Horrors: African asylum seekers in Libyan detention camps ‘lucky to survive from Zintan’
The EU-backed Libyan Coast Guard has intercepted more than 13,000 asylum seekers and migrants at sea this year, preventing them from reaching Europe – already a greater number than in all of 2020. Those intercepted are returned to Libya and sent to detention centres where a well-documented cycle of extortion,...
Facebook supremacy: US federal court tosses out antitrust cases against Big Tech
What if nothing works? What if, after years of scholarship and journalism exposing the dominance, abrogation, duplicity, arrogance and incompetence of Facebook, none of the policy tools we have come to rely on to rein in corporations make any difference at all? We have to be prepared for just such...
Details of the rot in Zimbabwe’s mining industry spotlights how army keeps Zanu in power
A recently published report by international economic crimes investigations agency, The Sentry, has pinpointed involvement of a South African lawyer in Zimbabwe’s multibillion graft industry as instrumental in businessman Kudakwashe Tagwirei’s dealings in the country’s gold, diamond, platinum, chrome and nickel mines. Th report falls short of calling Tagwirei, which...
Inside Zimbabwe’s sleaze empire: New report details how president’s men are bleeding the country
Reports on corruption and state capture in Zimbabwe are coming out thick and fast. In the latest instalment on governing Zanu-PF government, a new report released last week lays bare the burgeoning offshore business empire owned by Kudakwashe Tagwirei, who is rated as Zimbabwe’s richest businessperson and a close ally...
Mental health: Doctorate students fear visiting counselling centres shared with undergraduates
Although some researchers have supportive mentors and colleagues with whom they can share their struggles, others experience further mental-health challenges owing to hostile work environments. In the 2019 Nature survey of PhD researchers worldwide, 21 per cent of respondents said they had experienced harassment or discrimination in their programmes. Female...
Star-crossed and lovesick Princess Diana had a habit of picking wrong men
Days after the unveiling of Princess Diana Statue in Kensington, London, on what would have been her 60th birthday, the media delved, once again, into her private life and reminded the world of her rarely talked about relationship with Hasnat Khan, a Pakistani surgeon. According to OK, an entertainment magazine,...
Report details how mental health of graduate students is sorely overlooked
Graduate students around the world need more support to manage the mental-health issues, such as depression and anxiety, that they are experiencing at worrying rates, according to a report from two US non-profit organizations. The study was co-produced by the Council of Graduate Schools (CGS) in Washington DC and the...
Trump Org: Case against developer alleges $1.76m in unreported compensation
Prosecutors this week charged the Trump Organization and its chief financial officer with systematically and illegally evading taxes for years, largely by failing to report compensation. The former president’s development firm and CFO Allen Weisselberg used a variety of schemes to cheat the government, according to an indictment that Manhattan...
UN’s biometric identity cards have brought little but pain to Rohingya refugees
Massive amounts of personal and biometric data are being gathered from hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh. This should set off multiple alarm bells. As bystanders to likely crimes against humanity against the Rohingya, the humanitarian community has a particular responsibility to ensure their rights are not violated...
‘Psychedelic drugs and the hallucinations they induce can reveal how brains work’
“Everything became imbued with a sense of vitality and life and vividness. If I picked up a pebble from the beach, it would move. It would glisten and gleam and sparkle and be absolutely captivating,” says neuroscientist Anil Seth. “Somebody looking at me would see me staring at a stone...
