This story originally appeared in Truthout on July 28, 2025. It is shared here with permission.

Palestinian activist who helped film the No Other Land documentary highlighting Israel’s violent occupation of the West Bank, Awdah Hathaleen, was shot and killed by an Israeli settler on Monday, according to one of the film’s directors.

Israeli co-filmmaker Yuval Abraham posted about Hadalin’s death on social media on Monday. “An Israeli settler just shot [Hathaleen] in the lungs, a remarkable activist who helped us film No Other Land in Masafer Yatta,” Abraham wrote. About an hour later, Abraham wrote that Hathaleen had succumbed to the shooting. “[Awdah] just died. Murdered,” said Abraham.

“I can hardly believe it. My dear friend Awdah was slaughtered this evening. He was standing in front of the community center in his village when a settler fired a bullet that pierced his chest and took his life. This is how Israel erases us — one life at a time,” said Basel Adra, activist and Palestinian co-director of No Other Land.

Accompanying Abraham’s post was a video of the settler angrily facing a group, wielding a handgun. He waves the gun around, firing it, and keeping his hand on the trigger as he paces and angrily pushes those trying to confront him.

Hathaleen was previously targeted by the U.S. government. Last month, he flew to the U.S. to do a speaking tour with his cousin, Eid Hathaleen, to speak in synagogues and churches. However, U.S. authorities detained and deported them upon arrival at the San Francisco airport.

He had previously reported about Israeli settler violence, and was a leader in his community advocating against Israel’s occupation of his village, Umm al-Khair in Masafer Yatta.

Wafa reported that two Palestinians had been injured in Umm al-Khair by Israeli settlers, who invaded the village with a bulldozer in an attack on Monday evening.

Palestinian activist Issa Amro, from Hebron, mourned the loss of Hathaleen.

“Israeli settlers have murdered our beloved hero, Awdah Hathaleen, from the Um Al-Khair community in Masafer Yatta,” Amro wrote on social media. “Awdah stood with dignity and courage against oppression. His loss is a deep wound to our hearts and our struggle for justice. May he rest in peace. We will never forget him.”

Abraham said that local residents identified Hathaleen’s killer as Yinon Levi, who lives in an illegal Israeli settlement in the occupied West Bank. Levi was sanctioned by the Treasury Department under the Biden administration in April 2024, with officials saying that he “regularly led groups of violent extremists” in assaults on Palestinian and Bedouin communities in the West Bank. He was also sanctioned by the European Union around the same time.

President Donald Trump lifted the U.S. sanction on Levi and other Israeli settlers and settler groups on his first day in office this January. Even before that, however, the Biden administration’s and other international authorities’ sanctions on Israeli settlers were criticized as weak and ineffective, with Israeli leaders who are backing and often funding settler groups going unpunished.

In fact, Levi told The Associated Press last June that he only felt the financial impact of sanctions for a few weeks after banks froze his accounts. His community raised thousands of dollars for him, and Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a key architect of Israel’s de facto annexation of the West Bank, pledged to intervene to personally help take care of sanctioned settlers. The bank, which was supposed to freeze his assets, slowly lifted restrictions until he was able to access his money for whatever he wanted again.

“America thought it would weaken us, and in the end, they made us stronger,” Levi said at the time. Indeed, The Associated Press reported that local rights groups and settlers said that the sanctions only emboldened them.

This is just the latest settler attack on someone involved in making No Other Land. In March, just weeks after the documentary won an Oscar, an Israeli settler mob attacked and beat Palestinian filmmaker and activist Hamdan Ballal, in his home village of Susiya in Masafer Yatta. While he was in an ambulance to be treated for his injuries, Israeli soldiers invaded the vehicle and took him into custody. He emerged, bloody and bruised, saying that he has faced increased violence from settlers due to his role in making the film.

Israeli settlers and soldiers have intensified their violence in Masafer Yatta since the film won an Oscar, and Israeli authorities have now ordered a large swath of the region to be turned into a live-fire zone — effectively ordering the forcible transfer of over 1,200 Palestinians living in the region. Palestinians in the region report that Israel’s demolition of their homes is being fast-tracked by authorities.

This content originally appeared on The Real News Network and was authored by Sharon Zhang.

Freelance photojournalist Matthew Reamer was shot by police in the back with a crowd-control munition while he was covering a protest against the Trump administration in Los Angeles, California, on June 14, 2025.

The protest in downtown Los Angeles was one of hundreds of “No Kings” demonstrations held nationwide to counter a military parade attended by President Donald Trump in Washington, D.C., marking the 250th anniversary of the U.S. Army. It also followed days of protests in the city and nearby towns against recent federal raids, part of the Trump administration’s larger immigration crackdown.

Reamer told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that he arrived around 10 a.m. to cover protests outside Los Angeles City Hall for German outlet Die Zeit. When Reamer left a few hours later to file some photos, he described the protest as still peaceful.

Reamer returned to the protest around 5 p.m., after he learned that Los Angeles Police Department officers were using force to disperse the crowds.

Reamer started taking photos as police fired crowd-control munitions to disperse the demonstrators. “I was quite close to a few of them. I’m pretty sure they saw me,” Reamer said about the police.

Shortly after, stun grenades and a flurry of shots by the police prompted a small stampede of people, Reamer said. In the chaos, one of Reamer’s cameras fell, and a lens broke.

About 20 minutes after returning to cover the protest, Reamer was taking photos of protesters in the crowd of people when he said police shot him squarely in the back, between his shoulder blades.

“It welted up and bruised and had some minor breakage of the skin,” Reamer told the Tracker. He added that he had been taking photos near the police line and had not heard any dispersal warnings.

Reamer said that he believes he was targeted. It was a “perfect shot,” he said, right in the middle of his back. He also said he was clearly working as a journalist, wearing a press credential from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and carrying two large cameras.

“It was pretty obvious I was a member of the press,” he said. “It did feel like it was intentional.”

After being shot, Reamer said he took a moment to recover and then went back to covering the protest for a few more hours.

Around 8 p.m., Reamer was behind the police line with other journalists as the police surrounded a group of protesters in a tactic known as kettling. After he moved closer to the police, Reamer said an officer turned around, grabbed him and pushed him back with the other journalists.

Reamer told the Tracker that he hasn’t taken any legal action over the incidents.

When reached for comment, the LAPD directed the Tracker to the department’s social media accounts. In a June 15 statement posted to X, the department acknowledged that LAPD officers used numerous “less-lethal rounds” when responding to the protests, but did not address the use of munitions against identifiable press.

This content originally appeared on U.S. Press Freedom Tracker: Incident Database and was authored by U.S. Press Freedom Tracker: Incident Database.

Freelance photojournalist Madison Swart was struck with a crowd-control munition fired by law enforcement while covering protests in Los Angeles, California, on June 14, 2025.

The protest in downtown Los Angeles was one of hundreds of “No Kings” demonstrations held nationwide to counter a military parade attended by President Donald Trump in Washington, D.C., marking the 250th anniversary of the U.S. Army. It also followed days of protests in the city and nearby towns against recent federal raids, part of the Trump administration’s larger immigration crackdown.

Swart told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that she was separated from the journalists she was reporting alongside for safety, and was repeatedly shot with crowd-control munitions by Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department deputies while on a terrace above the main protest.

When she was able to reconnect outside City Hall with the other journalists — freelance journalist Sean Beckner-Carmitchel and Ryanne Mena of the Los Angeles Daily News — the group tried to cross a nearby thoroughfare during what appeared to be a lull in the action.

“There was the sheriff’s line and they were very far ahead, we weren’t anywhere near them,” Swart said. “We thought it was a good time to cross, but just as we started to do that they started shooting at us.”

In footage Swart shared with the Tracker, she films alongside two other journalists — including Beckner-Carmitchel — as they cross the street approximately 50 feet in front of a crowd of protesters. After a sudden pop, the camera jolts and the trio turns back in the direction they had come.

“That hurt,” Swart is heard saying moments later.

She told the Tracker that she was struck in the leg with what she believes was a tear gas canister.

“It’s hard to know what the fuck they’re shooting at us, because they’re just shooting so many different things. It felt heavy and hot, and it hit my thigh and it was stuck on my leg for a second because I had a battery pack in my pocket,” she said.

“There were too many things going on, so I didn’t actually look at what it was and I didn’t want to touch it,” Swart added. “So I just remember using my shirt to kind of flip it off of me and it didn’t end up leaving a mark, but it was hot and it was heavier than the things that were being shot at me on the terrace.”

In a statement emailed to the Tracker, the Sheriff’s Department said it prioritizes maintaining access for credentialed media, “especially during emergencies and critical incidents.”

“The LASD does not condone any actions that intentionally target members of the press, and we continuously train our personnel to distinguish and respect the rights of clearly identified journalists in the field,” a public information officer wrote. “We remain open to working with all media organizations to improve communication, transparency, and safety for all parties during public safety operations.”

Reflecting on both of her experiences that day, Swart said, “It’s scary how many journalists have just been hurt these past few weeks.

“So many of us already have PTSD: How much of this is going to sit with us for a while? But the work is important, so stopping isn’t an option,” she continued, adding of law enforcement, "They need to stop, that’s the option.”

This content originally appeared on U.S. Press Freedom Tracker: Incident Database and was authored by U.S. Press Freedom Tracker: Incident Database.

Freelance photojournalist Madison Swart was shot with multiple crowd-control munitions by sheriff’s deputies while covering protests in Los Angeles, California, on June 14, 2025.

The protest in downtown Los Angeles was one of hundreds of “No Kings” demonstrations held nationwide to counter a military parade attended by President Donald Trump in Washington, D.C., marking the 250th anniversary of the U.S. Army. It also followed days of protests in the city and nearby towns against recent federal raids, part of the Trump administration’s larger immigration crackdown.

Swart told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that she was covering the protest alongside other members of the press when Los Angeles Police Department officers deployed tear gas and she became separated from her “press safety buddies.”

“I ended up on a terrace and I thought I was safe because on the street below was where the action was happening,” she said. “Then, all of a sudden, I feel, like, shooting at me.”

She said that it was only then that she noticed Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies coming across a bridge nearby and shooting at her. Initially the rounds hit the ground at her feet. Then they hit her chest.

“I start to move, but then realize that there’s absolutely nowhere for me to go except forward to where the sheriffs are shooting,” Swart said. “So, I start to go do that. And I’m holding up my press card. I have ‘Press’ labels everywhere, all over me, and I’m holding up my camera in a kind of surrender while moving forward and saying, ‘I’m press! I’m press! I’m press!’”

The photojournalist said none of it made a difference.

“They shoot again, and I kind of just step backward and I’m not sure where to go. And then I try to go again, and then they shoot me again,” Swart told the Tracker. “They eventually let me go forward, and that was where I got the bruise.”

This content originally appeared on U.S. Press Freedom Tracker: Incident Database and was authored by U.S. Press Freedom Tracker: Incident Database.

X user Deepak Sharma, who regularly shares disinformation and promotes communal propaganda, shared the video tagging the Deoria Police and wrote, “Do you hear what I am hearing? This crowd raising slogans of ‘Pakistan Zindabad’ is not in Pakistan but in India, that too in India’s Uttar Pradesh. Betrayal is in their blood.”

पाकिस्तान जिंदाबाद

जी हाँ ये पाकिस्तान जिंदाबाद क़े नारे लगाती ये भीड़ पाकिस्तान में नहीं भारत में है और भारत क़े
भी उत्तर प्रदेश में है

खून में ही गद्दारी इन BSD वाले लोगों क़े…

Hello @DeoriaPolice
क्या आप वो सुन पा रहे हैं जो मैं सुन रहा हूँ ?

इन्हे ऐसा सबक सिखाएं कि… pic.twitter.com/IDKdnM7jW3

— Deepak Sharma (@SonOfBharat7) July 7, 2025

Right-wing X user Sandeep Mishra and several others on other platforms like Instagram and Facebook shared the same footage with claims that ‘Pakistan Zindabad’ slogans had been raised during a Muharram procession.

