Category: Uncategorized

  • Socialist Software Engineers

    This article in The Drift magazine talks about “a non-negligible number of the people who write software for a living” being socialists, though not “as many as the right would have you believe.” 

    Calling it “the engineer’s predicament,” the author talks about such coders developing a desire to “to put their politics into code”: 

    “They want to write software that will facilitate the creation of worker cooperatives, seed the internet with self-governing platforms, and equip movements and municipalities with tools for democratic decision-making and participatory governance.”

    Elaborating on the article’s theme after sharing some facts about the history of “highly skilled workers in capital-intensive industries who had radical politics,” the author concludes: 

    “This is the greatest dilemma faced by socialist software engineers: in working against the grain of their technological heritage, they may also be working to bring about a world in which technology matters less.”

    Read the full article here.

  • An Index of Digital Archives of Radical Literature from Around the Globe

    Academic Evan Smith, who has “published widely on the topics of social movements, political extremism, national security, borders and free speech,” has put together a growing index of “radical literature from around the world that is being scanned and digitised” on his WordPress blog. Most, if not all, of the included archives, are free to use, the blog claims.

    Browse this index of online collections and archives of radical literature from around the world here.

  • South Asia Open Archives Now Contain More Than 1 Million Pages

    As this piece in JSTOR Daily reports, the South Asia Open Archives “now offers more than one million pages of digitized primary source material.” 

    The South Asia Open Archives (SAOA) website describes the archive as:

    “… a collaborative, open-access resource for research, teaching, and learning about South Asia. The member-driven collection includes historical and contemporary sources from and about the region in arts, humanities, social sciences, history of science, and other fields in English and other South Asian languages.”

    As the JSTOR Daily article points out, the archive was “launched in 2019 by the Center for Research Libraries (CRL)” and since then “[m]ore than two dozen institutions have contributed to this ever-growing archive.” 

    The Centerfor Research Libraries “is an international consortium of university, college, and independent research libraries” based in Chicago, Illinois. 

    Read the JSTOR Daily report on SAOA here. Browse the open-access South Asia Open Archives here.

  • International Peace Mission Prepares to Withdraw from Somalia

    As this report in Africa Defense Forum, a quarterly security magazine published by U.S. Africa Command, summarises: 

    “After 18 years and three multinational peace missions, Somalia is getting ready to take full control of its own security. The 1-year-old African Union Transitional Mission in Somalia (ATMIS) is preparing to withdraw 2,000 troops from the embattled Horn of Africa nation by June 30, 2023, the first of three drawdowns in its transition plan.”

    ATMIS is supposed to withdraw completely by December 31, 2024, and this is a test run of sorts for that.

    As the report states, there has been an arms embargo on Somalia since 1992, which has since “been modified several times and remains in force until at least November 17, 2023.”

    As far as Somalian self-reliance goes, “Somalia intends to gradually ramp up its force levels to about 23,000 and take over when ATMIS liquidates its assets and fully withdraws.” 

    Read the full report here.

  • Ireland Considering Starting a Sovereign Wealth Fund

    According to this report by CNBC, “Ireland is considering funneling some of the bumper tax income it’s receiving from the many multinationals based in the country into a new sovereign wealth fund.”

    Ireland is one of the few countries worldwide to have a budget surplus and “[p]revious reports have suggested the new fund would be used to continue to pay down debt as well as on pensions and health care spending.” 

    Read the full report here.

  • Board of Academic Journal Resigns Over Elsevier's "Greed"

    As this report in The Guardian states, “More than 40 leading scientists have resigned en masse from the editorial board of a top science journal in protest at what they describe as the “greed” of publishing giant Elsevier.” 

    “The entire academic board of the journal Neuroimage […] resigned after Elsevier refused to reduce publication charges.” 

    Reportedly, “[a]cademics around the world have applauded what many hope is the start of a rebellion against the huge profit margins in academic publishing.” One resignee is reported to have “urged fellow scientists to turn their backs on the Elsevier journal and submit papers to a nonprofit open-access journal which the team is setting up instead.” 

