Tom Dispatch for more

by RAHIM KURWA

The U.S. housing market has been ensnared in a growing affordability crisis for decades.

The problem has gotten dramatically worse in recent years. Since 2019, home prices are up 60% nationwide. A record-high 22 million renters are “cost-burdened” – spending more than 30% of their income on housing.

Meanwhile, stagnant wages, limited housing supply and lagging federal assistance have helped leave more than 770,000 Americans homeless.

Despite these varied reasons, Vice President JD Vance has blamed the housing affordability crisis on undocumented immigrants. In August 2025, he attributed rising housing costs to immigration: “You cannot flood the United States of America with … people who have no legal right to be here, have them compete against young American families for homes, and not expect the price to skyrocket.”

Deportations, he argued, would lower housing prices. “Why has housing leveled off over the past six months? I really believe the main driver is … negative net migration.”

Despite Vance’s claims, research shows that immigration is not a substantial cause of unaffordable housing. In fact, studies have found that deportations exacerbate housing shortages through reductions in the construction workforce, which lead to lower production of housing units and higher prices.

From this perspective, its hard to see the administration’s deportation policy as a real effort to solve the housing crisis. Rather, it is using the housing crisis as a way to justify mass deportations to the public.

The current administration’s anti-immigrant housing policy reflects a long history of xenophobia in housing. As a sociologist of housing, I’ve traced the history of racial segregation in housing in Los Angeles County. I have found that the same far-right groups that sought to defeat public housing construction and maintain racially restrictive agreements in post-World War II Los Angeles also advocated to ban immigrants from U.S. housing programs.

Earlier anti-immigrant housing plans

Among the leaders of these efforts was the far-right politician and activist Gerald L.K. Smith. Described in 1976 by historian John Morton Blum as “the most infamous American fascist,” Smith helped bridge the American right’s 1940s conspiratorial and isolationist America First era and its 1960s anti-civil rights era.

The Conversation for more

by B. R. GOWANI

Tariffs

Tariffs are a tax imposed on imported goods to protect local industries in order to be self-sufficient and thus avoid being taken advantage of. For a very long time, Britain charged tariffs on many items, only in 1860 were they totally removed. But were reintroduced in late 1920s during the depression years.

Likewise, the US did the same. In 1789, just 13 years after independence from Britain, it imposed 5% tariff that was raised to 25% during war with Britain in 1812. By 1820, the tariffs were 40%. In 1844, Abraham Lincoln, not yet a president, boasted:

“Give us a protective tariff and we will have the greatest nation on earth.”

By 1860, the tariffs were 60%. Till then, more than 90% of the federal government revenue came from tariffs. Lincoln was the President from 1861 to 1865, also the years during which the US fought Civil War. Lincoln enacted an emergency income tax but it was abolished once the war ended.

President William McKinley in 1897, raised the rate to 50%. In 1929, the rate shot up to 59.1%. From 1798 to 1913, the federal government revenue from tariffs made up 50% to 90% of total revenue. (The attempt in 1894 to tax peoples’ incomes failed. However, this succeeded in 1913, thus reducing the government’s need for relying on tariffs for income.) Since the early 1950s, tariff income has seldom risen by more than 2%.

Reuters headline “The global economy is on a Trump roller-coaster ride” sums up the adverse effects of Trump’s tariff levies on so many countries.

A few examples:

• Italian pasta-makers, already tariffed 15%, were threatened with an extra 92% tariffs (totaling 107%).
• 25% tariffs on India were increased to 50% that was a penalty for buying Russian oil.
• 100% tariffs on pharmaceutical products.

Till July 14, 2025, due to Trump tantrums, there have been 28 tariff flip-flops. The number now, must be much higher, of course.

Trade deficit

One of President Donald Trump’s characteristics is to portray himself as a victim of his opponents, courts, establishment, etc.

The other victim, in Trump’s eyes, is the United States which has been taken advantage of by the rest of the world. Even though the facts show the US as having unfair practices with the rest of the world. But ultimately, all have to accept the Dear Leader’s whims.

Trump threatened several countries with high tariffs and then imposed them since he thinks the US is not getting a fair deal. (See Trump 2.0 tariff tracker.) Why? Because, many countries sell more goods and/or services to the US but buy less goods and/or services back from the US, resulting in a trade deficit for the US. But then there are countries that buy more goods/services from the US but sell less goods/services which results in a trade surplus for the US. (See the full list for the year 2024 here.)