Fact Check

Alt News found that the official X handle of the Deoria Police had tweeted about this and refuted the claim about ‘Pakistan Zindabad’ slogans being raised. According to police, in the video recorded during a Muharram procession by the Five Star Club, slogans of ‘Five Star Zindabad’, and not ‘Pakistan Zindabad’ could be heard. 

The police also mentioned that the procession was carried out peacefully in police presence.

मोहर्रम त्यौहार के दिनांक 06/07.07.2025 के जुलूस के दौरान सोशल मीडिया पर एक भ्रामक तरीके से प्रसारित किए जा रहे वीडियो के सम्बन्ध में देवरिया पुलिस का खण्डन।#UPPolice @diggorakhpur @AdgGkr @dgpup @UPPViralCheck pic.twitter.com/7uo0AajvLe

— DEORIA POLICE (@DeoriaPolice) July 7, 2025

Alt News examined the video by playing it in slow motion. On listening carefully to the slogans being raised in the procession, it became clear that the chants were not that of ‘Pakistan Zindabad’, but ‘Five Star Zindabad’. However, due to the background noise, the slogans are not that clear.

Apart from this, we noticed that many people participating in the procession wore green T-shirts with ‘5 STAR CLUB’ and ‘5 star’ printed on them.

Upon further investigation, we also came across the Instagram page of 5 star club. Many videos taken during Muharram can be found on this page. Apart from these, in a post by Instagram user Israfil Ansari, too, members of the 5 Star Club can be seen participating in Muharram observation wearing the same green T-shirts in the presence of police personnel.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Smart Israfil Ansari (@smart_israfil_2000)

To sum it up, slogans of “Five Star Zindabad” were raised in the video in question. However, some users falsely claimed that Muslims were raising ‘Pakistan Zindabad’ slogans during Muharram.

The post No, Pakistan Zindabad slogans were not raised at Muharram rally in Deoria, Uttar Pradesh appeared first on Alt News.

This content originally appeared on Alt News and was authored by Pawan Kumar.

Vaishali Poddar, the state general secretary of Delhi BJP Mahila Morcha, shared the video on X (formerly Twitter) and claimed, “A Hindu teacher served the country for 40 years. And in return, a group of fundamentalists in Bangladesh insulted him by garlanding him with slippers. This is an insult, not just of a teacher, but of the entire Hindu society.”

एक हिंदू शिक्षक ने 40 साल तक देश की सेवा की और बदले में बांग्लादेश में कुछ कट्टरपंथियों ने उन्हें चप्पलों की माला पहनाकर अपमानित किया।
यह सिर्फ एक शिक्षक का नहीं, पूरे हिंदू समाज का अपमान है।@Yunus_Centre तुम्हारी चुप्पी भी गुनाह है।
शर्म करो! pic.twitter.com/WGHS2P6eB5

— Vaishali Poddar (@PoddarVaishali) June 28, 2025

X users @MithilaWaala, @KreatelyMedia, @ocjain4 and @Vini__007 also shared the video with similar claims.

Note that these users have been called out by Alt News for amplifying misinformation on several occasions in the past.

Other X users, such as @SouleFacts, @Sudhanshuz and @IRinitiPandey, also shared the video with similar claims.

Fact Check

To verify the claims, Alt News performed a reverse image search of key frames from the viral video. This led us to a report by Dhaka Times, which had screenshots of the viral video. The report said that the victim, Ahmed Ali, a retired community medical officer in Baliakandi, Rajbari, was beaten up by an angry mob for insulting Prophet Mohammed.

“On June 15, locals alleged that Ahmed Ali made derogatory remarks about Prophet Mohammed at a tea stall in Beruli Bazaar in the morning. When the news spread in the area, an agitated mob caught hold of him and beat him up in the afternoon,” Baliakandi police station in-charge Mohammad Jamal Uddin told the publication.

We also came across the same incident reported in another Bangladesh-based news outlet, bbarta24. Its report said that Ahmed Ali was tied to a tree and beaten up by an angry mob for making derogatory remarks about Prophet Mohammed and was later garlanded with shoes. Apart from this, Baliakandi police station in-charge Mohammad Jamal Uddin said that the situation was brought under control with the intervention of the police and army and the injured individual was taken to a local hospital for treatment.

So, unlike the viral claims, the man garlanded with footwear is not a Hindu teacher but a retired Muslim community medical officer from Bangladesh. He was thrashed by a mob and made to wear a garland of shoes for making derogatory remarks about Prophet Mohammed. Social media users have shared his video with false communal claims.

The post Hindu teacher garlanded with shoes in Bangladesh? No, video viral with false communal claims appeared first on Alt News.

This content originally appeared on Alt News and was authored by Pawan Kumar.

X user Vikash Kumar Sinha shared the video with the same claim. 

इंस्टाग्राम पर मनुवादियों को धमकी देने बाली भीमटा गैंग की आज सेवा की गई टोचन जिंदाबाद pic.twitter.com/JKpTe6peM5

— Vikash Kumar Sinha (@vikashaps) June 30, 2025

Other X users like Neela Zeher, and numerous Facebook and Instagram users including the handle @Modified_Hindu9 promoted the footage with similar claims.

Fact Check

When we took a closer look at the viral video, we noticed that a logo was visible in it. When we searched for this logo with the help of Google Lens, we found that it was the logo of “Kannada Pichhar”, a social media handle that posts content related to Kannada cinema.

Next, we performed a reverse image search with frames taken from the video in question. This time, we found the same footage uploaded on the YouTube channel of “Kannada Pichhar” on April 15, 2025. In the accompanying caption, the video was described as the making of the film ‘Deadly Soma 2’.

Apart from this, we also discovered that the same video had also been uploaded on the Instagram page of “Kannada Pichhar”.

Along with this, there are many other videos from the shooting of the film “Deadly Soma 2” on the YouTube channel and Instagram page of “Kannada Pichhar”, in which a cameraman can also be seen.

News 26 Kannada aired some of the above-mentioned footage in a report and noted that the film was being shot in Bengaluru. “Deadly Soma 2” is the sequel of the 2005 Kannada film “Deadly Soma”, which was directed by Ravi Srivatsa.

In other words, the viral video does not show police actually beating up youths on the streets, but is a scene from the shooting of a Kannada film. The claims of Ambedkar-supporters being thrashed are entirely baseless. 

The post Ambedkar supporters thrashed by police? No, viral video shows making of a Kannada film appeared first on Alt News.

This content originally appeared on Alt News and was authored by Pawan Kumar.

No to NATO protest at The Hague, June 22, 2025. Photo credit: Xinhua News

At this week’s NATO summit in The Hague, leaders announced an alarming new goal: push military spending to 5% of nations’ GDP by 2035. Framed as a response to rising global threats, particularly from Russia and terrorism, the declaration was hailed as a historic step. But in truth, it represents a major step backward—away from addressing the urgent needs of people and the planet, and toward an arms race that will impoverish societies while enriching weapons contractors.

This outrageous 5% spending target didn’t come out of nowhere—it’s the direct result of years of bullying by Donald Trump. During his first term, Trump repeatedly berated NATO members for not spending enough on their militaries, pressuring them to meet a 2% GDP threshold that was already controversial and so excessive that nine NATO countries still fall below that “target”.

Now, with Trump back in the White House, NATO leaders are falling in line, setting a staggering 5% target that even the United States—already spending over $1 trillion a year on its military—doesn’t reach. This is not defense; it’s extortion on a global scale, pushed by a president who views diplomacy as a shakedown and war as good business.

Countries across Europe and North America are already slashing public services, yet they are now expected to divert even more taxpayer money into war preparations. Currently, no NATO country spends more on the military than on health or education. But if they all meet the new 5% military spending goal, 21 of them would spend more on weapons than on schools.

Spain was one of the few to reject this escalation, with Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez making clear that his government would not sacrifice pensions and social programs to meet a militarized spending target. Other governments, including those of Belgium and Slovakia, quietly pushed back as well.

Still, NATO leaders pressed on, cheered by Secretary-General Mark Rutte, who fawned over Donald Trump’s demand that Europe boost defense spending. Rutte even referred to Trump as “Daddy,” a comment that—while dismissed as a joke—spoke volumes about NATO’s subservience to U.S. militarism. Under Trump’s influence, the alliance is shedding even the pretense of being a defensive pact, embracing instead the language and logic of perpetual war.

Just before NATO leaders were gathering at the Hague, protesters took to the streets under the banner “No to NATO.” And back in their home countries, civic groups are demanding a redirection of resources toward climate justice, healthcare, and peace. Polls show that majorities in the U.S. oppose increased military spending, but NATO is not accountable to the people. It’s accountable to political elites, arms manufacturers, and a Cold War logic that sees every global development through the lens of threat and domination.

NATO’s expansion, both in terms of war spending and size (it has grown from 12 founding members to 32 countries today), has not brought peace. On the contrary. The alliance’s promise that Ukraine would one day join its ranks was one of the triggers for Russia’s brutal war, and instead of de-escalating, the alliance has doubled down with weapons, not diplomacy. In Gaza, Israel continues its U.S.-backed war with impunity, while NATO nations send more arms and offer no serious push for peace. Now the alliance wants to drain public coffers to sustain these wars indefinitely. NATO is also surrounding its adversaries, particularly Russia, with ever more bases and troops.

All of this demands a radical rethink. As the world burns—literally—NATO is stocking up on kindling. When healthcare systems are crumbling, schools are underfunded, and blazing temperatures are making large swaths of the planet uninhabitable, the idea that governments should commit billions more to weapons and war is obscene. Real security doesn’t come from tanks and missiles—it comes from strong communities, global cooperation, and urgent action on our shared crises.

We need to flip the script. That means cutting military budgets, withdrawing from endless wars, and beginning a serious conversation about dismantling NATO. The alliance, born of the Cold War, is now a stumbling block to global peace and an active participant in war-making. Its latest summit only reinforces that reality.

This is not just about NATO’s budget—it’s about our future. Every euro or dollar spent on weapons is one not spent on confronting the climate crisis, lifting people out of poverty, or building a peaceful world. For the future of our planet, we must reject NATO and the war economy.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Medea Benjamin.

The statement warned that the Bahraini government’s claim of abolishing prison sentences for journalists is misleading when other repressive laws—such as the Penal Code and Anti-Terrorism Law—still allow for their prosecution. This dual legal system enables authorities to arbitrarily impose fines or prison terms based on an individual’s political profile, seriously undermining press freedom, said the statement’s signatories.

The statement also raised concerns about the government’s proposed licensing requirements for online and “media-related” activities, warning that broad definitions under Article 3 could have a chilling effect on online expression, including by bloggers and content creators. While Article 67 claims there will be no prior censorship, the licensing system could be used to restrict media through delays or denials—effectively enabling censorship and violating international standards on freedom of expression.

Read the full statement here.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CPJ Staff.

According to the screenshot, the image was posted at 1425 hours IST (2:25 pm) on June 17.

The 51st G7 Summit, held in Kananaskis, Alberta, in Canada, this year, was carefully scrutinised by the Indian media because of the last-minute invite to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The late invitation was seen as a sign of strained India-Canada relations.

Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States form the Group of Seven, or G7. However, the European Union and several non-G7 countries, including India, are also invited to the summit. Invitation to non-G7 members is the prerogative of the host country.

An X user, گلویندر (@rebelliousdogra), posted the screenshot at 1429 hours on June 17 shortly after the time stamp in ANI’s post, claiming that ANI had deleted the post. (Archive)

What is this behaviour @ANI?

Why did you delete this tweet? pic.twitter.com/QdjbOdNJSU

— گلویندر (@rebelliousdogra) June 17, 2025

Soon after, another user, @yasarshah_SP, shared the same screenshot, claiming the news agency had taken down the post. (Archive)

ANI Posted
ANI Deleted. pic.twitter.com/LmRjUINZLE

— Yasar Shah (@yasarshah_SP) June 17, 2025

Several other users posted the same screenshot, claiming that the news agency had first posted and later deleted the tweet with the contentious caption. Below are a few instances.

