Human rights campaign

Saudi Arabia with its bizarre and strict laws is one of the most feared countries in the world. Diverting from the instructed dress codes or clicking pictures without prior permission is an offence in the country. Apart from the trend of punishments like whipping in public, the country is also infamous for frequent death penalties even for minor crimes. According to a recent data sheet released by the European Saudi Organization for Human Rights (ESOHR), Saudi Arabia has executed 120 people in the last seven months from January to July, this year, reported The Mirror. The figures show an 80 per cent spike in comparison to the execution carried out in 2021. Human rights groups fear that going at this rate, Saudi Arabia is headed to breaking its own record of beheading 186 people in a year in 2019. The 120 who were given death penalties, included people involved in campaigns for democracy and fundamental rights in the country. The Saudi Arabian government beheaded 81 criminals in … [Read more...] about Saudi Arabia Executes 120 People in 7 Months: Report

Bay Area Rep. Ro Khanna is taking a victory lap. When West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin scuttled negotiations on President Joe Biden's Build Back Better spending plan at the end of last year, Khanna, a key member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and former co-chair of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders presidential campaign, remained engaged in talks with Manchin and urged Democrats to "give [Manchin] the pen" in drafting the legislation. Some voices on the left criticized Khanna for keeping talks open with Manchin, arguing that doing so is a dead end and that Manchin is not a good-faith actor. Two weeks ago, however, Manchin and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer announced agreement on a $700 billion spending plan dubbed the "Inflation Reduction Act." The bill contains traces of Build Back Better in its climate and health care provisions, and the White House has called the legislation the "largest investment ever in combatting the existential crisis of climate change." … [Read more...] about Bay Area Rep. Ro Khanna dishes on Manchin, Pelosi’s Taiwan trip, DeSantis and more

Johnny Depp is starring in his first post-trial commercial for Dior fragrance brand Sauvage, following a high-profile court battle with ex-wife Amber Heard. Depp, 59, has been the focus of an avalanche of headlines in recent months, after a $50 million defamation lawsuit against Heard , 36, in response to a 2018 op-ed in The Washington Post , in which she said that she was a domestic abuse survivor. Following a high-profile trial in Fairfax, Virginia, the jury in June found that Heard had, indeed, defamed Depp and awarded him more than $10 million. Depp was ordered to pay $2 million to Heard—who had counter-sued for $100 million—for defaming her via comments made by his attorney Adam Waldman . In the immediate aftermath of the trial, Depp jetted off to the U.K. to perform in a series of concerts with Jeff Beck, later hitting the stage at shows across Europe. The shows have been used as the basis for Dior's new Sauvage ad with Depp, which shows him preparing to hit the … [Read more...] about Johnny Depp stars in first post-trial ad for Dior’s Sauvage: “Fearless”

FEBRUARY, 1907 (1858-1862) BY MORRIS SCHAFF I ON THE THRESHOLD SOME time during the winter of 185758, I received from the Hon. Samuel S. Cox, Member of Congress from Ohio, and representing the district composed of Licking, Franklin, and Pickaway, an appointment as cadet at West Point. I know it was winter time, for, across the vanished years, I can see the family gathered before the big wood fire, and my father entering, clad in his greatcoat — he had been to Newark and on his way home had stopped at the post office in Kirkersville—and bearing in his hand a large and significant-looking official letter. Removing his coat and adjusting his glasses, he opened the communication from Washington and read my appointment. Oh, the quiet radiance of my mother’s face! And never, I think, did fire burn so cheerily as ours burned that night, — and somehow, I am fain to believe, the curling smoke communicated the news to the old farm; for every field that I had wandered over from … [Read more...] about The Spirit of Old West Point

ALTHOUGH the thing which Mr. Kipling is doing possesses such immediate significance as to hamper any cool judgment upon his measure of success, the place of honor for the year in English fiction seems indisputably to belong to Puck of Pook’s Hill. 1 It may be possible that merely as a piece of abstract literature this group of short stories will not ultimately fill the high position which now appears its due. Contemporary rating can never be infallible. But after all, this is of minor importance, since no tarnishing finger of time, no fading glamour, no change of taste, can alter the fact that in conceiving and carrying out such a plan the author proves his own claim to permanent greatness. With all his glitter (which we once feared might degenerate into glorified journalism), with all his restless flitting from land to land, his experimenting, his weakness for panache,—his Sousa moments, so to speak, — looking back upon his career it is now plain that he, the man, has been … [Read more...] about The New Novels

On the eve of India’s 75th year of Independence, we the people of India are groaning under the poison of Hindutva and a rudderless Opposition. Collectively, these two factors are overseeing the destruction of India’s political liberalism. There is little hope for constitutional values such as sarva dharma sama bhava (equal respect for all religions under the law), and the same treatment for all citizens. Quite tragically, we are in a situation where India could morph into a Hindu Pakistan, as was willed by the assassins of Mohandas Gandhi. Political development India’s foundational figures had understood the importance of religious diversity. Swami Vivekananda, the patron saint of the Indian youth, had argued for the necessity of religious diversity. Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose’s Indian National Army had consistently worked with all the faiths to defeat the British. Bose’s closest associates were Muslims. The experience of the struggle for freedom was enshrined in the … [Read more...] about Words of wisdom for the Congress’s ‘last Mughals’