    Read the full report here.

  • Senegalese Parliament Refuses to Make Existing Anti-gay Laws Harsher

    As reported on Erasing 76 Crimes, ” [a] news site [that] focuses on the human toll of 68+ countries’ anti-LGBTI laws and the struggle to repeal them”:

    “On Friday, April 28, Senegal’s Parliament rejected a series of proposals, including a text that would toughen the criminalization of homosexuality, already punishable by one to five years in prison and a fine (Article 319 of the Penal Code, dating from 1966).”

    Even though the existing anti-LGBTI laws were not repealed, activists have welcomed this move considering the wave of anti-gay hysteria sweeping through some African countries.

    It is promising that the Senegalese “[p]arliament had already rejected a similar bill in January 2022” and that one legislator was quoted as saying “[w]e don’t need a law based on emotions that fills up our prisons.”

    Read the full report here.

  • End of the Road for Erdogan?

    Is Recep Tayyip Erdogan about to lose political control in Turkey? The Economist sounds optimistic.

    As this article points out, Erdogan has had a tight grip over power in his country:

    “He was jailed and barred from public office, yet managed to overturn the ban and came to dominate Turkish politics. He has won five parliamentary elections, two presidential polls and three referendums. He has even faced down a military coup.” 

    And yet, the article reports, “the polls suggest that the united opposition could wrest control of parliament from Mr Erdogan’s Justice and Development (AK) party and its allies” in the upcoming elections and “Erdogan himself appears to be trailing in the presidential election to be held on the same day.” 

    And as this article, also in The Economist points out, “[w]ere he to lose, it would be a stunning political reversal with global consequences” and it could provide a reason for hope for democrats around the world: 

    “The Turkish people would be more free, less fearful and—in time—more prosperous. A new government would repair battered relations with the West. (Turkey is a member of NATO, but under Mr Erdogan has been a disruptive actor in the Middle East and pursued closer ties with Russia.) Most important, in an era when strongman rule is on the rise, from Hungary to India, the peaceful ejection of Mr Erdogan would show democrats everywhere that strongmen can be beaten.” 

    Read these two opinion pieces on the upcoming Turkey elections in The Economist here and here. 

  • Better Understanding Photosynthesis

    According to reports in multiple science publications, such as this one, “researchers from the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, together with collaborators from Uppsala University and Humboldt University and other institutions” have been able to shed more light on “how Photosystem II, a protein complex in plants, algae and cyanobacteria, harvests energy from sunlight and uses it to split water, producing the oxygen we breathe.” 

    As the report goes on to state:

    “Using SLAC’s Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) and the SPring-8 Angstrom Compact free electron LAser (SACLA) in Japan, they captured for the first time in atomic detail what happens in the final moments leading up to the release of breathable oxygen. The data reveal an intermediate reaction step that had not been observed before.

    The results, published today in Nature, shed light on how nature has optimized photosynthesis and are helping scientists develop artificial photosynthetic systems that mimic photosynthesis to harvest natural sunlight to convert carbon dioxide into hydrogen and carbon based-fuels.” 

    Read the full report here.

  • Class Action Lawsuit Filed Against Starbucks in New York For Collecting Biometric Data and Sharing It with Amazon

    According to this press release put out by Surveillance Technology Oversight Project (S.T.O.P) on May 4, 2023: 

    “Today, a Starbucks customer, the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project (S.T.O.P), Peter Romer-Friedman Law PLLC, and Pollock Cohen LLP filed a proposed class action lawsuit claiming that Starbucks illegally failed to notify customers that Starbucks’ stores using Amazon’s “Just Walk Out” technology in New York City collect biometric data on customers. The class action also claims that Starbucks illegally shared those customers’ biometric data with Amazon. Two Starbucks stores in Manhattan use the “Just Walk Out” technology to track each customer’s movements and purchases in the store’s lounge and marketplace. They also take palm images of customers who enter those areas of the stores with a palm signature. The case was filed under New York City’s 2021 biometric notice law, which requires businesses to post signs warning customers whenever their biometric information is being collected or shared and prohibits sharing customers’ biometric information for anything of value.”