Fact Check

To begin with, the controversial caption and hashtag #BoycottG7Summit made us doubt the authenticity of the screenshot.

We checked all X posts made by ANI on June 17 between 1420 and 1440 hours IST. Within those 20 minutes, the news agency had posted five times, but none of the posts were related to the G7 Summit. Further, we checked all posts made by the news agency between June 16 and 18 related to the G7, and none of them used the image in the viral screenshot showing the G7 leaders.

Then, to check whether ANI deleted any post between 1420 and 1440 hours, we checked all replies to ANI during that window. Note that even if an X post is deleted, the replies to it do not get deleted unless users do so themselves. We found no replies to any deleted post during that time.

Also, for much of its G7 coverage, ANI had used the hashtag #PMModiAtG7. News agencies with such a wide reach are unlikely to use hashtags such as #BoycottG7Summit.

Alt News also reached out to ANI for comment. The news agency’s editor, Smita Prakash, categorically told Alt News that the screenshot was a fake image and that ANI had not posted any such tweet. Also, while investigating, one of the X users who shared the screenshot told Alt News that the image was created by them and not an actual ANI tweet. However, we were unable to corroborate this with metadata.

Based on these findings, we can conclude that the viral screenshot on Modi being left out at G7 bearing ANI’s signage is doctored. The news agency did not make any such post.

(With inputs from Mohammed Zubair and Diti Pujara)

The post Did ANI share & delete X post on Modi being ignored in G7 photo? No, viral screenshot is doctored appeared first on Alt News.

This content originally appeared on Alt News and was authored by Oishani Bhattacharya.

In the video, added below, he says: “Today, I am here to announce that I will be banning the production of all Teslas in the United States of America, effective immediately. As everyone knows, Elon stabbed me in the back a few days ago, and lied about my involvement in the Epstein files, so I can’t have that snake Elon making money in the country while I’m president. No one likes Tesla anyway unless you’re a nerd. They catch fire and break down easily, so it’s definitely not the best electric car out there.” He also adds that he bought a Tesla to get Elon Musk’s support for the election, but he now plans to sell for $69, because that’s what it’s worth.

The dramatic feud between Musk and Trump had led to a full-blown war of words on social media in the first week of June. A few days after his exit from the White House on May 28, Musk called the bill a ‘disgusting abomination’ and claimed it would significantly add to the country’s debt. He even called for the President’s impeachment and linked him to the disgraced sex offender Jeffrey Epstein on X, which he later deleted. Meanwhile, Trump maintains that Musk’s opposition is primarily owing to the proposed elimination of tax credits for electric vehicles in the bill, which would impact Tesla’s business.   

X users @Shamsher__Ali, @ExSecular and @zakayonoel37, among others, shared the video between June 8 and 9.

Fact Check

Alt News found no credible news reports on any such announcement by Trump, which raised doubts regarding the authenticity of the video.

A closer look at the viral video also revealed discrepancies between the audio and Trump’s lip movements. Besides that, we also noticed the American national flag pin on Trump’s suit was inverted and a watermark of “@DANGEROUSAIRETURNS” on the right.

A quick search for @DANGEROUSAIRETURNS led us to an Instagram account with the same username. We found the viral video uploaded by this account on June 8, 2025. A closer look at content uploaded by this account indicates that it often shares AI-generated parody content.

We also found a YouTube channel by the same username. The channel’s description clearly says it creates parody content using AI voice-overs.

We also ran the video through HIVE’s AI detection tool. According to this, there is a 99.8% likelihood that the audio in the viral video was AI-generated.

To sum up, an AI-generated video of Donald Trump, in which he sounds a ban on the production of Tesla cars, is being shared as an actual announcement by the US President. At the time of writing this, no such ban has been announced.

The post Did Trump ban production of Tesla in US after fallout with Musk? No, viral video is AI-generated appeared first on Alt News.

This content originally appeared on Alt News and was authored by Pawan Kumar.

It is worth noting that Bihar is infamous for such ‘forced’ marriages, also known as ‘Pakadwa Vivah’, in which eligible grooms with secure government jobs are often kidnapped and forced to marry women related to the perpetrators. Over the past few decades, several such cases from Bihar have come to light.

X account @thenewsbasket shared the video of the man being dragged in front of students on June 6, 2025, with the claim that a government school teacher was taken away for ‘forced marriage’ at gunpoint. At the time this was written, the post had over 800,000 views. (Archive)

बेगूसराय के एक सरकारी स्कूल टीचर को बंदूक की नोक पर पकड़वा कर शादी करवाने के लिए ले जाया जा रहा pic.twitter.com/z1jmyoSGOu

— The News Basket (@thenewsbasket) June 6, 2025

X handle @BasavanIndia also shared the video, questioning the state of law and order in Bihar. (Archive)

The video was also shared by X user @iamharunkhan who claimed this was the ‘ground reality’ in Bihar and not a ‘movie plot’. (Archive)

Fact Check

A quick search using keywords related to the video and claims led us to a March 23, 2025, report published on TV9 Bharatvarsh that had the same video. According to the report, the video was recorded at the Dularpur Math Middle School in the Teghra subdivision of Begusarai and depicts the shooting of a film named ‘Pakadwah Byaah’. The video simply shows a movie scene being shot where a teacher is forcibly dragged away. However, some had raised concerns on whether the film was shot during school hours and the District Education Officer even ordered an inquiry. The principal, cited in the report, had clarified that the filming happened on a Sunday.

We also found a video of the same scene recorded from a different angle in a March 12, 2025, Instagram post uploaded by user @rajanrddfilms, a filmmaker and actor associated with the film ‘Pakadwah Byaah’. The post’s caption also makes it clear that the video is from the shooting of the film.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Rajan Rock (@rajanrddfilms)

To sum up, social media users shared a video of a movie scene being filmed in a school in Bihar with misleading claims that a teacher of a government school in Begusarai was actually kidnapped for marriage.

The post School teacher kidnapped in Bihar’s Begusarai for ‘forced marriage’? No; viral video is from a film shooting appeared first on Alt News.

This content originally appeared on Alt News and was authored by Abhishek Kumar.

She is heard saying in Hindi, “There was a time when journalism was called the fourth pillar of democracy. Today, journalism has been sold off and is sitting on the lap of power. Hello, I am Anjana Om Kashyap and today, I am standing in front of the camera, not as a journalist, but as a human being. Today, I have come to apologize to all of you. For years you have trusted me. You have seen me, heard me. But what did I do with that trust? Instead of becoming your voice, I started speaking the language of politicians.”

Further, she purportedly remarks, “Yes, I accept that I kept quiet when I should have spoken. I closed my eyes when the truth was out in the open. And yes, I also flattered the government…those debates, that shouting. Everything was just for the TRPs. But enough is enough. I am tired of donning that fake persona. Now, I will only speak the truth. Now, I will only talk about the public’s rights. If you want to witness the rebirth of journalism, subscribe to this channel. This is a revolution, a question of your rights, and I need your support because revolutions cannot be done alone.” 

X handle @indian_armada posted this 1 minute 36 second clip and wrote, “I can’t believe this!”.  At the time of this article being written, the post has received more than 2 lakh views. (Archived version of the post)

मुझे तो भरोसा ही नहीं हो रहा है इसपे! pic.twitter.com/o836L207Fd

— Baba MaChuvera Parody of Parody (@indian_armada) June 13, 2025

X account @putin_pundit also posted the viral video and wrote, “Is this really Anjana Om Kashyap? I can’t believe it.” The post had garnered around 1.8 lakh views at the time of writing.

क्या सच मे ये अंजना ओम कश्यप ही है.?

मुझे तो विश्वास नहीं हो रहा.!!pic.twitter.com/StgCeiSaO7

— पुतिन पंडित (रशिया वाले) (@putin_pandit) June 13, 2025

Another X user named Chirag Patel posted the video and wrote, “The punishment for this should at least be life imprisonment, isn’t it?” (Archived link)

This video has been shared widely on X and Facebook with similar claims.

Fact Check

Alt News took a closer look at the viral video and found that at many points there was no lip-sync. This suggested that the clip might be tampered with or doctored.

We noticed that the words ‘indian armada’ were embedded on the frame f the video. It is worth noting that the first tweet mentioned above is by the same handle. When we took a closer look at the ‘@indian_armada’ handle, we found that it is a parody account. The bio of this X account states that it uses Photoshop and creates memes.

When we dug deeper, we found that Anjana Om Kashyap had posted a video on Instagram on December 26, 2023 in which she is seen wearing clothes similar to the one in the viral video. However, in this video, Kashyap praises Bihar. She did not make any comment regarding her journalism.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Anjana Om Kashyap (@anjanaomkashyap_aok)

Anjana Om Kashyap also posted the full video of her speech on YouTube on October 17, 2023. According to the information provided here, a group called the Indian People Forum in UAE had organized a ‘Bihar Meet’. During this occasion, Om Kashyap delivered a speech. However, did not mention anything that is heard in the viral video.

Alt News compared the viral clip and the video posted by the journalist on YouTube (first 44 seconds) side by side and found that the movement of Kashyap’s hands and body were identical in both of these videos. However, the original video has been mirrored, edited and replaced with a different audio.

To sum it up, the viral video of Anjana Om Kashyap in which she is heard apologizing for her brand of journalism is doctored.

The post Did Anjana Om Kashyap apologize for her brand of journalism? No, viral video is doctored appeared first on Alt News.

This content originally appeared on Alt News and was authored by Kinjal.

A renowned Samoan fashion designer was fatally shot at the “No Kings” protest in Salt Lake City on Saturday, the Salt Lake City Police Department (SLCPD) has confirmed.

Arthur Folasa Ah Loo, known as Afa Ah Loo, an “innocent bystander” at the protest, died despite efforts by paramedics to save his life, police said.

Ah Loo, a Utah resident, died at the hospital. The Utah Office of the Medical Examiner will determine the official cause and manner of death.

• READ MORE: Gallery: Trump holds military parade amid ‘No Kings’ protests across US

The SLPCD said the incident began about 7.56pm local time when a sergeant assigned to the SLCPD Motor Squad reported hearing gunfire near 151 South State Street.

It said the sergeant and his squad were working to facilitate traffic and help to ensure public safety during a permitted demonstration that drew an estimated 10,000 participants.

“As panic spread throughout the area, hundreds of people ran for safety, hiding in parking garages, behind barriers, and going into nearby businesses.

“The first officers on scene notified SLCPD’s incident management team using their police radios.”

The SLCPD said officers quickly moved in to secure the scene and search for any active threats and found a man who had been shot and immediately began life-saving efforts.

“Our thoughts are with the family and friends of the 39-year-old man who was killed, and with the many community members who were impacted by this traumatic incident,” Salt Lake City police chief Brian Redd said.

“When this shooting happened, the response of our officers and detectives was fast, brave, and highly coordinated. It speaks to the calibre of this great department and our law enforcement partners.”

Detectives working to thoroughly investigate
The SLCPD said about 8pm, members of its Violent Criminal Apprehension Team (VCAT) and Gang Unit were flagged down near 102 South 200 East, where officers found a man crouching among a group of people with a gunshot wound.

The man is identified as 24-year-old Arturo Gamboa, who was dressed in all black clothing and wearing a black mask.

“As officers approached, community members pointed out a nearby firearm, which was described as an AR15-style rifle.

“Officers also located a gas mask, black clothing, and a backpack in close proximity. The items were collected and processed by the SLCPD Crime Lab.

“Paramedics took Gamboa to the hospital. Detectives later booked Gamboa into the Salt Lake County Metro Jail on a charge of murder.

Police said officers also detained two men who were wearing high-visibility neon green vests and carrying handguns.

Peacekeeping team
These men were apparently part of the event’s peacekeeping team.

According to the police, detectives learned during interviews that the two peacekeepers saw Gamboa move away from the crowd and move into a secluded area behind a wall — behavior they found suspicious.

