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The world’s largest democratic exercise is a referendum on one man: Narendra Modi

The world’s largest democratic exercise is a referendum on one man: Narendra Modi

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WOW. WOW. President of the BJP vowing to cleanse the country of….Christians and Muslims? And presumably anyone else who is not Buddha (sic), Sikh or Hindu? https://t.co/6JSVdhdZ7Z — Priyamvada Gopal (@PriyamvadaGopal) April 11, 2019 Betwa Sharma writes: Nine hundred million people, just shy of the combined populations of Europe and America, will have the chance to vote as Indians line up to decide who will lead the country for the next five years. The phased polls begin on April 11…

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Why giant statues of Hindu gods and leaders are making Muslims in India nervous

Why giant statues of Hindu gods and leaders are making Muslims in India nervous

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By Indulata Prasad, Arizona State University Statues – big statues, the largest in the world – are being built all across India. Like many public monuments, they attempt to convey history in a concrete form. But India’s new statues convey something else, too: the power and vision of one dominant group – and the vulnerability of others. That’s because India’s biggest new public monuments all pay tribute to Hindu gods and leaders. As a scholar of social change in India,…

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China’s hi-tech war on its Muslim minority

China’s hi-tech war on its Muslim minority

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Darren Byler writes: In mid-2017, Alim, a Uighur man in his 20s, returned to China from studying abroad. As soon as he landed back in the country, he was pulled off the plane by police officers. He was told his trip abroad meant that he was now under suspicion of being “unsafe”. The police administered what they call a “health check”, which involved collecting several types of biometric data, including DNA, blood type, fingerprints, voice recordings and face scans –…

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Trump now says ‘I know nothing about Wikileaks’; in 2016 he said ‘I love Wikileaks’

Trump now says ‘I know nothing about Wikileaks’; in 2016 he said ‘I love Wikileaks’

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President Trump, who often expressed his love of WikiLeaks during the 2016 presidential campaign, says following the arrest of Julian Assange on Thursday: "I know nothing about WikiLeaks. It's not my thing." pic.twitter.com/smT8o7La95 — NBC News (@NBCNews) April 11, 2019 Trump today in the Oval Office: "I know nothing about WikiLeaks. It's not my thing." Flashback to the campaign. Trump: "WikiLeaks. I love WikiLeaks." pic.twitter.com/eYfg5zeySI — Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) April 11, 2019 The Guardian reports: Trump celebrated WikiLeaks on the…

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Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: It’s time to confront the major factor fueling global migration: climate change

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: It’s time to confront the major factor fueling global migration: climate change

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Newsweek reports: New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez took to Twitter on Tuesday to highlight one of the driving factors behind global migration that, more often than not, goes ignored by those seeking to quell it: climate change. “The far-right loves to drum up fear & resistance to immigrants,” said Ocasio-Cortez, whose own Green New Deal proposal aims to address climate change and economic inequality. “But have you ever noticed they never talk about what’s causing people to flee their homes…

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Britain is down but not out of the EU

Britain is down but not out of the EU

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Tom Kibasi writes: Britain will remain in the EU until the end of October this year, but diminished in power and status, with a review of its conduct set for the end of June. It is the marital equivalent of being sent to sleep in the spare bedroom, if not quite the garden shed. Wednesday night’s humiliation, when 27 other nations decided our fate – a taster of Norway-plus or “common market 2.0”, where decisions are made about the UK…

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Barr sends troubling signals ahead of Mueller report release

Barr sends troubling signals ahead of Mueller report release

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Garrett M. Graff writes: The Mueller report has been sitting in the Justice Department for nearly two weeks. Attorney general William Barr told Congress Wednesday he’s hoping the public will finally get a look at the 300-plus page document sometime within the next week, ending a bizarre period of dissembling and fumbling by Barr that has left America with more questions than answers about the seriousness of what Mueller uncovered. That public release, when it comes, will thankfully end the…

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DHS, FBI say election systems in all 50 states were targeted by Russian government in 2016

DHS, FBI say election systems in all 50 states were targeted by Russian government in 2016

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Ars Technica reports: A joint intelligence bulletin (JIB) has been issued by the Department of Homeland Security and Federal Bureau of Investigation to state and local authorities regarding Russian hacking activities during the 2016 presidential election. While the bulletin contains no new technical information, it is the first official report to confirm that the Russian reconnaissance and hacking efforts in advance of the election went well beyond the 21 states confirmed in previous reports. As reported by the intelligence newsletter…

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Israeli democracy is rotting from the inside

Israeli democracy is rotting from the inside

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Vox reports: Israel’s 2019 election results are in, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is all but certain to stay in office for a record fifth term. The consequences of his victory for both Israelis and Palestinians could very well be catastrophic. The past several years of Netanyahu’s time in office have been characterized by drift in two illiberal, anti-democratic directions. The prime minister has tried to buy off the independent media, further marginalized Israel’s Arab minority, and gone after civil…

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PR firm that hid cameras in Arab-Israeli voting sites boasts of lowering turnout

PR firm that hid cameras in Arab-Israeli voting sites boasts of lowering turnout

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Haaretz reports: An Israeli public relations company headed by a settler leader boasted Wednesday that it was behind the Likud initiative to place 1,200 hidden cameras in Arab polling stations on Election Day. The firm added that it was to thank for the historically low turnout among Arab voters. “Thanks to us placing observers in every polling station we managed to lower the voter turnout to under 50 percent, the lowest in recent years!” the PR company, Kaizler Inbar, posted…

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New species of ancient human discovered in the Philippines

New species of ancient human discovered in the Philippines

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  Science magazine reports: A strange new species may have joined the human family. Human fossils found in a cave on Luzon, the largest island in the Philippines, include tiny molars suggesting their owners were small; curved finger and toe bones hint that they climbed trees. Homo luzonensis, as the species has been christened, lived some 50,000 to 80,000 years ago, when the world hosted multiple archaic humans, including Neanderthals and Denisovans, and when H. sapiens may have been making…

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How scientists took the first picture of a black hole

How scientists took the first picture of a black hole

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Science News reports: Black holes are extremely camera shy. Supermassive black holes, ensconced in the centers of galaxies, make themselves visible by spewing bright jets of charged particles or by flinging away or ripping up nearby stars. Up close, these behemoths are surrounded by glowing accretion disks of infalling material. But because a black hole’s extreme gravity prevents light from escaping, the dark hearts of these cosmic heavy hitters remain entirely invisible. Luckily, there’s a way to “see” a black…

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Trump wants El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras to stop emigration by force of will. They can’t

Trump wants El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras to stop emigration by force of will. They can’t

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Eliza Willis and Janet Seiz write: Making good on previous threats, President Donald Trump recently declared an end to aid to El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala, blaming the three governments for failing to stop the flow of their citizens to the United States. “They have ALL been taking U.S. money for years,” he tweeted, “and doing ABSOLUTELY NOTHING for us.” If his public statements are any guide, Trump appears to believe that the three countries—Central America’s so-called Northern Triangle—can shut…

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Rep. Ilhan Omar says Stephen Miller has forgotten his immigrant roots

Rep. Ilhan Omar says Stephen Miller has forgotten his immigrant roots

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"If my nephew’s ideas on immigration had been in force a century ago, our family would have been wiped out," writes the uncle of Stephen Miller, one of Trump's senior advisors, for @POLITICOMag https://t.co/00qTNIYbtI — POLITICO (@politico) April 9, 2019 The Hill reports: Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) defended herself Tuesday against criticism she received after calling White House senior adviser Stephen Miller “a white nationalist.” “It is the most bizarre thing,” Omar told CNN. “You know we are talking about…

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