    In addition to the parties listed above, the class action suit was filed on behalf of “a proposed class of tens of thousands of Starbucks customers.” 

    Starbucks did try to take some steps belatedly, but apparently, they do not cover all legal grounds: 

    “On March 13, 2023, Starbucks allegedly took the additional step of posting signs that state that it only collects biometric data from customers who opt into the optional palm scanner program that Starbucks operates at two of its stores. However, as the lawsuit alleges, Starbucks collects and shares biometric data on all customers who enter the gated area of the store that includes the lounge and marketplace, even those customers who refuse to use the palm scanner, namely information on the shape and size of each customer’s body.” 

    Read the full press release here.

  • The Conflict in Myanmar

    According to this report in The Diplomat, “a group of Myanmar’s neighbors, India, Thailand, Bangladesh, and Laos, seem adamant about treating the junta like a single sovereign entity and nursing it back to strength.” This is the same “military junta that attempted to seize control of Myanmar in February 2021.” 

    While the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), which had “been placed by the United Nations and the wider international community in the driving seat of international Myanmar policy,” had been “inching towards a more moderate and critical position on Myanmar,” Thailand is reported to have “launched a separate track of talks aimed at undermining this approach.” 

    According to the author, an obvious flaw in this approach is that the “junta is just not able to implement its political or economic decisions across most of the country’s territory.” Some maps are said to “demonstrate just how limited the Myanmar army’s movement has become since the coup, as a result of the widespread nationwide uprising.” Having been on the ground, the author reports: “The situation varies greatly on the ground, but the maps provide an accurate bird’s eye picture.” 

    Meanwhile, the army has resorted to all sorts of violence including rape and terror attacks. “Millions of people in resistance areas live under constant remote surveillance by drones, knowing that at any moment this could be followed by a devastating air force sortie.”

    Read the full report here.

  • Adverse Effects of Microplastics on Human Hormones

    This report in Salon covers “a new study published by researchers at Rutgers University” about how “everyday plastic pollution could be endocrine-disrupting.” 

    As the report recounts, “[p]reviously, research suggested that chemical additives used to improve plastics, like bisphenol-A (or BPA), were potentially having all kinds of disruptive effects on human hormones.” But now the “new study suggests that even plastic without BPA can have comparable endocrine-disrupting effects.” 

    An important aspect of the methodology was that “the researchers found a way to successfully aerosolize the particles so they could see what happened to them when inhaled” since “this is a common method of absorption into the body.” 

    Read the full report here.

  • The Ranajit Guha Entry in The Routledge Handbook of Marxism and Post-Marxism

    In the wake of the death of Subaltern Studies pioneer Ranajit Guha, scholar Alf Gunvald Nilsen has shared an open-access version of the entry he wrote on Guha for TheRoutledge Handbook of Marxism and Post-Marxism.

    Read the full entry here.

  • Quantum Effects Demonstrated at Macroscopic Scale

    As this report states, physicists have been able to bring “the bizarre behavior of the quantum world to larger scales than ever before.” Various publications are calling it the world’s heaviest or largest Schrödinger’s cat. 

    The experiment can be summarised as: 

    “The trick, performed by vibrating 100 million billion atoms inside a sand-grain-sized sapphire crystal, created the world’s heaviest quantum superposition as the crystal simultaneously oscillated in two different directions.”

    This is important because: 

    “As most quantum effects typically decohere and disappear at macroscopic scales, Schrödinger’s analogy was meant to demonstrate the fundamental differences between our world and the world of the very small. Yet no hard limit exists between the two realms, enabling physicists to begin cajoling complex, near-macroscopic-scale objects into showing freaky quantum behavior.” 

    Of course, this could have far-reaching consequences for quantum technologies like quantum computing. 

    Read the full report here.