“One of the peacekeepers told detectives he saw Gamboa pull out an AR15-style rifle from a backpack and begin manipulating it.

“The peacekeepers drew their firearms and ordered Gamboa to drop the weapon.

“Witnesses reported Gamboa instead lifted the rifle and began running toward the crowd gathered on State Street, holding the weapon in a firing position.

“In response, one of the peacekeepers fired three rounds. One round struck Gamboa, while another tragically wounded Mr Ah Loo.”

“Our detectives are now working to thoroughly investigate the circumstances surrounding this incident,” Redd said.

“We will not allow this individual act to create fear in our community.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

A nationwide “No Kings” movement plans to hold over 1,800 anti-Trump rallies across the United States on June 14, the same day as President Trump’s military parade in Washington, D.C., as he celebrates his 79th birthday. Organizers are protesting President Trump’s mass deportations, militarized crackdown against protesters, defiance of court orders, and attacks on civil rights. “We’re going to show him on June 14 that real power lies in the people,” says Leah Greenberg⁠, co-founder and co-executive director of ⁠Indivisible. Tanks and other armored vehicles are being transported to Washington, D.C., for the parade, which Marine Corps veteran JoJo Sweatt calls an “egregious overspend.” President Trump threatened heavy force would be used on anyone who protests at the parade in D.C.

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

X user Arun Yadav took a dig at Samajwadi Party for being Muslim supporters and wrote, “What is this traitor Jyoti doing with Samajwadi Party supremo, friends?” (Archived link)

In another tweet, Arun Yadav again made a similar claim by quoting a tweet from Samajwadi Party. (Archived link)

BJP supporter Dilip Kumar Singh also amplified the image. (Archived link)

This photo is being widely shared on X and Facebook with the same claims.

Fact Check

We performed a reverse image search of the viral photo and came across news reports from NDTV and Indian Express dated January 22, 2017. Among them was a picture that looked similar to the viral picture, but the woman seen next to Akhilesh Yadav is not Jyoti Malhotra, but Dimple Yadav, Akhilesh’s wife.

According to the report, this picture is from on January 22, 2017, when Samajwadi Party released its manifesto for the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections.

Thhe same photo is also included in a report in The Times of India, which has several images from the event.

We also found several pictures of this programme on the website of gettyimages. The captions state that on January 22, 2017, during a press conference at the Samajwadi Party office in Lucknow, Akhilesh Yadav was seen releasing the Samajwadi Party manifesto along with his wife and Lok Sabha member Dimple Yadav.

Comparing the viral picture and the actual original picture, it is clear that Jyoti Malhotra’s face has been superimposed on Dimple Yadav’s.

To sum up, Akhilesh Yadav and Dimple Yadav released Samajwadi Party’s state election manifesto in 2017. The photo taken during that time was edited and YouTuber Jyoti Malhotra’s face was added to it. And it is being shared with misleading claims.

The post Akhilesh with arrested YouTuber Jyoti Malhotra? No, it’s an edited image appeared first on Alt News.

This content originally appeared on Alt News and was authored by Pawan Kumar.

“Denying medical care to journalist Chadha Hadj Mbarek, whose health is deteriorating in prison, is inhumane and risks further endangering her life,” said Carlos Martínez de la Serna, CPJ’s chief of programs. “Tunisian authorities must ensure Mbarek receives proper medical attention and should release her immediately, as she never should have been imprisoned in the first place.”

Mbarek, a journalist and a social media content editor with local independent content firm Instalingo, is being held at the Al-Mas’adin prison in Sousse, south of the capital Tunis, according to a Facebook statement by the journalist’s brother Amen Hadj Mbarek, and news reports. She suffers from vision loss, spinal and joint pain, and gastrointestinal issues that prevent her from taking painkillers, and has experienced vomiting, fainting, and constant pain, according to her brother, who told CPJ that her condition is rapidly deteriorating.

Her brother said Mbarek’s requests to speak with prison officials about her care have gone unanswered despite repeated hospitalizations and doctors recommending spinal tests and possible surgery. 

Mbarek, arrested in July 2023, is serving a five-year prison sentence under Tunisia’s 2022 cybercrime Decree-Law No. 2022-54. Authorities have barred her from receiving lawyer or family visits until an appeal hearing is scheduled.

CPJ’s email to the presidency requesting comment on Mbarek’s denial of medical treatment did not receive any reply.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CPJ Staff.

A video showing deceased soldiers near what appears to be a boundary wall with fires around is being circulated by many social media accounts. In the video, it seems as though the person recording it is saying that there was heavy shelling at the border, in which Pakistan killed many Indian soldiers. Those sharing the video also claimed that 52 soldiers of the 20 Raj Battalion of the Indian Army were martyred.

This video has emerged amid a sea of unverified visuals and claims on social media that try to show damage caused by India or Pakistan in the recent conflict that was triggered by the killing of 26 civilians in Kashmir. A fortnight after this, India launched Operation Sindoor to target terror bases in Pakistan. Shortly after, the Pakistan armed forces retaliated with shelling across border areas, also targeting Indian military infrastructure.

Pakistan-based account War Analyst, withheld in India, shared the video claiming it showed footage from Pakistan’s strike on the Sangar post of Chirikot, and the visual was being shared among army folks in India on WhatsApp. The user wrote that India was covering up the loss of 52 Indian soldiers along the Line of Control while their families were mounting pressure on the Indian government to reveal these deaths.

The video was shared by Conflict Watch with the same claim as well as RTEUrdu, a Turkish media outlet. RTEUrdu wrote that the video was taken by an Indian soldier.

Fact Check

Several things in the video raise doubts.

• Firstly, the claims alleged that an Indian Army post faced heavy shelling. But in the video, the so-called post seems safe. If there was heavy shelling that caused a fire, far more damage would clearly be visible, which is not the case here.
• Secondly, the tone of the person recording the video is funny, as though it is being enacted or forcefully dramatised. In such a situation it is more likely that someone recording the footage would worried or distraught.
• Thirdly, the viral post claims that 52 Indian soldiers have been killed and their families are pressuring the government. But had this been true and the government were hiding it, news outlets in India would have surely carried stories on it. The Indian Army has said that it lost five soldiers.

Importantly, the uniform worn by the soldiers in the viral video is old. The Indian Army does not don this uniform anymore; it was changed in 2022. A comparison of the old and new uniforms can be seen below.

A report by The Indian Express from January 2022 also explained the difference between the old and new uniforms of the army. Below is a screenshot of their graphic.

The fact-checking unit of the Indian government, PIB Fact-Check, also dubbed the video fabricated and said there was no unit called “20 Raj Battalion” in the Indian Army. It added that this was part of a propaganda campaign to create panic and mislead people during the conflict.

Staged Video Alert

Fake video is being circulated by Pakistani handles alleging that an Indian Post was destroyed by the #Pakistani Army

#PIBFactCheck:

The claim is completely false, and the video is staged

There is no unit called “20 Raj Battalion” in the… pic.twitter.com/959rc9OrTH

— PIB Fact Check (@PIBFactCheck) May 8, 2025

Based on these findings, Alt News established that the video does not depict martyred soldiers from the recent India-Pakistan conflict. Claims that 52 soldiers were martyred in firing by Pakistan are unsubstantiated.

The post 52 Indian soldiers killed by Pakistan in shelling? No; viral video is staged, says PIB appeared first on Alt News.

This content originally appeared on Alt News and was authored by Abhishek Kumar.

The clip has emerged amid the ongoing conflict between India and Pakistan. Scores of unverified visuals such as this one have been doing the rounds and are being linked to the geo-political crisis, which was triggered by a terrorist attack that killed 26 civilians in Pahalgam, Kashmir, on April 22. A fortnight after the incident, Indian defence forces launched military strikes targeting terrorist bases in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. Shortly after, Pakistan retaliated with heavy mortar shelling in forward villages along the Line of Control (LoC) in the Poonch and Rajouri areas of Jammu and Kashmir. The LoC is an over 700-km de facto military border separating the two countries. In India, at least 16 people were killed in firing by the neighbouring country.

The video of ‘Sikhs chanting slogans against the Indian army’ started doing the rounds on May 10. X user @zarrar_11PK shared the video. Since the account has been withheld in India, we have added a screenshot below. At the time of writing this, the post had garnered over 330,000 views. (Archive)

Another verified user, @VoPublic, also shared the video with the claim that Sikhs had turned against the army. (Archive)

The video was shared by several others on X with similar claims. (Archives- 1, 2, 3, 4, 5)

The video was viral on Facebook as well.

Fact Check

A reverse image search of key frames from the video led us to the same video uploaded by Instagram user @billa_hair_studio on April 26, 2025. The account’s bio says it is based in Akhara village in Jagraon, Ludhiana, Punjab. In the video, some demonstrators can be heard saying using the word “Murdabad”. While there was no caption with the video, the comments on the post hinted at a protest against a gas factory.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by @billa_hair_studio

In another video, uploaded by the same account on the same day, the demonstrators could be seen clashing with the police.

Taking cue from these, we searched with relevant keywords and found a video by local news outlet, PTC News, from April 26 in which the same demonstrations could be seen. We were able to ascertain that the PTC News clips were of the same demonstration as the ones uploaded by the Instagram user, which is now viral.

In the video, it was clear that the demonstrators were chanting ‘Punjab Sarkar Murdabad‘ and ‘Bhagwant Mann Murdabad‘ (Down with the Punjab government, Bhagwant Mann). Mann is the current chief minister of Punjab.

PTC News’ report said that the villagers of Akhara, Jagraon, were protesting against the construction of a biogas plant in the area and were hit by the police with sticks. We also found reports by Hindustan Times and The Tribune on this. According to the HT report, the police had fired tear gas shells and used water cannons to disperse the protesters, including women and children. Several demonstrators had been detained. “The people of the village are together and the factory will not be allowed to be built under any circumstances. “Today, the police have uprooted the tents erected by the villagers… The protest has been going on for the last one year…There is a lot of anger among the people against the Punjab government,” protesting villagers told The Tribune.

As it stands, a clip from a protest against a biogas plant in Punjab’s Jagraon from April 26 was circulated by social media users with false claims that it showed Sikhs raising slogans against the Indian army. They were sloganeering against the Punjab government and the state chief minister Bhagwant Mann. The clip has no connection to the ongoing India-Pakistan conflict.

The post Sikhs sloganeering against Indian army? No; viral video is unrelated to India-Pakistan conflict appeared first on Alt News.

This content originally appeared on Alt News and was authored by Shinjinee Majumder.

With the simmering tension between India and Pakistan since the Pahalgam terrorist attack transforming into a full-scale military conflict, the said advisory has gained wide circulation on social media platforms and messaging app WhatsApp.

BJP leader fro Bengal and former Union minister Debasree Chaudhury shared this advisory on Facebook and wrote, “Don’t panic, be cautious.” However, the politician later deleted this post.

In the Delhi and Ahmedabad subreddits of social media platform Reddit, people posted the viral advisory notice and wrote that it was being shared in society WhatsApp groups with the message that Prime Minister Modi would address the nation. Many users wrote that this was creating panic among the public.

Alt News also received a number of requests related to the viral advisory on its WhatsApp helpline (7600011160).

Apart from this, many users shared this advisory notice and asked whether the government had actually issued this document.

Fact Check

We performed a keyword search using terms related to the advisory notice, but did not find any credible evidence to confirm that it was indeed issued by the government. In this context, we found a tweet by the fact-checking wing of Union government’s Press Information Bureau. It is clearly mentioned here that the claims made in the viral advisory notice are fake and the government had not issued any such notice.

To sum up, the viral advisory notice is being falsely shared in the name of the government. The Indian government has not issued any such notice for its citizens.

The post No, Union govt has not issued advisory on keeping ₹50k cash in hand or stocking two months’ medicines appeared first on Alt News.

This content originally appeared on Alt News and was authored by Abhishek Kumar.

