Fed up with being sermonised over online security, China’s TikTok CEO blasts US firms for failing to safeguard Americans’ data
Media coverage United States governments’ policies and political pronouncements point to rising abuse of power, including attacks on democracy, civil liberties and use of mass surveillance. Tell Media and The Defender, Big Brother NewsWatch and NewsGuard bring the latest political and health coverage via excerpts from other news sources. The...
Kenya’s diamonds smuggling legend Kamlesh Pattni pulls another rabbit from the hat in Zimbabwe, sucks in President Mnangagwa
A gold smuggler implicated in a scandal that robbed Kenya of 10 per cent of its GDP in the 1990s has moved his smuggling operations to Zimbabwe and Dubai, Al Jazeera’s Investigative Unit (I-Unit) can reveal. Kamlesh Pattni was involved in the so-called Goldenberg scam, a gold smuggling operation that...
Kenya and Uganda generals meet in Nairobi to review military collaboration against backdrop of conflict in DRC, Somalia
Senior officers from the Kenyan and Ugandan defence forces met in Nairobi this week to further cement “engagement and collaboration as partners seeking sustainable security solutions”. The two-day joint defence committee (JDC) meeting followed last year’s signing of a defence co-operation agreement. The meeting was attended by officers from Kenya...
How ChatGPT artificial intelligence chatbot can help decolonise aid, ease access to donor funding
A few years ago, I spent months helping to create materials to help local organisations navigate the overcomplicated global humanitarian system. Today, the same tools can be researched and drafted in mere minutes using ChatGPT. With a few back-and-forth exchanges, the artificial intelligence chatbot can quickly summarise funding opportunities for...
Britain transfers Tamil refugees who attempted suicide to Rwanda Military Hospital for treatment
Five Tamil asylum seekers who attempted suicide on the British-held Indian Ocean Island of Diego Garcia have been sent to Rwanda for medical treatment, it has been established. The news follows a recent backlash against the British government’s immigration deterrence policies and a scandal that involved 200 unaccompanied minors who...
Holocaust: Be it actual war or potential nuclear catastrophe, it’s certainly looking mighty ugly right now
In my youth, atomic war was, culturally speaking, all around us. It was even in outer space, as in the 1955 film This Island Earth in which another planet goes up in a version of radioactive flames, scaring the living hell out of the 11-year-old Thomas M. Engelhardt. So, yes,...
Everywhere in our lives there lurks the possibility we might be next victims of nuclear wipe out
Indulge me for a moment. This is how “The Prophecy” in my 1962 high school yearbook began. It was written by some of my classmates in the year we graduated from Friends Seminary in New York City. “Being an historian, I am jotting down these notes out of habit, but...
African military mission in Somalia needs $90 million to push al-Qaeda supported al Shabaab insurgents
The African Union appealed for nearly $90 million on Wednesday for its peacekeeping force in Somalia, which is providing support to its military forces battling al-Shabab extremists. Ambassador Bankole Adeoye, the AU commissioner for political affairs, peace and security, told two reporters that the more than 19,600-strong AU force won’t...
Fact finding mission: AU set to play an enhanced role in stabilisation of war-torn eastern DR Congo
An African Union (AU) field mission spent three days in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) “obtaining first-hand information” regarding ongoing violence and attacks on civilians, particularly in the eastern part of the country. An AU Peace and Security Council (PSC) statement has it the field mission, under the leadership of...
Stop admiring them: Tweet that spurred Japan to turn on style and run over fancied USA baseball team
For the longest time, even Shohei Ohtani’s teammates looked past him in favour of the North American stars of Major League Baseball. They know now that they only need look to the guy in their own dressing room to see the most complete player in all of baseball. Still, it...
