“.. four months after its establishment, the board’s financial fund set up by the World Bank has received no money from donors, according to four people familiar with the matter. ‘Zero dollars have been deposited,’ one said.” @financialtimes.com www.ft.com/content/5ba3...

Later this year, deaths will outstrip births in the UK. The consequences for society and the welfare state can’t be underestimated, writes Tom Clark

🚨For 3 years, civilians in Sudan have borne the brunt of a conflict epitomised by widespread violations of human rights and international humanitarian law, often amounting to atrocity crimes. Time for the African Union, and others, to finally act: #JusticeMatters. Must-read by @hrw.org ⤵️

"A thousand dead humanitarians in three years - when did that become normal?" United Nations Under-Secretary-General Tom Fletcher on the violence facing humanitarian workers in conflict zones. Watch the event➡️ bit.ly/4cDWXbb

Hungarian voters' rejection of their autocratic prime minister, Viktor Orban, holds important lessons for efforts in the United States to resist Trump's own autocratic tendencies. Here are nine lessons that I draw: www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

OpenAI’s Sam Altman wants to “de-escalate” the rhetoric around A.I. But if you tell people that your product will upend their way of life, take their jobs, and possibly threaten humanity, they might believe you. www.newyorker.com/culture/infi...

A new book charts the creation of a secretive A.I. system that automates warfare for the military. The progression from target identification to target destruction is four clicks. www.newyorker.com/books/under-...

"This war has proved that Washington can’t force Tehran into submission." - @FedericaMog, former top EU negotiator with Iran. www.foreignaffairs.com/iran/how-end...

Cindy Cohn's tour discussing her new book, Privacy's Defender, continues in Washington, D.C. on April 13 with Gigi Sohn and April 14 with WISP! Register now: www.eff.org/deeplinks/2....

In the absence of any specific laws governing police use of facial recognition, the public is asked to take it all on trust, writes Mark Wilding fro Liberty Investigates

Over 100 international lawyers (including me) warn that U.S. strikes on Iran violate the UN Charter and may be war crimes. Read the letter here: www.justsecurity.org/135423/profe...

The Strait of Hormuz, which is used to transport 20% of the world’s oil, is still closed and Iran said Friday it forced at least three ships to turn back.

Big Tech’s AI tools trained on Western data often can’t recognize local crops, forests, or farming conditions without adaptation to local environments https://restofworld.org/2026/ai-agriculture-local-data/?utm_campaign=row-social&utm_source=bluesky&utm_medium=social

The US-Israeli war with Iran has amplified long-standing concerns over the adoption of artificial intelligence-supported targeting in modern warfare.

Incredible, sharp, critical reflection on Habermas’ legacy from Nancy Fraser. This is the postmortem I’ve been hoping would come and also sums up so much of my relationship to his work

“As the Middle East conflict has spread and intensified, so too has the dangerous rhetoric by leaders on all sides, including open threats to commit war crimes.” - @bolopion.bsky.social / @hrw.org on the past month of war in the Middle East Read more ⤵️

It was a pleasure to talk to @mehdirhasan.bsky.social about Nation of Strangers on legendary @zeteo.com

The Israeli military says soldiers are operating in southern Lebanon as part of a broader effort to increase security for residents in northern Israel near their shared border as it battles Hezbollah militants.

Horrific news from Iraq where feminist activist and human rights defender Yanar Mohammed, co-founder and director of the Organization of Women's Freedom in Iraq (OWFI), has been assassinated by gunmen outside of her home just days after returning from Canada.

Arrived in #SouthSudan and travelled directly to Malakal. Met communities living through years of displacement, as well as families forced to return due to the war in Sudan. They want peace – but people also need support now to rebuild their lives with dignity.

‘A large part of what’s great about 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘚𝘦𝘤𝘳𝘦𝘵 𝘈𝘨𝘦𝘯𝘵 is Wagner Moura, who inhabits his role with the naturalism of a documentary subject and the charisma of a star. He plays two roles, the second of which I won’t reveal.’ Gaby Wood at the movies. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Both Democrats and Republicans helped create the infrastructure for ideological surveillance at the US border—but the Trump administration is deploying it in the service of a radically partisan and censorial agenda. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Even his enemies are likely to admit Ed Miliband is Labour’s best cabinet minister, writes Michael Jacobs. Not even Morgan McSweeney could stare him down...

It was unwise to seek mental health advice from a platform that isn’t regulated to provide it—and is incentivised to keep users online, writes @sarahelizacollins.bsky.social.