Against this backdrop, a picture of Samajwadi Party national president and former UP chief minister Akhilesh Yadav is being widely circulated on social media. Users are sharing this picture and claiming that the man seen in the photo with Akhilesh Yadav is Saifullah Abro.

UP BJP Yuva Morcha social media in-charge and member of the state backward classes commission Dr. Richa Rajpoot shared this picture on Instagram and claimed, “Mr. Akhilesh’s close friend Mr. Saifullah, who was praising him in the parliament of Pakistan”. (Archived link)

On April 30, BJP MP from Godda, Jharkhand, Nishikant Dubey, also shared this picture and indirectly linked Akhilesh Yadav and Saifullah with each other. He wrote in the caption, “A wave of happiness in Pakistan on Akhilesh Yadav’s anti-India statement, seems the Samajwadi Party chief will contest the next election from Islamabad?” (Archived link)

Right-wing influencers Jitendra Pratap Singh, Zeenat Rana, Arun Yadav, Sandeep Mishra and journalist Sudhir Mishra also made similar claims of Saifullah being in the alleged photo with Akhilesh Yadav. (Archived link 1, link 2, link 3, link 4, link 5,link 6)

BJP Uttar Pradesh state general secretary Sanjay Rai also posted this photo targeting Akhilesh Yadav. (Archived link)

Fact Check

Alt News started an investigation to find out who the person standing with Akhilesh Yadav was. On doing a reverse image search of the photo, we reached the personal website for one ‘Ashish Saraf‘. The photo gallery of this website had the same photo and it reads, “With Ex CM of Uttar Pradesh Sri. Akhilesh Yadav”. (Archived link)

The ‘Indian Politicians’ folder in the website’s photo gallery has pictures of the same person with many prominent Indian leaders, including former Presidents, Vice Presidents and Prime Ministers. Alt News found that the person in the picture is Ashish Saraf.

Ashish Saraf’s biography on the website states that he was born in 1965 in Nagpur in central India, and is the Chairman and CEO of international trading firm Fecor Global Private Limited, and currently travels between New Delhi, London and Singapore. (Archived link)

A report in The Hindu also mentions Ashish Saraf’s name along with his picture.

In addition to this, the Samajwadi Party Media Cell tweeted Nishikant Dubey’s post and refuted his claim, writing that the person he was calling Saifullah was actually Ashish Saraf.

भाजपा सांसद @nishikant_dubey जी आप की या भाजपा की याददाश्त कमजोर है या आप एक अच्छे व्यक्ति को बदनाम करने की कोई सुपारी लिए हुए हैं?

आप जिसे कथित सैफुल्लाह बता रहे हैं वो एक शरीफ, बेहतरीन और अच्छे इंसान आशीष सर्राफ जी हैं।

आशीष सर्राफ जी की तस्वीरें तमाम भाजपा नेताओं के साथ हैं… https://t.co/PTZ0SxKGxi pic.twitter.com/xkt6vcVIIG

— Samajwadi Party Media Cell (@mediacellsp) May 1, 2025

To sum it up, the individual posing with Akhilesh Yadav in the viral image is Ashish Saraf and not Pakistani MP Saifullah.

The post No, man seen in viral image with Akhilesh is not Pak politician Saifuallah Abro appeared first on Alt News.

This content originally appeared on Alt News and was authored by Pawan Kumar.

In Baltimore, Maryland, thousands took to the streets on May 1—from students to seniors, teachers to transit workers—united by a shared demand for hope, justice, and a future not shaped by billionaire greed. Marchers opposed the Trump administration’s policies targeting public programs, labor rights, and immigrant communities—and expressed solidarity with Gaza.

Pre/Post-Production: Jaisal Noor

Transcript

The transcript for this video is in progress and will be made available as soon as possible.

This content originally appeared on The Real News Network and was authored by Jaisal Noor.

The Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa has appealed to Foreign Minister Winston Peters askingto  New Zealand initiate a call for an internationally enforced “no-fly” zone over Gaza.

PSNA co-chairs John Minto and Maher Nazzal said in a statement this would be a small but practicable step to “blunt Israel’s continuing genocidal attacks” on Palestinians.

“Gaza is recognised under international law, and by the New Zealand government, as part of the illegally Occupied Palestinian Territory,” they said.

• READ MORE: Israel kills 29 in Gaza; Netanyahu vows ‘powerful response’ to Houthis

“As such, Israel’s intrusion into Gaza airspace is illegal, and is elevated to a war crime when its aircraft attack Palestinian civilians there to further what the International Court of Justice has described as a ‘plausible genocide”.”

Minto and Maher said the United Nations had repeatedly said there were no safe places in Gaza for Palestinian civilians, where even so-called “safe zones” were systematically attacked as Israel “terrorised the population to flee from the territory”.

“Suggestions for a no-fly zone have been made in the past but there has never been a better time for a concerted international effort to enforce such a zone over Gaza,” said Minto.

“In the week leading up to Anzac Day there is no better time for New Zealand to stand up and be counted.

“New Zealanders from past conflicts, including in that very region in 1917 and 1918, have died in vain if today’s politicians refuse to speak out to end the death and destruction in Gaza.”

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

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In his Rose Garden speech launching a global trade war by announcing the most sweeping tariffs in modern history, President Donald Trump bestowed a history lesson on his audience that diverged from the factual record:

“Then in 1913, for reasons unknown to mankind, they established the income tax so that citizens, rather than foreign countries, would start paying the money necessary to run our government. Then in 1929, it all came to a very abrupt end with the Great Depression, and it would have never happened if they had stayed with the tariff policy; it would have been a much different story.”

So why did we institute an income tax? Were there any humans who knew what the reasoning was? And did the actions of 1913 lead to the Great Depression in 1929?

There is a clear consensus among historians on these points. No, the income tax was not a mistake.

But it was something stranger: both a 40-year struggle and an accident.

In 1913, the states ratified the 16th Amendment, which gave the federal government the power to “collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived.”

This was not the first income tax effort, however.

For a few short years during and after the Civil War, the United States imposed its first tax on income to help fund the massive costs of the war. Placed on relatively high incomes but only collecting a modest percentage, it was cast as both a way to generate needed revenue and a way to maintain fairness.

Yes, that’s right, one of the chief selling points of taxing income was that it was a way of achieving “equity” in the burdens of the war. Responding to allegations that only poor men were fighting and dying, President Abraham Lincoln and his Republican Party made sure the law required that the taxes people paid would be publicly disclosed. Unsurprisingly, the wealthy men of the dawning Gilded Age did not like seeing their tax information in the pages of The New York Times. Wealthy interests forced a repeal of the income tax in 1871, and the federal government returned to funding itself with proceeds from user fees and tariffs.

Efforts to rein in the rich persisted, however. Congress moved in 1894 to reintroduce an income tax. The populist Kansan politician William Jennings Bryan gave a famous speech on the floor of Congress. Responding to the argument that the wealthy would leave America if they had to pay such a tax, then proposed as 2% on the top incomes, he said:

“Of all the mean men I have ever known, I have never known one so mean that I would be willing to say of him that his patriotism was less than 2 per cent deep. … If ‘some of our best people’ prefer to leave the country rather than pay a tax of 2 per cent, God pity the worst.”

Congress passed the law. One year later, however, the Supreme Court controversially rejected it, 5-4, in the case of Pollock v. Farmers’ Loan and Trust Company. The party of Lincoln, now dominated by wealthy Northeastern interests, celebrated. Its 1894 platform had declared that an income tax “will bring odium on any party blind enough to support it” and predicted that party’s “funeral.”

Populists like Bryan didn’t give up. A young Democratic congressman from Tennessee named Cordell Hull said in his maiden speech on the floor in 1908, in which he proposed passing another income tax, that he was willing to risk the “odium and the funeral.”

Hull’s effort didn’t gather much momentum that time, but he didn’t give up. He obsessively talked with anyone and everyone about an income tax, so much so that when leaders of his own party saw him approaching, they “would turn and walk in another direction,” he later recalled.

Soon he would succeed, but only thanks to the help of the party that was against the income tax — the Republicans.

In 1909, the country was facing a severe drop in federal revenue and a widening deficit after the financial panic of 1907, which had ended only thanks to a bailout led by J.P. Morgan, the most powerful banker of the age. At the same time, with new responsibilities like trying to keep food and medicines safe and maintaining a growing empire abroad, the federal government’s needs were exploding. A few years earlier, Congress had allocated $1 billion in spending for the first time ever (about $30 billion in today’s dollars).

To address these issues, the Republican party turned to tariffs. Tariffs not only remained the cornerstone of Republican economic policy, they were also the key to the party’s political power. Each time a new tariff bill came up for consideration was like “throwing bananas in a cage of monkeys,” economist Henry George said. Lobbyists from every corner of American industry descended on the capital to push for lower imposts on their companies and, if possible, to have them raised on someone else.

Tariffs and levies on things like tobacco and alcohol were deeply unpopular with the public. They were regressive, costing working people a far greater percentage of their income than the rich. In one of his speeches, Hull attacked the new dominant class of oligarchs: “The world has never seen such colossal fortunes as we behold in the present age ... the Carnegies, the Vanderbilts, the Morgans, and the Rockefellers, with their aggregated billions of hoarded wealth.”

Hull said, “It would seem that this class of people consider themselves almost immune from any kind of taxation.” He closed a speech with a warning to his congressional colleagues: “Public sentiment is becoming aroused.”

In Washington, lawmakers had a bounty of novel ideas for raising funds. Some members of Congress suggested an inheritance tax, others a corporate profits tax, and still others wanted some version of a stamp tax on commercial documents. As president, Theodore Roosevelt supported an income tax, though he didn’t do much to push it legislatively. Most Republican senators, many of whom were millionaires themselves, had mild aversions to some of the proposals and a particular loathing for the income tax.

Nelson Aldrich, the Senate majority leader from Rhode Island, a millionaire and the father-in-law of John D. Rockefeller Jr., was arguably the most powerful politician in the country at the time. Teddy Roosevelt nicknamed him the “King Pin.” In 1909, Aldrich was trying to pass a new tariff bill. Hull’s Democrats posed a problem for him, but not the only one. He also faced a rebellious faction within his own party, the progressive Republicans. These were largely Midwestern and Western leaders who argued for what they described as working people’s interests, as well as reforms to improve public safety and the strengthening of labor unions. They also supported an income tax.

Aldrich tried a series of legislative maneuvers to delay votes on anything about the income tax. The proponents were undeterred, and, as a next step, he and then-President William Taft put their weight behind a corporate income tax, contending that it would be a lesser evil than a personal income tax. The wealthy did not like it, but it passed surprisingly easily, leaving Republicans hopeful the income tax was dead. In a private letter to a friend, the president explained, “A good many people who are attacking [the corporate income tax] now will be glad to use it as a means of preventing the income tax later on.”

Taft proved to be overly optimistic. Supporters of the income tax kept pushing, seeking to raise money directly from the wealthy. A debate ensued about whether Congress could simply pass an income tax law or, since the Supreme Court had struck one down recently, whether a constitutional amendment was needed. Hull pointed out that the makeup of the court had changed and argued that a law could now pass muster with the justices.

Then, one progressive Republican proposed an income tax amendment.

Aldrich pounced on what he perceived as his opponents’ misstep. He threw his support to the measure as a means of placating the advocates for a national income tax. In exchange, enough lawmakers agreed to back Aldrich’s tariff bill.

Aldrich, of course, did not support the income tax amendment, but he believed it was too radical to be ratified by three-fourths of the states, the minimum required by the Constitution. Leading politicians assumed that the defeat of the amendment would likely kill the income tax for years, if not a generation.

Hull agreed with that analysis and was despondent. “It has long been understood that the Republicans never support a worthy cause until forced by public sentiment. Too stupid to devise and enact wholesome laws and to formulate and execute sound administrative policies, this piratical organization is wont to wait until Democrats point the way,” he said in a speech on the floor.