  • Excavated Buddha Statue Seen as Proof of Trade Between Ancient Egypt and India

    As this report by English-language Egyptian news portal Ahram Online states, archaeologists from a joint “Polish-American archaeological mission” have found a statue depicting the Buddha at the site of the ancient Egyptian city of Berenike while excavating in a temple complex “dedicated to the Goddess Isis.”

    The find, along with other excavations on the site, like “an inscription in Sanskrit” and “two second-century CE coins” from a central Indian kingdom, is said to show “a connection between Egypt and India during the Roman Empire.” 

    Read the full report here.

  • Spate of Privacy Breaches by Healthcare Businesses

    According to this report, “Telehealth company Cerebral is facing a lawsuit that accuses the company of installing tracking technologies on its website and app that led to the protected health information of more than 3 million patients to be sent to social media companies.” 

    This is happening against the backdrop of “14 other hospitals and health systems around the country” facing lawsuits “alleging use of these tracking technologies on their websites.”

    Read the full report here.

  • Social Media, Disinformation, and the Sudan Conflict

    This newsletter from Coda Story paints a grim picture of how “Big Tech is ‘failing the Sudanese people.’” 

    Reportedly, the conflict in Sudan has led to a situation on social media platforms “that bore many hallmarks of a coordinated disinformation campaign.”

    A Twitter account with a blue checkmark that “looked like the official account of the RSF” falsely announced the death of Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, “the leader of Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces — the paramilitary organization formerly known as the Janjaweed, notorious for carrying out the genocide in Darfur in the early 2000s”: 

    “In the current situation, the disinformation — whether it’s a bogus tweet claiming the general is dead or one claiming that attacks have taken place where they haven’t — could affect how the fighting plays out and how civilians make decisions about where to take shelter or how to traverse dangerous territory.”

    Adding to the chaos of the conflict are factors like internet connections “faltering or collapsing altogether” and social media being “a jumble of real news, hearsay and propaganda.” 

    “With blue ticks available to anyone for a fee, it’s become exponentially harder to know who’s really speaking.” 

    Read the full report in the Coda newsletter here.

  • Bernie Sanders Calls for A Reduced Workweek

    In this piece for Leftist magazine Jacobin, philosophy professor and author, Ben Burgis argues in support of Bernie Sanders renewing “his long-standing call to reduce the workweek to thirty-two hours.” 

    Burgess discusses state-level efforts in California and the federal attempt in Congress to make this reduced workweek a reality. “Right now, these efforts face an uphill battle to say the least.”

    Burgis writes: 

    “There was a 299 percent increase in labor productivity from 1950 to 2020. As Senator Sanders rightly suggests, the benefits of that increase largely went to the top of society. It certainly didn’t automatically generate a shorter workweek.”

    and

    “Technology and productivity have advanced to an astonishing degree since President Franklin Roosevelt signed the Fair Labor Standards Act. But the limitation on how many hours workers can be made to spend on the job if they want to be able to make a living has stayed in place.” 

    Read the full article here.

  • Buzzfeed News Shutting Down

    As this report summarises: 

    “Last week, BuzzFeed CEO Jonah Peretti announced that BuzzFeed News is being shut down, leading to layoffs of about 15% of BuzzFeed staff. The layoffs will affect the company’s business, content, tech and admin teams as well as some staff in international markets. In an email to staff reprinted by CNBC, Peretti said they can no longer fund BuzzFeed News as a standalone operation.”

    Reportedly, the company’s news content will be shifted to Huffpost: 

    “The company’s sole news provider will now be HuffPost. BuzzFeed.com will continue its signature clickbait content, including listicles, quizzes, celebrity gossip and more.”

    Read a comprehensive report on the issue here.

  • Paid Subscriptions Now Necessary for Running Ad Campaigns on Twitter

    Twitter now requires that individuals or organisations intending to run ad campaigns on Twitter be subscribed to either Twitter Blue or the “Verified Organizations” service.

    This report from Tech Crunch quotes a letter from Twitter to a Twitter user:

    “[…] your @account must have a verified checkmark or subscribe to either Twitter Blue or Verified Organizations to continue running ads on Twitter.”