“I carried him on my back. It took seven days.” A camp in eastern Chad is now home to more than 100,000 refugees of Sudan’s civil war, and is a key destination for those fleeing El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur State. Resources are strained as the number of newly displaced people increases.

The actor Michael Sheen used all his money to start a fake debt collecting business, buy 900 people in Wales's debt, and excused it. If Musk bought ALL $194 billion in medical debt in the U.S. and excused it in the same way, he'd still be the world's riches man by hundreds of billions of dollars.

The CBS reporter who led the story calls pulling it a "political" decision. "The decision was made after Bari Weiss, the new editor in chief of CBS News, requested numerous changes to the segment." www.nytimes.com/2025/12/21/b...

boy, a grim echo of Budapest's memorial to pogrom victims here.

The victims at Brown University? Ella, a white Christian student, and Mukhammad, a Muslim student who originally came from Uzbekistan. We're all in this together. Be wary of the hatemongers who are demonizing an entire faith for the sins of the few and love guns more than our kids.

Ahmed al Ahmed, the man who tackled one of the Bondi killers, became an Australian citizen 3 years ago. His deed was "his way of conveying his gratitude for staying in Australia, for being granted citizenship." He took 5 bullets, and fears he'll lose his left arm. www.smh.com.au/national/nsw...

apart from the sheer inconceivable horror of the El Fasher massacre and its attendant horrors itself, the thing I'm feeling depressed about is that it probably won't matter. these were people already on the utmost margins of the global system, who the world has already decided it doesn't care about

I fear for people relying on AI for mental health advice, writes @sarahelizacollins.bsky.social.

Meanwhile. www.nytimes.com/2025/12/13/c...

Here is Congressman Randy Fine explicitly calling for the genocide of Muslims. This is abhorrent. We are disgusted by Congressman Fine's persistent and rampant anti-Muslim racism and call on all American Jewish leaders to speak out.

How ‘The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám’ inspired Victorian Hedonists

With or without 'Big Short' predictions, the concern that AI hardware might soon become obsolete has been growing for a while

After Martin Luther King’s family protested, OpenAI now restricts users’ ability to make fake videos of MLK. It’s just one way AI must be prevented from warping our sense of reality, writes @ethanz.bsky.social.

A recent M.I.T. study found that 95% of companies that had invested in A.I. tools were seeing zero return.

St. Augustine (yes, that one), the African. www.nybooks.com/articles/202...

“Tigray is broken. Its leaders divided, some aligning with Addis Ababa, others with Eritrea. Another war looms, one that could pit Tigrayans against each other. I fought once to defend my people; I will not fight again in a war that will destroy what remains.” continent.substack.com/p/the-exodus...

‘Writers, for better or worse, need publishers (and vice versa), and their relationships, involving taste, friendship and money, can be as long-lasting, as complicated and as asymmetrical as any marriage.’ Online early: Julian Barnes on Flaubert and his publisher. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

While the war has been raging in Gaza, the right-wing Netanyahu government has been doing everything short of formal annexation to extend Israeli control over the West Bank—and it might well have done the formal annexation if Trump had not blocked it. wapo.st/3W5yhAx

‘Like James Baldwin, she thought social revolution required a reckoning of all relationships, including the individual’s relationship to herself.’ Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor (@keeanga.bsky.social) on Audre Lorde: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

"Asked what freedom felt like, [Alaa] said: “It is overwhelming. It is also comfortable and natural, and I am immediately fitting in with them, including witnessing three family fights in two days. The usual stuff." Don't miss this Guardian interview: www.theguardian.com/world/2025/o...

John Milton's Areopagitica, one of the most important and influential tracts on free speech ever written, is basically 100 pages of "belittling conservative ideas." Glad Milton got that one published before Marc Rowan came along.

A labour government wants to make amendments to our laws to bring in conditions, and possible outright ban on protests in the UK because the Palestine movement got too big for them to continue to ignore. A Labour government. Not Tory, not reform, but Labour.

‘Chinese Gen Z-ers don’t want their parents or colleagues to know what they say, watch or read in the virtual world. Plus, cyber violence is rife: who wants to be doxxed over a silly comment?’ Yun Sheng: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Foreign staff have ‘changed our lives’: Scottish farmers fear for future after changes to skilled workers visas

This is my regular reminder to everyone that jstor is open to the general public now; a free account there will give you access to 100 papers a year.