And so Nelson Aldrich, the senator who had done more than almost any other American politician in history to protect the wealthy, introduced what would turn out to be an historic measure to amend the Constitution and explicitly allow income taxes on the rich. A few days later, with little fanfare, the amendment passed the Senate by a unanimous vote of 77-0.

Soon after, Congress passed the Payne-Aldrich Tariff bill, giving Aldrich his victory.

But Aldrich had miscalculated and Hull had been too gloomy. After a slow start for the ratification movement, political winds shifted and enough states came around. The amendment was ratified four years later. Then it fell to Hull to almost singlehandedly write what became the 1913 income tax law.

Hull’s plan proved prescient. He had foreseen that if the United States ever became entangled in a war that involved attacks on shipping, imports would dry up and tariff revenue would plummet. When the United States joined the war against Germany in 1917, Congress had to raise income tax rates to generate the money needed to pay for the expense of sending soldiers to Europe.

So no, President Trump, the origins of the income tax are not lost to history.

But did the tax cause the Great Depression 16 years after its enactment, as Trump has argued? No serious economist thinks so. Here’s one data point: In the 1920s, Republicans regained the presidency. Andrew Mellon, one of the richest men in the country, became Treasury secretary. One of the main causes he worked for was lowering income taxes, and the lead-up to the worst economic calamity of the 20th century was actually marked by a decline in those tax rates.

The evidence is similarly clear on Trump’s argument that continued reliance on tariffs to fund the government would have averted the Great Depression. In June of 1930, President Herbert Hoover signed into law the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, significantly raising taxes on imported goods in hopes of boosting American industries and increasing domestic employment. Hoover brushed aside the arguments of his own economists who warned that other nations would respond with their own tariffs, touching off a trade war in which every country would lose.

Economists now agree that Hoover’s tariffs deepened the economic downturn that had begun with the 1929 stockmarket crash. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt gradually reduced the tariffs during his presidency, and his Democratic and Republican successors continued that pattern well into the 21st century.

Today’s situation has similarities to the pre-income-tax years. The American economy is again marked by wealth inequality, with the largest gap between rich and poor we’ve seen since the Gilded Age. We are having debates about how to reduce the federal deficit, about how to fairly and adequately tax the rich and about what the appropriate size of government would be. Last week, Trump reached back in history to restore U.S. tariffs to the Smoot-Hawley levels, triggering a global selloff in stock markets around the world.

This content originally appeared on ProPublica and was authored by by Jesse Eisinger.

North Korea has dialed up its criticism of the U.S. and two of its key Asian allies – South Korea and Japan – in recent weeks, denouncing their recent joint naval drills as well as warning of an “overwhelming” and “decisive” response to any provocations from “hostile countries.”

Its nuclear program has also advanced significantly, with recent developments including hypersonic missile tests, enhanced uranium enrichment, and the construction of a nuclear-powered submarine.

“Kim has no intention of negotiating away his strategic weapons programs, which he perceives as a guarantor of regime security and national pride, because they threaten the [U.S.] homeland, U.S. forces in the region, and U.S. allies like South Korea and Japan,” said the Annual Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community published by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

Last year’s edition of the report said that Kim “almost certainly” had no intentions of negotiating away his nuclear program.

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard said that Kim was pursuing stronger strategic and conventional capabilities that can target U.S. forces and allies in the region, as well as the U.S. mainland, to achieve “at least tacit recognition as a nuclear weapons power.”

“North Korea is probably prepared to conduct another nuclear test on short notice and continues to flight test ICBMs to demonstrate their increasing capabilities as leverage in future negotiations,” said Gabbard at the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

(Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)

Concern over Pyongyang-Moscow ties

The report also pointed out that Russia was increasingly supporting North Korea’s nuclear status in exchange for Pyongyang’s support for Moscow’s war against Ukraine.

“Kim’s newly cemented strategic partnership with Russia is yielding financial benefit, diplomatic support, and defense cooperation. The partnership with Moscow also helps reduce Pyongyang’s reliance on Beijing,” said the report, referring to a comprehensive treaty between two countries.

Russian President Vladimir Putin visited North Korea for talks with Kim in June last year when they announced the treaty, agreeing to offer each other military assistance “without delay” if either were attacked. They also underscored their shared defiance of Western sanctions and expanded cooperation in various sectors.

“North Korea’s advancing strategic weapons capabilities and increasing access to revenue are enabling Kim’s longstanding goals of securing international acceptance as a nuclear power, reducing U.S. military presence on the Korean Peninsula, expanding state control over the North’s economy, and blocking foreign influence,” the report said.

The report also warned that Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine poses several risks to the U.S., including the chance of the conflict escalating into a larger war, the potential use of nuclear weapons, increased anxiety among NATO allies, and a more confident stance from China and North Korea.

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North Korean threats to US, allies

The report said Kim would threaten to use force when he perceives U.S. and allied actions as challenging the North’s sovereignty, undermining his power or aiming to curb his nuclear and missile ambitions.

In particular, the report raised the possibility of Kim challenging the Northern Limit Line, or NLL, a de facto inter-Korean sea border.

The North has disputed the NLL as it was unilaterally drawn by the U.S.-led U.N. Command after the 1950-53 Korean War.

“Kim in the past has challenged South Korea’s de facto maritime boundary claims and may do so again, raising the prospects of renewed clashes along the NLL,” the report said.

Gabbard also noted concerns about collaboration between China, Russia, Iran and North Korea against U.S. interests.

The intelligence community “sees China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea engaging in activities that could challenge U.S. capabilities and interests, especially related to our security and economy,” she said. “These actors are, in some cases, working together in different areas to target U.S. interests and protect themselves from U.S. sanctions.”

Edited by Mike Firn and Stephen Wright.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Taejun Kang for RFA.

Ballal, who was freed on Tuesday, was one of four co-directors of “No Other Land” which won this year’s best documentary Academy Award for its portrayal of efforts by Palestinians to stop the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) from demolishing their homes in the Masafer Yatta area, south of Hebron.

“The brazen attack on Palestinian documentary filmmaker Hamdan Ballal by settlers and arrest by the IDF provides yet more evidence of Israeli authorities’ hostility to a free press,” said CPJ Program Director Carlos Martinez de la Serna in New York. “Israel must end its attacks on journalists and filmmakers at once and hold perpetrators to account.”

At least 15 settlers, some in military uniforms, surrounded and attacked Ballal at his home, vandalized his car, and handed him over to IDF soldiers in Masafer Yatta’s Susya village.

The Israeli military told The Associated Press that it handed over three Palestinians, suspected of hurling rocks at forces, to the police for questioning, and that one Israeli civilian involved in a “violent confrontation” was evacuated for medical treatment — a claim witnesses interviewed by the news agency disputed.

Co-director Basel Adra, who witnessed the March 24 attack, said the police did not intervene to stop the violence.

“While the soldiers were pointing their weapons at us, the settlers started attacking the houses of the Palestinians,” he told The Guardian newspaper.

In February 2024, Yuval Abraham, an Israeli co-director of “No Other Land” received death threats and his family were threatened following his acceptance speech at the Berlin International Film Festival. Adra was also attacked by masked Israeli settlers.

CPJ’s email to the IDF’s North America Desk inquiring about the reason for Hamdan’s arrest and when he was due to be released did not immediately receive a response.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CPJ Staff.

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This article is co-published with The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan local newsroom that informs and engages with Texans. Sign up for The Brief Weekly to get up to speed on their essential coverage of Texas issues.

Texas lawmakers and an advocacy group representing charter schools harshly criticized a tiny charter school network that has paid its superintendent up to $870,000 annually, making him one of the highest-paid public school leaders in the country.

The criticism came after ProPublica and the Texas Tribune published a story last week about Valere Public Schools, revealing that the district had only reported paying its superintendent, Salvador Cavazos, less than $300,000 per year. In fact, bonuses and one-time payments roughly tripled his income for running a district that has fewer than 1,000 students across three campuses.

Lawmakers brought up the story during a critical Texas House of Representatives committee hearing on March 6 to discuss how much funding the state should provide traditional public and charter schools in the coming years. Legislators repeatedly pressed Bryce Adams, the vice president of government affairs for the Texas Public Charter Schools Association, about Cavazos’ compensation and asked why charter schools need additional state funding if they use it for high administrator pay.

“You got a report in The Texas Tribune today about one of your guys making $800,000 a year,” said State Rep. John Bryant, a Democrat from Dallas. “None of our superintendents at the public level who have 100,000, 150,000 kids make anything close to that.”

State Rep. Terri Leo Wilson, a Republican from outside Houston who previously served on the Texas State Board of Education, called Cavazos’ bonuses “ridiculous, unheard-of, outrageous.”

In response, Adams said his organization is also opposed to the superintendent’s high compensation. He handed out copies of a letter the charter association had sent to the three members of the Valere Public Schools board stating they should pay Cavazos less. The association said it rarely questions a district’s actions but described the additional $500,000 to $600,000 the board awards Cavazos on top of his annual salary as “completely out of alignment” with the market. The letter urged the school board to tie Cavazos’ bonuses to specific metrics.

“This behavior will cast a shadow over the public charter school system in Texas and could be detrimental to TPCSA’s ability to advocate on behalf of its members and the students they serve,” the association’s board members wrote in the Jan. 22 letter.

The association sent the letter to Valere after learning about the newsrooms’ findings but before the article was published. ProPublica and the Tribune also shared that two other charter school systems pay their superintendents hundreds of thousands of dollars on top of their base salaries. The association did not answer questions about whether it also reached out to those schools.

The strong public rebuke of Cavazos’ compensation comes as leaders from traditional public and charter schools are lobbying legislators for more money after going years without increases to their base funding. That push has intensified given lawmakers’ ongoing efforts to implement a voucher-like program this legislative session, which would allow parents to use taxpayer dollars to send their kids to private schools. Legislative budget experts found that doing so could take money away from public schools. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has championed the voucher program.

Since charter schools are considered public, not private, lawmakers questioned whether taxpayers could be confident that additional spending on public education would go to students’ needs rather than into the pockets of administrators like Cavazos.

Valere Public Schools’ board members provided no direct response to legislators’ concerns about Cavazos’ pay in an emailed reply to the news organizations’ questions this week. They also wrote they had not answered the letter from the charter association and said the association has “no regulatory or other authority over Valere.”

Cavazos has declined multiple interview requests. Board members have defended his compensation, explaining that he is also the charter network’s CEO and his contributions justify his pay. The members also said that a “significant” part of Cavazos’ compensation comes from private donations, but they would not provide evidence to support their claim.

Bryant, the Dallas representative, told the newsrooms in an interview that Valere Public Schools’ actions show why the state needs stronger oversight of its charter schools.

He said legislators must tighten the Texas Education Agency’s current reporting requirements. The agency mandates districts post all superintendent compensation and benefits on their website or in an annual report. Districts must also send information about the superintendent’s annual salary and any supplemental payments for extra duties to the state directly, but the state education agency did not clarify if that includes bonuses. It told the newsrooms it does not check whether districts follow the first requirement unless a potential violation is flagged.

“We need to put it in the law that they have to report it and that there’s a penalty for failing to do so,” said Bryant. “Otherwise, it’ll continue to be obscured.”

The Texas Education Agency did not respond to questions the newsrooms sent after the legislative hearing about the state’s current oversight of charter schools and superintendent compensation. Nor did Texas House Speaker Dustin Burrows or Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who set the legislative priorities for state lawmakers.

Andrew Mahaleris, press secretary for Abbott, sent a written statement to the news organizations scolding school districts that spend the state’s funding on “administrative bloat instead of the teachers they employ and the students they serve.” Abbott will work with lawmakers to ensure public dollars go to “students and teachers, not systems and overpaid administrators,” Mahaleris wrote. He did not mention specific bills or solutions.

Lawmakers have submitted at least five bills during this legislative session that would restrict superintendents’ salaries, but most would not have applied to the vast majority of Cavazos’ compensation because the proposals don’t limit bonuses.