The tragedy is that it is people in the US who are going to pay for the extra expense tariffs cause, in the form of raised prices not the countries sending goods to the US.

Overall, US has been buying more than it sells for a very long time. As can be noted:

• For the year 2024, the US goods and services deficit was $918.4 billion — which was $133.5 billion more than 2023.
• The total US exports for 2024 were $3,191.6 billion, up $119.8 billion from 2023.
• The total US imports were $4,110.0 billion, up $253.3 billion from 2023.

One other grievance Trump has against many countries is that they impose tariffs on goods they import from the US, but the US doesn’t impose tariffs on goods it imports from many of those countries.

There are reasons for that: one is that the developing countries want to protect their own industries to create some sort of self sufficiency. Another reason being that those countries need US dollars to import goods from the US and that takes funds away from other pressing needs of the country.

Also we have to remember the fact that both Democratic and Republican administrations have allowed those countries to export more than they imported from the US, knowing that these countries impose tariffs on US goods. The US has ignored this to keep those countries within the US orbit for geopolitical purpose.

Also, many of the countries have US as their largest trading partner and so the US can dictate the terms beneficial to it.

Why the trade deficit?

It is not as if China, India, and other countries with whom the US has trade deficits forced the US to open its market, like the US Colonel Perry did to Japan in the late 1850s.

It behooves us to remember that US industries moved to other countries, especially China, for greater profit and cheap labor, and that move greatly diminished the manufacturing sector in the US. These same US companies send those goods back to the US to be sold at exorbitant prices, thereby realizing hefty profits for their companies (on which they rarely pay any taxes).

Trump’s tariffs have had the effect of lowering the trade deficit in June 2025 to a two-year low. Many countries are looking elsewhere to sell their products, bypassing the US.

In 1791, the US Treasury Secretary, Alexander Hamilton, had warned countries to take care of certain industries so as to maintain independence:

“Not only wealth, but the independence and security of a Country, appear to be materially connected with the prosperity of manufactures. Every nation, with a view to those great objects, ought to endeavor to possess within itself all the essentials of national supply. These comprise the means of Subsistence, habitation, clothing, and defense.”

The US was less than a couple of decades old then. But today, the US is a superpower, with all sorts of weapons and forces to defend itself and is also the biggest sellers of arms with 43% of the world’s weapons.

Trump wants to get manufacturing back to the US and there is nothing wrong with it. But he’ll have to force companies to lower their profit margins, and pay decent wages to the US workers.

These companies should not complain that they have high labor costs, as they compare the costs to other countries where these US companies currently produce goods in a very cheap labor market.

Manufacturing goods here (at a substantially greater cost) should be weighed against investing workforce in AI and other advanced technologies to be competitive in future markets, and be more forward planning and gain a greater foothold in future markets.

B. R. Gowani can be reached at brgowani@hotmail.com

Just days after the U.S.-backed ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas went into effect, President Trump has issued new threats against Hamas, saying Thursday the United States would back a military intervention against the group if it fails to uphold the ceasefire agreement.

“There is the fear all the time that the war will be renewed,” says Amira Hass, Haaretz correspondent for the Occupied Palestinian Territories, who joins us from Ramallah. Hass is the daughter of Holocaust survivors and is the only Israeli Jewish journalist to have spent 30 years living in and reporting from Gaza and the West Bank.

Transcript

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

AMY GOODMAN: We begin today’s show looking at Gaza. President Trump has issued new threats against Hamas, saying Thursday the United States would back a military intervention against the group if it fails to uphold the ceasefire deal. Trump spoke from the Oval Office.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: We have a commitment from them, and I assume they’re going to honor that commitment. I hope they do. … We’re going to find out if they behave, if they behave good. If they don’t behave, we’ll take care of it. … I didn’t say who would go in, but somebody will go in. It’s not going to be us. We won’t have to. There are people very close, very nearby, that will go in. They’ll do the trick very easily, but under our auspices.”

AMY GOODMAN: Earlier Thursday, Trump wrote on Truth Social, quote, “If Hamas continues to kill people in Gaza, which was not the Deal, we will have no choice but to go in and kill them. Thank you for your attention to this matter.” Trump’s tone shifted from earlier this week, when he said Hamas had taken out, quote, “a couple of gangs that were very bad. That didn’t bother me much,” Trump said.