    Read the full Tech Crunch report here.

  • Cryptocurrency in Africa

    This article in Rest of World looks at the decline of crypto in Africa in the aftermath of the FTX collapse. The author quotes reports that talked of the “tens of millions of Africans who bought into the cryptocurrency frenzy over the last few years” and how “[b]lockchain startups and businesses on the continent raised $474 million in 2022, a 429% increase from the previous year.” 

    Now, however, “crypto-related startups across the African continent have been struggling to survive.” 

    Regulatory pushbacks have been seen around the world, including by African governments. But “[s]ome industry stakeholders believe crypto is too important to just be a bubble in Africa, and that the current troubles aren’t unique to this industry. Some industry insiders claim that “several African crypto startups still seem to be doing well, and that stablecoins are a great alternative to Africa’s cross-border remittance restrictions.” 

    Read the full report here.

  • The Potential of CRISPR-edited Fats to Treat Cancer

    Various publications have covered a study where researchers converted white fat into brown fat using CRISPR and used it to surround tumours, starving them of essential nutrients. 

    As this report on the popular science website LiveScience summarises: 

    “Fat sucked out of the body and tweaked with the gene-editing tool CRISPR could be used to treat cancer, a study of mice and transplanted human tissues hints. 

    However, it remains to be seen whether the experimental therapy would be safe and effective in people.” 

    Read the full report here.

  • Data Security Concerns Over the Use of Generative AI Tools

    A study by an Israeli firm Team8 got widely picked up by media outlets because of the concerns it raises about corporate secrets and customer information. 

    As one report says: 

    “The report said that companies using such tools may leave them susceptible to data leaks and laws. The chatbots can be used by hackers to access sensitive information. Team8’s study said that chatbot queries are not being fed into the large language models to train AI since the models in their current form can’t update themselves in real-time. This, however, may not be true for the future versions of such models, it added.”

    Bloomberg News covered the study first and is said to have received it “prior to its release.” As the Bloomberg report says: 

    Major technology companies including Microsoft Corp. and Alphabet Inc. are racing to add generative AI capabilities to improve chatbots and search engines, training their models on data scraped from the Internet to give users a one-stop-shop to their queries. If these tools are fed confidential or private data, it will be very difficult to erase the information, the report said. 

    Read the complete Bloomberg report on the Team8 study here.

  • Irresponsible Nuclear Posturing by Politicians in India and Pakistan

    This piece in South Asian Voices, “an online policy platform for strategic analysis on South Asia” published by the Stimson Center in Washington, D.C., argues that “irresponsible statements” about the use of nuclear weapons by politicians in Pakistan and India over the last few years “contribute to cultivating nuclear war psychology” instead of promoting a responsible “stigmatize the bomb” strategy. 

    Politicians from Pakistan and India making irresponsible remarks about nuclear weapons is said to “reinforce South Asian atomic culture”: 

    “This atomic culture has facilitated the acquisition of nuclear technology with chauvinistic pride and a symbol of supreme power for political independence. It has limited space for negotiating potential threats of nuclear exchanges and shared responsibilities of hostile SNW [strategic nuclear weapon]. For instance, New Delhi and Islamabad have not been able to build robust institutional arrangements for Nuclear Confidence Building Measures (NCBMs).” 

    Read the full article here.

  • Flood Mitigation in New Zealand

    This report in Stuff, a news portal in New Zealand, covers local environmentalist Tom Kay’s presentation to government officials “about the importance of rethinking natural disaster mitigation” in light of “a series of devastating floods” over the past five years.

    It raises concerns about “the country’s preoccupation with draining” wetlands having a direct correlation to increased flooding as wetlands “act as buffer zones, or sponges.” 

    Straightening rivers and lining them with stopbanks are said to have “proven disastrous for wildlife and humans alike” as river straightening has destroyed “natural habitats for many fish species” and stopbanks “ultimately elevate water levels above the floodplain.”

