One year after Russian invasion, Ukraine exposes the limits of well-funded international aid
As the power returns following one of the now frequent electricity cuts that ripple across Ukraine, Kylyna Kurochka logs on to her laptop and finds herself faced with dozens of messages, each one begging for help. “I’m 73 years old, my husband 78. We are IDPs (internally displaced people) …...
Long thought to be deaf to auditory stimulus, new research reveals snakes can actually hear
Dare to get close enough to a snake of some kind, you’ll quickly notice there’s no sign of an ear for you to whisper into. Not a flap, flop, or furrow to be seen. So, you might be mistaken to thinking they’re a little hard of hearing. “Snakes are very...
Romance and work: It’s really possible to work with a romantic partner without growing to despise them
Steve and Deonie ‘Dee’ Allen’s fates were sealed when their respective dogs, two kelpies, spotted each other from across a marina in Brisbane, Australia and became friends. The pair were living on boats three berths down from one another – and the rest, as they say, is history. Twenty-two years...
Made to kill: How Big Pharma make and sell cancer – case of GlaxoSmithKline’s Zantac cancer drug
Amid tens of thousands of lawsuits that are pending in state courts all across the US, a new report based on evidence discovered in these court cases reveals Big Pharma giant GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) had, for decades, concealed evidence showing that Zantac could cause cancer. According to Bloomberg Businessweek, GSK –...
How a simple equation proves the US armed forces have triumphed in the war agaainst terror
4,000,000,029,057. Remember that number. It’s going to come up again later. But let’s begin with another number entirely: 145,000 – as in, 145,000 uniformed soldiers striding down Washington’s Pennsylvania Avenue. That’s the number of troops who marched down that very street in May 1865 after the United States defeated the...
China ‘spy balloon’ scare wakes up America and Big Tech conglomerates to new era of surveillance
A day of Biden administration briefings on the Chinese spy balloon that travelled across US airspace last week ended in predictably partisan fashion, with multiple Republicans airing frustration while most Democrats defended the incident’s handling. What was unmissable was a replay of scenes from the Cold War era and a...
Extremism: Human rights abuses like seeing a father arrested or brother taken away by military forces feed radicalism
A lack of job opportunities is the leading factor driving people to join fast-growing violent extremist groups in sub-Saharan Africa, according to a new report released by the UN Development Programme. The report titled Journey to Extremism in Africa: Pathways to Recruitment and Disengagement, underscores the importance of economic factors...
War anniversary: Russia launches 17 missile attacks in Ukraine’s Kharkiv and Zaporizhzhia cities
Russia launched a wave of attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure in the cities of Kharkiv and Zaporizhzhia on Friday morning as Ukrainian officials said a long-awaited Russian offensive was under way in the east. At least 17 missiles hit the south-eastern city of Zaporizhzhia in an hour, acting mayor Anatolii Kurtiev...
Lucky to be alive! Earthquakes trigger traumatic memories for survivors in Türkiye and Syria
“The way the floor began shaking under my feet made me think I was back in Syria,” photographer Abdulsalam Jarroud, 24, a Syrian refugee originally from Idlib, says of the moment a 7.8-magnitude earthquake hit the southern Turkish city of Gaziantep on February 6. “It re-awakened traumatic memories I’ve been...
Broken bones, eye trauma, brain injuries – how America’s sketchy ‘less-lethal’ weapons export violence abroad
A crowd of protesters was squaring off against a battalion of riot police on a city boulevard as plumes of tear gas and dust clouded the afternoon light. It could have been Hong Kong or Santiago in 2019, Minneapolis or Portland in the summer of 2020, Tehran or Shanghai in...