Trump’s comments came amidst reports of recent clashes between Hamas and armed gangs accused of looting humanitarian aid and working for Israel. Al Jazeera reported Israeli officials in June admitted to arming gangs in Gaza, some with ties to the Islamic State, in an effort to destabilize Hamas. Some of these groups were linked to the killing of the Palestinian journalist Saleh Aljafarawi on Sunday, after the U.S.-backed Gaza deal went into effect. Trump has made no mention of repeated Israeli attacks this week that killed several Palestinians, including in Gaza City.

On Thursday, Hamas returned the remains of two more Israeli hostages, but the group said it needs specialized equipment, presently banned from entry into Gaza by Israel, that would help retrieve the remaining deceased captives trapped beneath the rubble. The U.N. estimates some 55 million tons of debris must be cleared before reconstruction efforts in Gaza can begin.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Meanwhile, families in Gaza are still facing hunger and severe shortages of water, medicines and other vital necessities. As Israel continues to delay the reopening of the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip, many Palestinians in need of urgent medical care also remain in limbo.

For more, we’re joined by longtime Israeli journalist Amira Hass, the Haaretz correspondent for the Occupied Palestinian Territories based in Ramallah. She was born in Jerusalem and is the daughter of Holocaust survivors. She’s the only Israeli Jewish journalist to have spent 30 years living in and reporting from Gaza and the West Bank. Her books include Drinking the Sea at Gaza: Days and Nights in a Land Under Siege. Her latest piece for Haaretz is headlined “Will Israelis One Day Say of Their Country’s Atrocities in Gaza, ‘I Was Always Against It’?”

Welcome back to Democracy Now!, Amira. If you could just begin by, first of all, responding to the ceasefire, that is, at least in part, holding, and what you think the prospects are of its success?

AMIRA HASS: Hello.

The ceasefire is — at least relieves people of this fear, permanent fear, of bombings and bombardments and shellings. At least they can go out and look for food and look for water. At least some of the prices of the food is lowered. Yeah, all these little things, that are very big for Palestinians, are there. But there is the fear all the time that the war will be renewed and for different — for different pretexts.

But it’s important to say, when Trump says that he will fight against Hamas, he will not fight against Hamas. If a new war — if the war is restarting, it’s against the people. It’s not against Hamas, because Hamas is an organization, and Hamas aren’t people. We see they remain. They are there. But the people are being attacked. The children and the women and the young men and old men are and women are being attacked.

Democracy Now for more

by SOPHIE HIRSH

Greta’s parents are famous in their own right.

Ever since Greta Thunberg became the world’s most famous climate activist several years ago, many people — both her skeptics and her fans — have had questions about her and her family’s finances. For example, how does Greta make money? What are her parents’ jobs? And what is Greta Thunberg’s net worth?

Even though Greta has made it clear over her short career as a climate advocate that she is not in this field for the money (if she were simply chasing money, she would certainly be in the wrong line of work!), she has been awarded quite a lot of prize money, leading to curiosity about her financial worth.

What is Greta Thunberg’s net worth?

Reports on Greta Thunberg’s net worth vary greatly, and none seem all that reliable. Womp.

A large selection of websites assert that Greta Thunberg’s net worth is about $1 million, including Briefly, Wealth Magnet, and The Sun.

Interestingly, none of these articles cite a source for this figure, with Wealth Magnet admitting that the activist’s accurate net worth is not publicly known.

Conversely, the website Celebrity Net Worth estimates Thunberg’s net worth to be about $100,000 — that’s 10 times less than the $1 million that most other websites have reported.

There do not seem to be any reports on her net worth by Forbes or any other legitimate financial source.

Greta Thunberg

Climate Activist

Net worth: $1 million (according to unreliable estimates)

Greta Thunberg is a Swedish climate activist known for launching the Fridays for Future movement. She’s also been credited with sparking the “Greta effect” and was Time Magazine‘s Person of the Year in 2019.

Full name: Greta Tintin Eleonora Ernman Thunberg

Birthplace: Stockholm, Sweden

Birthdate: January 3, 2023

Parents: Svante Thunberg and Malena Ernman

Education: Stockholm Franska Skolen

So, unfortunately for curious parties, Greta’s net worth is not public knowledge. That said, she has stated that she rarely shops or buys anything she does not need for environmental reasons (what she calls a “shop stop”), and she donates pretty much all of the money she earns to charity — so it’s apparent that neither living a luxurious lifestyle nor attaining a high net worth are important to her.