State Rep. Carrie Isaac, a Republican representing counties between Austin and San Antonio, filed a proposal that would restrict superintendents’ pay to no more than twice that of the highest-earning teacher in the school district. Isaac’s current proposal does not account for superintendents’ bonuses. After learning about the Valere School Board’s method of awarding Cavazos hefty payments on top of his base salary, she said she was “absolutely” open to revising her bill to include bonuses.

“I don’t see any justification for that,” Isaac said in an interview. “I would like to see superintendents that pursue their role out of a dedication for student success, not a means to secure these excessive salaries.”

Despite the outcry from lawmakers and experts inside and outside the charter school sector, the Valere board has so far stood behind its decisions. Asked by the newsrooms whether it had any current plans to make changes to the pay that Cavazos receives on top of his base salary, the board sent a one-word response:

“No.”

This content originally appeared on ProPublica and was authored by by Lexi Churchill, ProPublica and The Texas Tribune, and Ellis Simani, ProPublica.

• Our comprehensive report on unprecedented crypto spending in the 2024 election
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• Our first complaint re Trump’s meme coin venture

For additional information on Trump’s meme coin or reactions to Friday’s summit, please contact Emily Leach, eleach@citizen.org to speak with an expert.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

The Palestinian-Israeli film No Other Land won for best documentary feature at Sunday’s Academy Awards. The film follows the struggles of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank community of Masafer Yatta to stay on their land amid home demolitions by the Israeli military and violent attacks by Jewish settlers aimed at expelling them. The film was made by a team of Palestinian-Israeli filmmakers, including the Palestinian journalist Basel Adra, who lives in Masafer Yatta, and the Israeli journalist Yuval Abraham, both of whom are prominently featured in the film.

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

The U.S. military transported 17 new immigrant detainees to the Guantánamo Bay military base on Sunday, just before efforts to jail an anticipated 30,000 immigrants in tent camps at the base were halted over concerns the makeshift facilities don’t meet ICE’s detention standards. Now the private federal contractor behind the Guantánamo detention site is under renewed scrutiny. Investigative journalist José Olivares shares what we know about Akima Infrastructure Protection, an Alaska Native corporation that counts among its myriad federal contracts immigration detention facilities across the United States, including some that are currently under investigation for human rights abuses. The lack of transparency when it comes to the company’s practices and the expansion of migrant detention at a high-security location like Guantánamo means that questions remain over current conditions and even the exact number of people who have been incarcerated there, explains Olivares.

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

The Israeli-Palestinian film No Other Land is nominated for an Oscar for best documentary at this year’s awards, to be held March 2. It follows the struggles of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank community of Masafer Yatta to stay on their land amid violent attacks by Jewish settlers aimed at expelling them. Since the film’s nomination was announced in January, that violence has continued, with co-director Basel Adra sharing video on social media of settlers rampaging through the village under the protection of Israeli soldiers. Adra, who joins us from London, says the goal of the documentary was not just winning awards but “to get to the people’s hearts” through film. “We want people to see the reality, to see what’s going on in my community Masafer Yatta but [also] in all the West Bank.”

No Other Land still does not have a U.S. distributor, although it is showing in select cities.

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

People take part in the “No Kings Day” protest on Presidents Day in Washington, in support of federal workers and against recent actions by President Donald Trump and Elon Musk, Monday, Feb. 17, 2025, by the Capitol in Washington. The protest was organized by the 50501 Movement, which stands for 50 Protests 50 States 1 Movement. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

• Protesters rally against Trump on Presidents Day.
• Bipartisan Senate delegation led by Graham holds press conference in Tel Aviv on Israel trip.
• Russian and American officials will hold talks on ending the Ukraine war without Kyiv.
• Activists protest NBA’s ties to Rwanda outside All-Star Game in San Francisco.

The post “No kings on Presidents Day” protests held across the country – February 17, 2025 appeared first on KPFA.

This content originally appeared on KPFA - The Pacifica Evening News, Weekdays and was authored by KPFA.

Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown hopes to have “an opportunity to talk” with the New Zealand government to “heal some of the rift”.

Brown returned to Avarua on Sunday afternoon (Cook Islands Time) following his week-long state visit to China, where he signed a “comprehensive strategic partnership” to boost its relationship with Beijing.

Prior to signing the deal, he said that there was “no need for New Zealand to sit in the room with us” after the New Zealand Foreign Affairs Minister raised concerns about the agreement.

• READ MORE: Explainer: what the withdrawal of USAid will mean for the Pacific
• Cook Islands’ deal with China takes NZ government by surprise
• NZ media in the middle of Asia-Pacific diplomatic drama
• Other Cook islands reports

Responding to reporters for the first time since signing the China deal, he said: “I haven’t met the New Zealand government as yet but I’m hoping that in the coming weeks we will have an opportunity to talk with them.

“Because they will be able to share in this document that we’ve signed and for themselves see where there are areas that they have concerns with.

“But I’m confident that there will be no areas of concern. And this is something that will benefit Cook Islanders and the Cook Islands people.”

He said the agreement with Beijing would be made public “very shortly”.

“I’m sure once the New Zealand government has a look at it there will be nothing for them to be concerned about.”

Not concerned over consequences
Brown said he was not concerned by any consequences the New Zealand government may impose.

The Cook Islands leader is returning to a motion of no confidence filed against his government and protests against his leadership.

“I’m confident that my statements in Parliament, and my returning comments that I will make to our people, will overcome some of the concerns that have been raised and the speculation that has been rife, particularly throughout the New Zealand media, about the purpose of this trip to China and the contents of our action plan that we’ve signed with China.”

1News Pacific correspondent Barbara Dreaver was at the airport but was not allowed into the room where the press conference was held.

The New Zealand government wanted to see the agreement prior to Brown going to China, which did not happen.

A spokesperson for New Zealand’s Foreign Minister Winston Peters said Brown had a requirement to share the contents of the agreement and anything else he signed under the 2001 Joint Centenary Declaration.

‘Healing some of the rift’
Brown said the difference in opinion provides an opportunity for the two governments to get together and “heal some of the rift”.

“We maintain that our relationship with New Zealand remains strong and we remain open to having conversations with the New Zealand government on issues of concern.

“They’ve raised their concerns around security in the Pacific. We’ve raised our concerns around our priorities, which is economic development for our people.”

Brown has previously said New Zealand did not consult the Cook Islands on its comprehensive strategic partnership with China in 2014, which they should have done if the Cook Islands had a requirement to do so.

He hoped people would read New Zealand’s deal along with his and show him “where the differences are that causes concern”.

Meanwhile, the leader of Cook Islands United Party, Teariki Heather, said Cook Islanders were sitting nervously with a question mark waiting for the agreement to be made public.

“That’s the problem we have now, we haven’t been disclosed or told of anything about what has been signed,” he said.

“Yes we hear about the marine seabed minerals exploration, talk about infrastructure, exchange of students and all that, but we haven’t seen what’s been signed.”

However, Heather said he was not worried about what was signed but more about the damage that it could have created with New Zealand.

Heather is responsible for filing the motion of no confidence against the Prime Minister and his cabinet.

The opposition only makes up eight seats of 24 in the Cook Islands Parliament and the motion is about showing support to New Zealand, not about toppling the government.

“It’s not about the numbers for this one, but purposely to show New Zealand, this is how far we will go if the vote of no confidence is not sort of accepted by both of the majority members, at least we’ve given the support of New Zealand.”

Heather has also been the leader for a planned planned today local time (Tuesday NZ).

“Protesters will be bringing their New Zealand passports as a badge of support for Aotearoa,” he said.

“Our relationship [with New Zealand] — we want to keep that.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

“Prices are rising and yet the Trump Administration has ‘no timeline’ and no plan to lower costs for families. Americans are taking notice, with consumer sentiment at its lowest since July, and consumers expect inflation to go even higher.

“Instead of bringing down prices, Trump and his billionaire buddy Elon Musk are laser-focused on shutting down consumer protection enforcers like CFPB, which has returned more than $20 billion to defrauded Americans, and trying to defund Social Security and Medicare. Targeting people’s health care and exposing them to financial scams does nothing to lower the cost of living.”

Email press@groundworkcollaborative.org to speak with one of Groundwork’s experts about today’s CPI report and the high cost of living.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

“Prices are rising and yet the Trump Administration has ‘no timeline’ and no plan to lower costs for families. Americans are taking notice, with consumer sentiment at its lowest since July, and consumers expect inflation to go even higher.

“Instead of bringing down prices, Trump and his billionaire buddy Elon Musk are laser-focused on shutting down consumer protection enforcers like CFPB, which has returned more than $20 billion to defrauded Americans, and trying to defund Social Security and Medicare. Targeting people’s health care and exposing them to financial scams does nothing to lower the cost of living.”

Email press@groundworkcollaborative.org to speak with one of Groundwork’s experts about today’s CPI report and the high cost of living.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by RT.

Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown says New Zealand is asking for too much oversight over its deal with China, which is expected to be penned in Beijing next week.

Brown told RNZ Pacific the Cook Islands-New Zealand relationship was reciprocal.

“They certainly did not consult with us when they signed their comprehensive partnership agreement [with China] and we would not expect them to consult with us,” he said.

• READ MORE: Other Pacific and China reports

“There is no need for New Zealand to sit in the room with us while we are going through our comprehensive agreement with China.

“We have advised them on the matter, but as far as being consulted and to the level of detail that they were requiring, I think that’s not a requirement.”

Brown is going to China from February 10-14 to sign the “Joint Action Plan for a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership”.

The Cook Islands operates in free association with New Zealand. It means the island nation conducts its own affairs, but Aotearoa needs to assist when it comes to foreign affairs, disasters, and defence.

NZ seeks more consultation
New Zealand is asking for more consultation over what is in the China deal.

Foreign Minister Winston Peters said neither New Zealand nor the Cook Island people knew what was in the agreement.

“The reality is we’ve been not told [sic] what the nature of the arrangements that they seek in Beijing might be,” he told RNZ Morning Report on Friday.

In 2023, China and Solomon Islands signed a deal on police cooperation as part of an upgrade of their relations to a “comprehensive strategic partnership”.

Brown said he had assured New Zealand “over and over” that there would be no impact on the countries’ relationship and “no surprises”, especially on security aspects.

“But the contents of this agreement is something that our team are working on with our Chinese counterparts, and it is something that we will announce and provide once it is signed off.”

He said it was similar to an agreement New Zealand had signed with China in 2014.

Deep sea mining research
Brown said the agreement was looking for areas of cooperation, with deep sea mining research being one area.

However, he said the immediate area that the Cook Islands wanted help with was a new interisland vessel to replace the existing ageing ship.

Brown has backed down from his controversial passport proposal after facing pressure from New Zealand.

He said the country “would essentially punish any Cook Islander that would seek a Cook Islands passport” by passing new legislation that would not allow them to also hold a New Zealand passport.

“To me that is a something that we cannot engage in for the security of our Cook Islands people.

“Whether that is seen as overstepping or not, that is a position that New Zealand has taken.”

A spokesperson for Peters said the two nations did “not see eye to eye” on a number of issues.

Relationship ‘very good’
However, Brown said he always felt the relationship was very good.

“We can agree to disagree in certain areas and as mature nation states do, they do have points of disagreement, but it doesn’t mean that the relationship has in any way broken down.”

On Christmas Day, a Cook Islands-flagged vessel carrying Russian oil was seized by Finnish authorities. It is suspected to be part of Russia’s shadow fleet and cutting underwater power cables in the Baltic Sea near Finland.

Peters’ spokesperson said the Cook Islands shipping registry was an area of disagreement between the two countries.

Brown said the government was working with Maritime Cook Islands and were committed with aligning with international sanctions against Russia.

When asked how he could be aligned with sanctions when the Cook Islands flagged the tanker Eagle S, Brown said it was still under investigation.

