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Shompen band traversing a river on Great Nicobar Island. © Anthropological Survey of India

Calls are growing for the Indian government to scrap its controversial Great Nicobar project after it suffered a series of setbacks in recent weeks

They include:

• The Tribal Affairs Ministry has demanded answers from the Andaman and Nicobar Islands’ authorities after it emerged that they had wrongly claimed the project had the consent of the Indigenous peoples of the islands, whose lands are set to be devastated by it. This …

Bullies, never able to hit upwards, always kick down.  The United States beats their vassals in the Indo-Pacific and Europe with vulgar presumption.  Their vassals kick down to their own appointees, expecting compliance and respect to various degrees.  Australia, long known as Washington’s regional deputy sheriff, looks down on its Pacific Island neighbours as basket cases for charity, potential enclaves for terrorism, and vulnerable to the temptation of rival powers.  The language of a relationship falsely described as friendship is better seen as one of financial asymmetry, strategic use and a mockery trapped in the formaldehyde of colonialism.  Australians are …

A draft of the latest National Defense Strategy (NDS) was leaked to Politico (09/5/2025). If implemented, the plan proposes pivoting away from China and prioritizing the protection of the homeland and the Western Hemisphere. The speed of this radical pivot away from China is astonishing, and its impact enormously consequential. It’s also confounding as its author is none other than Elbridge Colby, the current Deputy Secretary of War. It was Colby who co-wrote the 2018 NDS, which unequivocally focused on deterring China, earning him praise from neocons in both political parties. Colby, grandson of former CIA Director William Colby, followed …

A big Cadillac limo with Jersey plates was parked down the block. Few locals in East Harlem even owned cars, let alone new ones. Curious, I asked the street kids what’s up. They casually explained that the mafioso comes weekly to collect their drug money. Later, I found a playground, which served as a veritable narcotics flea market each night. If a blanquito from the suburbs and some third graders could uncover the illicit trade, I wondered why the officials – who plastered the city with “keep New York drug free” signs – couldn’t do the same.

That was in the …

This was what the President of the United States initially lied:

“Earlier this morning, on my Orders, U.S. Military Forces conducted a kinetic strike against positively identified Tren de Aragua Narcoterrorists in the SOUTHCOM area of responsibility. TDA is a designated Foreign Terrorist Organization, operating under the control of Nicolas Maduro, responsible for mass murder, drug trafficking, sex trafficking, and acts of violence and terror across the United States and Western Hemisphere. The strike occurred while …

(Full article …)

Israel might claim that they were not attacking Qatar per se, but rather Hamas in Qatar, but that is neither a distinction nor a difference. Qatar is considered neutral territory in the region, a place where representatives of Hamas, the Israeli government, the US, Egypt, and other interlocutors could meet and negotiate safely. Qatari territory was, until now, tacitly inviolable.

Israel’s attack is clearly a sign of desperation. From Israel’s point of view, Hamas went too far in accepting Israel’s ceasefire terms. Those terms were designed to be unacceptable but to have the appearance of justification, so as to be able …

In an age of relentless misinformation, immigrant communities in the United States are not just resisting—they are rebuilding. While corporate and legacy news outlets often filter immigrant experiences through sensationalism, victimization, or meritocratic tropes, independent and bilingual media are quietly transforming how stories of migration are told. And in doing so, they’re also restoring something journalism has long struggled to offer immigrant communities: trust.

When official channels fail, whether due to linguistic barriers, legal repression, or outright neglect, immigrants turn to each other. From Spanish-language radio to WhatsApp news bulletins, the rise of community-rooted journalism shows that mutual aid is not …

Our latest visual, created in partnership with Prism Reports, visualizes a months-long Prism investigation conducted by journalist Laura Albast, on pro-Israel bias in mainstream U.S. newsrooms, particularly after Oct. 7, 2023.

Read the full investigation here. Special thanks to Yara Ramadan for her design collaboration on this visual.

The report takes a deep, investigative dive into the experiences of repression and silencing that journalists face in the U.S. while …

Capitol Ministries’ Ralph DrollingerYou probably wouldn’t recognize his face, but at over 7 feet, Ralph Drollinger is hard to miss. A former center for John Wooden’s UCLA Bruins, he had a brief professional career before turning to ministry. In recent years, he swapped basketball courts for the halls of power. These days, he’s not posting up in the paint, but presiding over Bible studies for members of Congress—and, during Trump’ first term, for Cabinet officials as well. Drollinger is the founder of Capitol Ministries, a right-wing evangelical …

As leaders of America’s half-dozen giant supermarkets raise prices once again (Walmart, 40 percent “on some items”), they’re blaming Trump’s recent quixotic, retaliatory tariffs on foreign imports. Consumer boycotts and demands for public food stores are in the wind by the outraged perhaps because they suspect gouging by farmers and wholesalers on essentials such as eggs, milk, and bread. Some 53 percent find the price hikes a major source of stress.

The USDA’s (U.S. Department of Agriculture) latest average price for a gallon of milk was $4.45, a dozen eggs, $6.47, and a loaf of white …

September 1, 2025: I (Roger) asked Chat GPT.com, an artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot created by OpenAI, this question:

“Chat GPT, will you analyze all the different proposals for a Third Constitution of the United States and reveal to us your best recommendation for creating a Third Constitution of the United States that creates peace and happiness in our nation and throughout the entire world?”

Here is the response from  Chat gpt . com.  It mentioned my constitution first, but it did not narrow its critique to my latest version.

I then asked Chat GPT this question:  How Come We Don’t Have …

The well-organized Palestine conference in Detroit brought over 4600 there, with a heavy Palestinian presence. Most of the speakers in the plenaries were genuine Palestinian activists tested in battle, not well-known writers or professors. The over 270 journalists who have been targeted and murdered for informing the world of the endless US-Israeli slaughter of civilians were honored throughout the three days that included over 20 sessions and plenaries, exhibits, including Palestinian cultural performances, a grand vendor fair and art exhibits.

It was made clear that Israel is the US garrison state in the Middle East, out to break the Palestinian people’s …

Restoring the original and non-Orwellian name to the U.S. Department of War ought to have a positive impact on people’s speech and understanding.

Yes, of course, Trump did it in order to celebrate the sadistic malevolence associated with the word “war.” He did it while pursuing horrific wars in Palestine and Ukraine, threatening (and beginning) wars on Venezuela and Iran, and moving massive resources from human and environmental needs into war preparations in the U.S. and its vassal NATO members. He immediately threatened to invade Chicago and show it …

Destroying cultures and eradicating the legacies of a people is a game the parochial and the dim-witted delight in. While this should be shunned and punished in international law, a general discomfort of purpose seems to trouble the friends of Israel as the state goes about its business of ruining what vestiges of living might exist in the Gaza Strip. As Israel’s warriors of vengeful virtue go about demolishing one of the last parts of Gaza that has any infrastructure worth mentioning, the usual ceremony of impotent effusion and concern is registered across the networks of the world.

By the …

Anyone who has ever struggled with poverty knows how extremely expensive it is to be poor.

— James Baldwin

 The Film That Stirred the Ashes

It came quietly, like a whisper from the margins. A DVD in the mail—When Did I See You Hungry? by Gerard Thomas Straub, narrated by Martin Sheen. A gift from a friend in South Carolina, sent after reading my essay on poverty. I watched it once. Then again. And then I wept.

The film did not show me anything new. I had seen hunger before—in the eyes of barefoot classmates, in the bellies of children bloated from malnutrition, in …