How does Greta Thunberg make money? She donates most of her income to charities.

In a 2019 Facebook post, Greta explained that her parents pay for her travel tickets and accommodations, and that she does all of her environmental work for free.

“I am absolutely independent and I only represent myself,” she wrote at the time. “And I do what I do completely for free, I have not received any money or any promise of future payments in any form at all.”

“And of course it will stay this way,” she continued. “I have not met one single climate activist who is fighting for the climate for money. That idea is completely absurd.”

Furthermore, Greta has stated that she donates all profits from her books to charity, as well as all of the prize money that accompanies awards she wins.

For example, in April 2020, Danish organization Human Act gave Thunberg its very first Human Act award, accompanied by a $100,000 prize. Thunberg promptly announced plans to donate her prize money to UNICEF, with Human Act matching her donation to the international charity.

And in July 2020, she donated the 1 million euro award that came with the Gulbenkian Prize for Humanity to organizations including Fridays For Future Brazil’s SOS Amazonia Campaign and the Stop Ecocide Foundation. When she won that award, she told The Guardian that the prize money “is more money than what I can even begin to imagine.”

Green Matters for more

Jane Goodall, the gentle disrupter whose research on chimpanzees redefined what it meant to be human

by MIREYA MAYOR

Anyone proposing to offer a master class on changing the world for the better, without becoming negative, cynical, angry or narrow-minded in the process, could model their advice on the life and work of pioneering animal behavior scholar Jane Goodall.

Goodall’s life journey stretches from marveling at the somewhat unremarkable creatures – though she would never call them that – in her English backyard as a wide-eyed little girl in the 1930s to challenging the very definition of what it means to be human through her research on chimpanzees in Tanzania. From there, she went on to become a global icon and a United Nations Messenger of Peace.

Until her death on Oct. 1, 2025 at age 91, Goodall retained a charm, open-mindedness, optimism and wide-eyed wonder that are more typical of children. I know this because I have been fortunate to spend time with her and to share insights from my own scientific career. To the public, she was a world-renowned scientist and icon. To me, she was Jane – my inspiring mentor and friend.

Despite the massive changes Goodall wrought in the world of science, upending the study of animal behavior, she was always cheerful, encouraging and inspiring. I think of her as a gentle disrupter. One of her greatest gifts was her ability to make everyone, at any age, feel that they have the power to change the world. Jane Goodall documented that chimpanzees not only used tools but make them – an insight that altered thinking about animals and humans

Discovering tool use in animals

In her pioneering studies in the lush rainforest of Tanzania’s Gombe Stream Game Reserve, now a national park, Goodall noted that the most successful chimp leaders were gentle, caring and familial. Males that tried to rule by asserting their dominance through violence, tyranny and threat did not last.

The Conversation for more

Remembering the Marshall Islands

by JANE GOODALL & RICK ASSELTA

As a result of nuclear testing on the Marshall Islands 60 years ago, many of the Marshallese Islanders still suffer today. Yet, few Americans know about this shameful chapter of history. Today, June 30, which marks a painful anniversary for many in the South Pacific, is just another day for those unaware of the atrocities that took place there. This year, I hope the anniversary might open the eyes of people in America and around the world: We must acknowledge the damage done in the past and rise up out of our apathy to ensure such horrors are not perpetrated again.

I became aware of the nuclear testing program initiated after World War II from a friend who witnessed the aftermath of the devastation first hand. Rick Asselta was sent to the Marshall Islands as a Peace Corps volunteer to help comfort islanders whose homes and lives were destroyed by the testing. Between 1946 and 1958, the American military tested 67 nuclear weapons at Bikini and Enewetak. Prior to the first of these tests, the islanders were evacuated to other atolls, more than 100 miles away, and, as a precaution, the inhabitants of three other atolls were moved temporarily.