    Deforestation, which causes “more water to flow off hillsides,” combined with all the above factors, “has created the perfect storm” resulting in more frequent and more devastating floods, the report argues.

    Read the full article here.

  • Rising Debt Servicing Costs Eating into Government Revenues in Poorest Countries

    This piece in the Financial Times reports how studies from across the ideological spectrum, by Debt Justice campaign and the IMF, show that “[l]ow-income countries will face their biggest bills for servicing foreign debts in a quarter of a century this year, putting spending on health and education at risk.”

    The report says: “The figures — the highest since 1998 — follow a steep rise in global borrowing costs last year, when central banks sought to counter high inflation with rapid rate rises.”

    Some argue that this may call for debt relief at a large scale like when “[m]ultilateral lenders and foreign governments led by the IMF and the World Bank delivered far-reaching debt relief around the turn of the millennium.” The argument goes that this may even require “changes to laws governing bond contracts in England and the state of New York to force private creditors to take part in debt cancellation.”

    Sri Lanka, having been in the news for some time now due to its financial troubles, “faces the steepest schedule of external repayments, equal to 75 per cent of government revenues this year. The country is unlikely to meet those payments following a default on its external debts last year.”

    Read the full report here.

  • PBS and NPR Stop Using Twitter

    As widely reported, PBS and NPR have stopped using Twitter. 

    According to the National Public Radio or NPR website: “NPR is an independent, nonprofit media organization that was founded on a mission to create a more informed public.”

    According to the Public Broadcasting Service or PBS website: “PBS is a membership organization that, in partnership with its member stations, serves the American public with programming and services of the highest quality, using media to educate, inspire, entertain and express a diversity of perspectives.”

    To access multi-media content put out by NPR, visit their website here. To take a look at PBS programming, visit their website here or their Youtube channel here.

  • Politically Motivated Anti-gay Hysteria in East Africa

    In this “letter” for BBC, Sammy Awami, a freelance journalist based in Tanzania, talks about the “wave of anti-homosexuality sentiments sweeping through” East Africa. 

    Awami argues, as have others, that this anti-gay sentiment is being whipped up “by politicians and political parties who have not delivered on their promises to their voters.” Ugandan journalist Charles Onyango-Obbo is quoted as making a similar argument in a tweet: “There is currently no anti-gay hysteria in African countries with high economic growth rates or which are able to manage their debt”. 

    About the bogus claim of homosexuality being un-African, Awamy writes: 

    “It is interesting that these politicians ignore the fact that it is actually the harsh anti-homosexuality laws – not homosexuality – that were imposed on us by the colonial government. 

    Indeed, the original anti-homosexuality law was first introduced across Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda by the British colonialists, after successfully using it in India about 150 years ago.” 

    Read the full article here. 

  • A Resource for Social Theory from a Global Perspective

    globalsocialtheory.org is “an open, collaborative resource for all those interested in global social theory” (as described in their Twitter bio). 

    Their website describes them as: 

    “This site is intended as a free resource for students, teachers, academics, and others interested in social theory and wishing to understand it in global perspective. It emerges from a long-standing concern with the parochiality of standard perspectives on social theory and seeks to provide an introduction to a variety of theorists and theories from around the world.” 

    Furthermore: “All entries published by Global Social Theory are covered by a Creative Commons licence, allowing share alike for non-commercial purposes, with attribution to author and link to the Global Social Theory web-page for the entry.” 

    Visit their website here. Read a sample entry on Critical Race Theory here.

  • Kenyan Deputy President Loses Twitter Verification

    A story not picked up by international media is Kenyan Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua losing his Twitter verification as a consequence of the rollout of the company’s latest policies. What makes the story noteworthy is that Gachagua did not get a grey verification badge that government officials are supposed to get under the new Twitter design, even though the Kenyan President’s account got the said grey badge. 

    According to one local media report, Gachagua “is the first high-ranking individual in Kenya to lose his verification badge in the wake of changes on the Social media platform.” 

    Read coverage of the story in mainstream Kenyan media here and here.