This isn’t just a culture war – we need a radical anti-fascist movement right now | Ash Sarkar

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Support from musicians is all very well, but the far right must be fought on the ground in communities too

My mum was an anti-racist activist in the 70s and 80s. She fought the National Front in Newham, Wood Green and New Cross; she helped organise marches after the murder of Altab Ali in Whitechapel; she participated in neighbourhood police-monitoring groups, at a time when the Metropolitan police faced intense criticism from black and Asian community groups for its failure to adequately investigate racist murders, its protection of the NF from counter-protesters, and inflammatory “swamp” style policing. I grew up listening to her stories with the sense of awe you might feel when hearing about the labours of Hercules: these feats are impressive, but ultimately consigned to the past. Skinheads, swastikas, Paki-bashers – such monsters had long been laid to rest. The past felt so distant, it may as well have been myth.

These days I find myself punished for my childhood complacency. Antisemitic incidents are at the highest recorded level since 1984; reports of racially motivated hate crime have increased since the EU referendum; and as public discourse has become poisoned towards refugees and asylum seekers, these vulnerable migrants have become targets for violence and verbal abuse.

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Author of Trump-Russia dossier wins libel case in US court

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Suit against Christopher Steele by three Russian oligarchs thrown out by judge

The former MI6 officer Christopher Steele has won a legal battle in the United States against three Russian oligarchs who sued him over allegations made in his dossier about the Trump campaign and its links with Moscow.

The oligarchs – Mikhail Fridman, Petr Aven and German Khan – claimed that Steele and his intelligence firm, Orbis, defamed them in the dossier, which was leaked and published in early 2017. The Russians own stakes in Moscow-based Alfa Bank. All are billionaires.

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Anti-vaxxers are still spreading false claims as people die of measles | Helen Stokes-Lampard

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We still don’t have a full uptake of the MMR vaccine. As a GP I know how vital it is to regulate online misinformation and reassure parents

In the early 2000s, after the link between the MMR vaccine and autism was thoroughly debunked, healthcare professionals, including GPs and our teams, worked hard to re-establish public confidence in vaccinations. It took years to restore, but uptake rates in children receiving the MMR vaccine began to improve and there was a time, not so long ago, when we thought we had eradicated measles entirely.

That is why recent data about the surge in measles cases across Europe will come as distressing news – even to us here in the UK. However, it backs up concerns that were published last month in the British Journal of General Practice. The World Health Organization has reported that a total of 41,000 people in the European region were infected in the first six months of 2018 – up from 23,927 cases in 2017 and 5,273 in 2016. Of the cases reported so far this year, 37 deaths have been recorded.

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“Here have been several suicide attempts, many mental breakdowns.”

July 01, 2018

To whom it may concern:

This is a cry out for help from the people (or aliens, as we are called) at Northwest Detention Center, Tacoma, WA, spending the dark days of our lives.

The prison is run a la modern slavery. The officers, who mainly are retired military people, are getting overpaid to watch us. All other work is done by the prisoners. We work at the barbershop, we paint, we cook, we do buffing, we clean dishes, we do laundry, and we clean the entire building inside and outside, and we clean our units.

Depending on the job, it is a working day from 1 to 6 hours. For this we get paid $1 a day. The facility is built to house 600 people for 4 weeks. Yet here are over 1,500 people, some are here many months, and even years. It is totally overcrowded. We live about 100 people in each unit. The unit is one big room, around 300 square meters. But the bunks and tables take most of the space.

In this room we eat, sleep, shower, use toilets and waste our lives. In this room we are locked up for 23 hours a day, with far less space per individual than slaughter cattle have in Europe. For 1 hour we are allowed to come out in a rec yard. With one small soccer field, if 4 play on each team it is overcrowded. There is one basketball court and a few iron exercise machines. All this is fenced with a razor sharp curl of wire. After this there is another fence 15–18 feet high, with 7 (seven) razor sharp curls of wire, similar to Auschwitz! Totally overdoing it for a so-called detention center.

On the other side of the second fence officers are patrolling with cars, and walking officers with guns. We do not understand the guns. We come as immigrants to live in America, not to escape.

In the facility there are waiting cells for everything we do. If we go to the dentist, to medical, court, attorney visit, regular visit, or if we talk to our ICE officer. These cells are identical with a prison’s, with a stone bench inside and a toilet. That’s it. This bench is almost impossible to use because it saps all the heat from the body immediately due to the cold temperature in the room.

When people are deported, they are taken out of the unit at 10:30 p.m., then placed in a holding cell to around 10:00 a.m. Before, they are cuffed on both hands and feet, with a chain around the waist, hands placed in front.