In 1952, the first hydrogen bomb was tested — at 10.4 megatons, it was some 750 times larger than the Hiroshima bomb. In 1954, an even larger hydrogen bomb was detonated. On the eve of this test, code-named Bravo, weather reports indicated that atmospheric conditions were deteriorating, and on the morning of the test, the winds were blowing strongly toward a number of U.S. ships as well as several inhabited islands, including Rongelap and Utrik. Nevertheless, despite the clear danger to the people on these islands, the bomb, 1,000 times the strength of the Hiroshima bomb, was detonated. Great clouds of gritty, white ash rained down on several atolls, affecting many people, including some American weathermen.

It would be two days before people were moved from Rongelap, the worst affected island, and another day passed before Utrik was evacuated. The islanders suffered skin burns, and their hair fell out. Yet, in a statement to the press, the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission stated that some Americans and Marshallese were “unexpectedly exposed to some radioactivity. There were no burns. All were reported well.” Subsequently, the commission drafted a report, not publicly released, in which it concluded that the Bravo fallout may have contaminated as many as 18 atolls and islands. Some years after that, an additional survey by the U.S. Department of Energy revealed that yet other atolls and islands had been affected by one or more of the tests, including five that were inhabited.

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Remembering Jane

JANE GOODALL INSTITUTE

1934-2025

Remembering Dr. Jane

Scientist. Conservationist. Humanitarian.

Dr. Jane Goodall, founder of the Jane Goodall Institute and UN Messenger of Peace, was a remarkable example of courage and conviction, working tirelessly throughout her life to raise awareness about threats to wildlife, promote conservation, and inspire a more harmonious, sustainable relationship between people, animals and the natural world. She passed away in her sleep.

Dr. Jane Goodall, DBE, Founder of the Jane Goodall Institute, UN Messenger of Peace and world-renowned ethologist, conservationist, and humanitarian, has died at the age of 91 of natural causes.

Dr. Jane was known around the world for her 65-year study of wild chimpanzees in Gombe, Tanzania. However, in the latter part of her life she expanded her focus and became a global advocate for human rights, animal welfare, species and environmental protection, and many other crucial issues.

Jane was passionate about empowering young people to become involved in conservation and humanitarian projects and she led many educational initiatives focused on both wild and captive chimpanzees. She was always guided by her fascination with the mysteries of evolution, and her staunch belief in the fundamental need to respect all forms of life on Earth.

Born Valerie Jane Morris-Goodall, Jane was the eldest daughter of businessman and racing car driver Mortimer Herbert Morris-Goodall and writer Margaret Myfanwe Joseph.

Jane was passionate about wildlife from early childhood, and she read avidly about the natural world. Her dream was to travel to Africa, learn more about animals, and write books about them. Having worked as a waitress to save enough money for a sea passage to Kenya, Jane was advised to try to meet respected paleontologist Dr. Louis Leakey. Louis employed her as a secretary at the National Museum in Nairobi, and this led to her being offered the opportunity to spend time with Louis and Mary Leakey in at the Olduvai Gorge in search of fossils.

Having witnessed Jane’s patience and determination there, Louis asked her to travel to Tanzania, to study families of wild chimpanzees in the forest of Gombe. Looking back, Jane always said she’d have “studied any animal” but felt extremely lucky to have been given the chance to study man’s closest living relative in the wild.

On 14th July 1960, Jane arrived in Gombe for the first time. It was here that she developed her unique understanding of chimpanzee behaviour and made the ground-breaking discovery that chimpanzees use tools. An observation that has been credited with “redefining what it means to be human.”

Knowing Jane’s work would only be taken seriously if she was academically qualified, and despite her having no degree, Louis arranged for Jane to study for a PhD in Ethology at Newnham College, Cambridge. Jane’s doctoral thesis, The Behaviour of Free-living Chimpanzees in the Gombe Stream Reserve, was completed in 1965. Her three-month study evolved into an extraordinary research program lasting decades and it is still ongoing today.

Jane was married twice. Her first husband, Hugo van Lawick, was a Dutch baron and wildlife photographer working for National Geographic when they met. Jane and Hugo divorced in 1974, and Jane later married Derek Bryceson, a member of Tanzania’s parliament and a former director of Tanzania’s National Parks. Derek died in 1980.

During her life Jane authored more than 27 books for adults and children, and featured in numerous documentaries and films, as well as two major IMAX productions. In 2019, National Geographic opened Becoming Jane, a travelling exhibit focused on her life’s work, which is still touring across the United States. Her latest publication, The Book of Hope: A Survival Guide for Trying Times, has been translated into more than 20 languages.

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