Human Rights

By Yvonne Su | – ( The Conversation ) – In June, the G7 pledged 870 million COVID-19 vaccine doses to COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access, or COVAX, to help it meet its two billion vaccine goal for lower- and middle- income countries by the end of 2021. The global vaccine-sharing initiative is pooling funds and […]

Human Rights

Saudi Arabia: New Details of Alleged Torture Leaked

Human Rights Watch

( Human Rights Watch ) – (Beirut) – New accounts have emerged of alleged torture of high-profile political detainees in Saudi prisons, Human Rights Watch said today. Saudi authorities failed to independently and credibly investigate allegations that Saudi authorities tortured Saudi women’s rights activists and others detained in early 2018, including with electric shocks, beatings, […]

Authoritarianism

The Ugly Truth: The Republican Party is trying to Outlaw Democracy

Jim Hightower

( Otherwords.org ) – Ralph Waldo Emerson told of a dinner guest who went on and on about the virtue of honesty, offering his own life as a model of perfect rectitude. “The louder he talked of his honor,” said Emerson, “the faster we counted our spoons.” That’s my reaction to the cacophony of phony […]

Human Rights

‘A pandemic of impunity in a tortured land’: Stalemate in Yemen War Worsens Human Rights Crisis

Global Voices

By Saoussen Ben Cheikh | – (GlobalVoices.org ) – The latest peace talks in Oman fell apart apart, and for Yemenis, that means going back to square one. Escalations in Marib have worsened the dire humanitarian situation and the suffering of civilians in a conflict that has entered its sixth year. An activist speaking to […]

Authoritarianism

How Florida’s Political “Survey” of Universities threatens Freedom of Speech

Jill Richardson

( Otherwords.org ) – Florida officials say they want to promote “intellectual freedom” — by using political surveys to target university funding. By Jill Richardson | June 30, 2021 The state of Florida just passed a law that — to put it mildly — grossly violates academic freedom. Under the new bill, recently signed by […]

Colonialism

Top 5 Differences between the Fourth of July and the Capitol Insurrection

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – 1. The Fourth of July celebrates a revolutionary event. January 6 was a counter-revolutionary event. Why do I say this? The chief feature of the Declaration of Independence was not that it announced an insurrection (or rather confirmed one already announced by some 90 councils and other local bodies). Insurrections […]

censorship

America wants to be known in Mideast as Champion of Free Speech, so Why is it Censoring Iranian Websites?

Farhang Jahanpour

Oxford (Special to Informed Comment) – The Bureau of Industry and Security, an agency of the United States Department of Justice, in a statement on Tuesday 22 June announced that it had seized 33 websites and news outlets used by the Iranian Islamic Radio and Television Union (IRTVU), and another three run by the “Iran-backed” […]

censorship

Sounds Like Fascism: Florida’s DeSantis to Collect Political Views of Professors to defund “Hotbeds of stale Ideology”

Common Dreams

By Julia Conley, staff writer | – ( Commondreams.org) – Democratic lawmakers and educators nationwide are expressing alarm over legislation signed this week by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis which is ostensibly aimed at ensuring college students and educators in the state feel permitted to express a variety of political views—and which critics say could end […]