We are counted 5 times a day. This means we must go to our 20 inch wide iron beds with a 1–2 inch mattress, depending on its age. The officers take this very seriously, screaming at us to be quiet. It takes about 1 hour to count us, every time.

We are forced to wear uniforms. The clothes we wear and the blankets we use for sleep are washed in the laundry at the facility. In the laundry they use chemicals in our clothes and blankets (to calm us down) so we don’t fight, due to the extreme stress it is being here.

These chemicals result in many getting exams (red marks on several places on the body, and red eyes as well as dizzyness, also problems with the throat and airways.) Just to add a note!! The reason for writing the human rights act back in the late 1940s was with the interest that no one ever again should be exposed to gas or chemical attacks.

Of course we can go to the medical department, and get medicine for the symptoms. Never have so many young people needed so much medicine as people here.

We are given 3 very nutrition poor meals a day. There is never enough for a grown up. On the weekends, we get one small sandwich and one orange for lunch. That is not even a snack for an American. We have the possibility to order from the commissary twice a week, overpriced.

The facility is a for profit business. It gets paid a huge amount daily for each detainee. Because of that, they always keep the detainees for weeks and months after the final court hearing before they are deported to squeeze the last money out of them. The facility also earns on the medicine they give us, on communications, commissary, and money saved for not having employed staff beside the officers. It is truly a dirty business, instead of what it is supposed to be, immigration for humanity. The people who come here are mainly victims of persecution, torture, etc., who all seek protections from harm. What we get is far from America-worthy!

Here have been several suicide attempts, many mental breakdowns. And way too many are traumatized from this horrible way human beings treat non criminal fellow human beings. Many grown ups are crying on a daily basis, not understanding or comprehending the treatment which we are being given, nor the way way our lives are being wasted, for the sake of money!!

We are treated unrespectfully, are humiliated, our human rights are repeatedly violated, and we are living like and feeling like animals in a cage.

The immigration law as it is, is destroying families, marking them for life. Sending them into limbo financially, due to far too long a time in prison, unable to pay bills. Therefore we cry out for help to be set free, and be reunited with our loved ones. To be treated as what we are, human beings (and not aliens or prisoners). To be trusted till otherwise proved. Are we not innocent? We implore and beg for an investigation and a reconsidering of the immigration law.

Kind regards from the prisoners without any crimes,

(names withheld by request)

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“Here have been several suicide attempts, many mental breakdowns.” was originally published in IMM Print on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Navajo Councilman Wants Half Million Dollars for Attorney to Keep Dirty Coal Power Plant Operating

WTF Monday!

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Navajo Councilman Wants Half Million Dollars for Attorney to Keep Dirty Coal Power Plant Operating

By Brenda Norrell

Censored News

Navajo Councilman LoRenzo Bates wants the Navajo Nation to spend a half million dollars to keep a dirty coal fired power plant operating. The proposed $500,000 would be for a contract attorney to negotiate a new owner for the power plant. Navajo

This amazing Bangladeshi air cooler is made from plastic bottles and uses no electricity

This amazing Bangladeshi air cooler is made from plastic bottles and uses no electricity:

nightmaze:

mistformsquirrel:

kieraoona:

This you can even make with a cereal box, pop bottles, a craft or box cutter knife, and some duct tape.  For those who are trying to beat the heat and don’t have an AC unit, or are trying to save money on their electricity bill.

To make your own, please follow the following steps for a window strip:

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Materials:  Cardboard (i used a cereal box), Duct tape (in the colour of your choice), pop bottles or water bottles (just the tops as you can see how they were cut), some cutting device to cut cardboard and/or tape, and a marker, or marking device of your choice that will mark onto cardboard 

Step 1)  Cut off your pop or water off at the widest point so it makes kind of a funnel shape

Step 2) you can make these bigger, but I made mine into a strip.  Cut the cardboard into how big you want your panel or strip.  Trace the base of your cap and mark the centre of where the lid goes with an X (thats where the opening will go.  In the picture, I made mine just a bit wider than the pop bottle tops

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Step 3)  Cut the X where you marked it, and make it so it’s cut big enough to push the smallest part of your bottle through the X

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Step 4) Secure all the spout parts with Duct tape (in the colour of your choice.  Mine’s purple.)  You do not have to do step 4, but it is advised so the pop bottle tops dont pop out of the openings you made.

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Step 5) Place your strip or panel with the biggest part facing the screen or opening of your window, and have the smallest part facing the inside of the building.

The science:  as the air blows into the wider part of the pop bottle cone, it compresses the air and cools it down as it goes through the smaller part, hence cooling the air around you without having to use any electricity to make this work.

I hope this tutorial helps you to beat the heat!

@solarpunk-aesthetic

This seems pretty rad

More explanations here

For those who don’t believe it can work, just look at those scientific discussing about it under the article

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