A fact all the more frustrating given that when I tried to book a seat on this train from Nairobi to Mombasa it was fully booked several days in advance.

Surely the local golf-cart-repair racket will be up in arms on this one.

Can a $40 smartphone close Africa’s internet gap? Industry groups say cheaper devices could bring millions online, but earlier low-cost phone projects struggled to survive https://restofworld.org/2026/gsma-cheap-smartphone-africa/?utm_campaign=row-social&utm_source=bluesky&utm_medium=social

Make it stick.

X will demonetize users who post AI-generated videos of war (but not other kinds of disinformation) www.niemanlab.org/2026/03/x-wi...

After calling the U.S. State Department hotline with questions about how to get home from Dubai, a Texas resident said that the agent told her to “stop ranting and raving” and hung up. She's one of the thousands of travelers stranded by fighting in the Middle East. nyti.ms/3OP63tn

Ernest Goes to War.

Armed police flood Iran’s universities to crush student protests

The story that Elon Musk committed voter fraud has gotten next to no coverage -- one of those things you can't make come up on a Google search. But I think it's time for Dems to go on offensive abt right wing coddling of this immigrant interfering in our elections. newrepublic.com/post/206857/...

The Hong Kong Free Press Annual Report: Review our best coverage, financial accounts, and achievements. In full: buff.ly/mrjKNNg

A free press forms the foundation of all robust, democratic systems and serves as a critical bulwark against rising authoritarianism. Bangladesh's upcoming election is a test.

Why did the Eglinton LRT take so long? Take a ride through 50 years of delays, broken relationships, and lawsuits #StarInteractive

Rupert Murdoch is now 94 and worth $23 billion. His empire continues to gaslight the world—but he’ll leave even his own kingdom darker than he found it. www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

“The country with the Statue of Liberty deprived us of our liberty without any kind of evidence,” Leonardo José Colmenares Solórzano, a 31-year-old Venezuelan who was held in CECOT for months, said two days after he was returned to his family. (Published July 2025)

Touché.

"I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace"

Right, but China buying Canadian canola makes Carney a stooge and a communist capitulator etc.

An Élysée spokesperson said on Sunday that President Emmanuel Macron will ask the EU to activate its Anti-Coercion Instrument (ACI) – dubbed the bloc’s trade “bazooka” – if new US tariffs materialise.

Also building firm in charge of the BKK building that collapsed after the earthquake last year.

Eh? The bamboo is all that’s left.

Control of HIV, TB and malaria at risk after global health fund donations fall

You mean he didn’t just like images of battleships silhouetted in a crimson twilight?

Wait until they hear about “cousin brother”…

The Medvedev Moment

Haha. “Biographer” as a subgroup of the “sexy librarian”. For Andrew it makes sense.

“Long-planned”.

One Reichstag Fire After Another.

Clearly they made the change on the heels of the new PT Anderson film to avoid any Christmas-Adventurer jokes.

Punishment Soup.

Comedy has, indeed, been legalised.

“Booked hotels near the office”. Get a fucking life.

It was an honour to publish Jerome’s last piece for the paper a couple of years ago. From such a gigantic mind came much kindness, understanding, and frankly, a couple of times during editing, I needed a couple of things explained. He did so with grace. www.scmp.com/news/china/d...

Also I believe it was Falwell whom Hitchens described as being so full of shit that if you gave him an enema he’d fit in a matchbox.

Robert Munsch wrote such beloved books as “The Paper Bag Princess” and “Love You Forever” by performing them to audiences of children. Now dementia is causing his tales to slip away. nyti.ms/4mc35tT

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney launched a new government agency responsible for building affordable homes as he aims to boost the pace of construction over the next decade

AI sucks pickled donkey balls.

Who among us has ever called the stamp a “passport mark”?

Never a dull moment.

Probably one of the best explainers I've read so far on the protests in Nepal in English here from @globalvoices.org Well worth a read.

We might be “experiencing an AI bubble,” Rogé Karma argues. “If that bubble bursts, it could put the dot-com crash to shame—and the tech giants and their Silicon Valley backers won’t be the only ones who suffer.”

Greetings from Hong Kong, comrades!

More framing like this, please www.nytimes.com/2025/09/01/u...

You don’t say.

The deadly toll on journalists in the Gaza war

NEW: More than two decades after victims and families of the 9/11 attacks began trying to hold the Saudi government responsible for aiding the Qaida terrorists who carried out the plot, a judge has ruled that a lawsuit against the kingdom can go to trial.

1960s Japan salutes this technological leap.