“We will wait for the outcomes of that investigation, and if it means the amendments and changes, which I expect it will, to how the ship’s registry operates then we will certainly look to make those amendments and those changes.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

Since the news story is related to the entertainment of the wedding guests and the promotion mentions free entertainment, the clipping is being widely circulated as the perfect example of ad placement.

probably the funniest ad placement i’ve seen till date pic.twitter.com/a189IFuRPP

— Xavier Uncle (@xavierunclelite) January 30, 2025

After the image had gone viral, a number of media outlets reported on the said ‘incident’. This included several major Hindi and English media outlets such as News18, Times of India, LiveMint, Deccan Chronicle, Economic Times, India TV News, DNA, Mathrubhumi, Indian Express, Republic, Deccan Herald, ABP News, News18 Hindi, One India, NDTV, Jansatta, as well as ABP News Hindi.

Fact Check

At first glance, the ‘story’ appears to be part of the advertising next to it as both the single -column piece and the ad next to it are in the same box and are separated from text above them by a solid line.

In newspaper layouts, one often finds news cluster or news packages, where similar items or related stories are put together. Their purpose is to provide context to several related news stories and enhance the reader’s understanding. When two or more news items are related in some way, for example, two different aspects of the same story, or news items that share a theme, presenting them together helps readers understand them in a more comprehensive way. Newspapers often make use of news clusters, keeping them separate and within a border so that the relationship is clearly visible.

In this case, the advertisement and the apparent news story were presented in a package or cluster.

Two more things are to be noted here:

• Borders have special significance in newspaper layouts, as they are used to show separation or connection between two news items or advertisements. The presence of this news item and the advertisement within the same border or box raises suspicion of the placement being pre-planned and related.
• This alleged news item completely matches the theme of the advertisement. Apart from this, a full stop has been used in its headline, which is not usually used in newspaper headlines. Furthermore, this news story neither has a byline nor a placeline.

Upon zooming in on the viral image, we saw two to three lines from another news story in small characters at the top. One line seen here states, “I will make them excellent. But if you ask me to engage in abuses”. When we performed an advanced search of this line on Google, we found a similar news article published on January 30 on a website called The Pioneer, which featured the headline, ‘Kejriwal calls Congress ‘vote cutter’.

Since this article was published on January 30, Alt News also examined the e-paper of the Delhi edition of The Pioneer from the same day. We found this advertisement and the alleged news story on the third page of the newspaper. Now, it is also worth noting that the alleged news story from January 18 about the marriage being called off due to the groom dancing to the song ‘Choli Ke Peeche Kya Hai’ was published in the newspaper on January 30, which is very odd.

We spoke to an official from ‘The Pioneer’ newspaper on this matter. He confirmed on the condition of anonymity that the news of the marriage being called off because of the groom dancing to ‘Choli Ke Peeche Kya Hai’ was not a factual news story, but an advertisement which an advertising agency had given him to publish.

Too Cheeky or Lack of Editorial Intervention?

Sometimes newspapers run advertisements that appear to be news stories, but they mention words like ‘advertorial’ or ‘consumer connect’ as a disclaimer somewhere on the page to indicate this to readers. This is part of basic editorial practice. For example, page 25 of the Mumbai edition of the Times of India newspaper published on February 5, 2025 was a full-page advertisement, and the word ‘ADVERTORIAL’ was mentioned in smaller text on the top right of the page.

Publishing advertisements that appear like real news stories without issuing a disclaimer shows a lack of editorial integrity and can be misleading to readers. Newspapers have a responsibility to maintain a clear distinction between news and advertisements. When they fail to do so, it affects readers’ trust in them and leads to the spread of misinformation. The recent case is an excellent example of this, where so many media outlets themselves fell for it and mistook the ad published by The Pioneer newspaper as a factual story, and created a cycle of misinformation.

The post Wedding called off after groom danced to ‘Choli k peeche’? No, it was an ad that the media picked up as news appeared first on Alt News.

This content originally appeared on Alt News and was authored by Abhishek Kumar.

Republican and Democratic voters across the US are reeling from climate-fueled disasters, with thousands of homes and businesses destroyed and damaged by the ongoing fires in Los Angeles, as well as major hurricanes in Florida, Texas, North Carolina, and Georgia last year.

In each place, recovery depends on restoration or resilience workers, who travel from disaster to disaster cleaning up and rebuilding American communities while facing hazards such as unstable buildings, ash and other toxins, and water-borne diseases.

“Like farm workers in the fields, immigrants are indispensable to fire, flood, and hurricane recovery in the US. There is absolutely no rebuilding without them,” said Saket Soni, director of Resilience Force, a labor organization with almost 4,000 members, who are primarily immigrant workers.

“Mass deportations would completely upend the ongoing recovery in Florida, Louisiana, and North Carolina from last year’s hurricanes. It would stall the rebuilding of LA after fires … and at this point, anyone anywhere is at risk of having their home impacted by a climate disaster. So everyone need these skilled workers.”

Read Next

Helene and Milton upended a key part of the nation’s agriculture system

Ayurella Horn-Muller

The disaster industry is growing in the US, as climate-fueled extreme weather events become more intense and destructive – and as rebuilding becomes more profitable.

While there is no official count, the current resilience workforce includes tens of thousands of mostly foreign-born workers from across Latin America and the Caribbean, as well as India and the Philippines, among other countries. It is a diverse mix of skilled workers that includes undocumented immigrants, as well as many documented asylum seekers, settled refugees and those with work permits through temporary protected status (TPS).

Trump’s flurry of executive orders and policy ambitions threaten to upend the entire immigration and asylum system. Expanding workplace raids and mass deportations may temporarily satisfy Trump’s anti-immigrant base, but the knock on labor shortages will likely be felt across multiple sectors including construction, food, hospitality, and disaster work.

“The deportations plan is so out of touch with the reality of the victims, who without immigrants will continue to spend months, maybe years in hotels living out of pocket. Recovery often makes the poor even poorer and getting back into your home is the key safeguard against spiraling inequality,” said Soni, who has been involved in 25 disaster-recovery efforts over the past two decades.

“We’re headed for a moment where there’ll be a reckoning between such political ploys and reality. And at some point this will become a moral question rather than a political one.”

Read Next

Some towns still don’t have drinkable water months after Hurricane Helene. A full recovery could take years.

Katie Myers

Among the biggest obstacles facing families after a destructive fire, tornado, or flood are labor shortages – and funding. Trump’s policy pledges will make both worse.

On Friday, Trump announced his desire to potentially shutter the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) during a visit to North Carolina, where rural Republican-voting communities faced some of the worst damage from Hurricane Helene – one of the most destructive and deadly storms to hit the US mainland in years. Helene was among 27 separate billion-dollar disasters to hit the US in 2024.

The estimated cost of the damage in North Carolina from Helene, which hit six states across southern Appalachia all of which voted for Trump, is almost $60 billion. Here, four months after the floods, there is much work still to do – from debris removal and mold remediation to roof replacements and geological repairs to hillsides.

Also on Friday, Trump visited Los Angeles, where more than 11,000 homes have been destroyed and the damage caused by just two of the blazes – the Palisades and Eaton fires – is now estimated at $275 billion. At least 150,000 people have been displaced, and many have applied to FEMA for help. “You don’t need FEMA, you need a good state government, you fix it yourself,” said Trump, after touring some of the fire-ravaged area.

FEMA provides emergency assistance for temporary accommodation, food and unemployment benefits, as well as reimbursing individuals and states for clean-up and rebuilding costs, which are not covered by private insurance.

Read Next

What Trump can (and can’t) do to disrupt Los Angeles wildfire aid

Jake Bittle

“Abolishing FEMA would invite a pretty major response over the next few years because no state will absorb that amount of responsibility or spending. The states would rise up – especially the very red states like Florida, Texas, and Louisiana that this administration counts on for its constituents and where disasters happen again and again,” said Soni.

“We will need FEMA to be bigger, not smaller. Any resident who’s been through a hurricane or wildfire, whether Democrat or Republican, will agree with that. Fires aren’t making a distinction between political parties. We have Republicans in California who need FEMA just as much as the Democrats.”

On Monday, it emerged that the Trump administration had issued new quotas to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to ramp up raids and arrests, the Washington Post reported.

The expansion of workplace raids could force some restoration workers underground – as happened in 2022 after Hurricane Idalia when Republican Florida Governor Ron DeSantis passed draconian anti-immigrant legislation. “Immigrant workers put their tools down and left in fear, leaving homes to be rebuilt and families in limbo. That was very bad for Floridians who were depending on those workers, but the workers needed to be careful,” said Soni, speaking from North Carolina where he was meeting homeowners desperate to repair and return to their homes.

“Even among those who are documented, many restoration workers have a tenuous foothold in America – people who are not yet citizens and are being threatened by Trump. People are scared, and yet these workers have a deep sense of vocation. There’s something sacred about working after a fire or a hurricane so that a family can come home. What is more important than that?”

Read Next

Trump’s proposed mass deportations could ‘decimate’ the US food supply

Frida Garza & Ayurella Horn-Muller

The resilience workforce has grown massively since Katrina flattened New Orleans in 2005, after which the city was rebuilt by mostly undocumented Latino workers. Since then, the industry has consolidated, with private-equity firms buying up small businesses, with minimal protection for workers and little regulatory oversight.

The working and living conditions can be brutal for the immigrant workers, many of whom come from countries hit hard by the climate crisis caused by planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions – of which the US is the largest historic contributor.

“We have workers from Honduras who right now are rebuilding the homes of Floridians – and are in Florida because a hurricane destroyed their home and forced them to leave. Do you know how much grace it takes to replace someone else’s roof while your own home is uninhabitable? And yet the workers persevere with grace and persistence,” said Soni, author of The Great Escape: A True Story of Forced Labor and Immigrant Dreams in America, which chronicles the story of Indians lured to the US to help rebuild New Orleans.

“Volunteer efforts in Appalachia and Los Angeles have been extraordinary, but the truth is that the scale of damage we’re seeing across the US requires a skilled, scaled workforce. If you deport one generation of restoration workers, you can’t just add water and have another generation appear. It’s taken two decades to build the workforce that we have. And without them, everyone’s at risk.”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline ‘No rebuilding without them’: Trump’s immigration crackdown will affect disaster recovery on Feb 2, 2025.

This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Nina Lakhani, The Guardian.

Several Facebook accounts shared this claim.

Instagram account @taazakhabarofficial0, which describes itself as a ‘news and media website’ also posted this claim on its page. (Archived link)

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Taaza Khabar (@taazakhabaroffical0)

While checking for when this information was first shared, we found that the claim was not new and had gone viral in 2023 as well.

On August 16, 2023, X user @AllahGreatQuran had shared something very similar. The post garnered over 600,000 views and was reshared close to 5,000 times. (Archived link)

Harvard University Declares Sujood Posture as the Best Medicine for Back Pain. Subhan’Allah pic.twitter.com/cLAcLI5n5e

— Allah Islam Quran (@AllahGreatQuran) August 16, 2023

Another verified X user @Al__Quraan also posted this around the same time. It has gathering over 850,000 views and reshared 5,700 times. (Archived Link)

Harvard University Declares Sujood Posture as the Best Medicine for Back Pain. pic.twitter.com/y83Wnk9Ek4

— • (@Al__Quraan) August 18, 2023

We were able to find several other X posts from 2023, which propagated the same claim. (Archives 1, 2, 3)

Fact Check

To find the primary source related to the claim, Alt News ran a keyword search on X. This led us to an X post from Harvard Health’s verified X account (@HarvardHealth) from 2021. (Archive)

You might be considering surgery or other intervention to treat your back pain. But less may actually be more for this common problem, and in many instances the best medicine is good old-fashioned movement and exercise: https://t.co/kS15FLlj5F #HarvardHealth pic.twitter.com/TJv0YNtavv

— Harvard Health (@HarvardHealth) June 30, 2021

The post had a link to a 2020 article published by Harvard Health, which is affiliated to Harvard Medical School. While the article talks about the importance of regular exercise to keep spinal problems at bay, nowhere does it mention the ‘Sujood’ posture. However, we noticed that the image accompanying the article is similar to the Islamic practice of prostration during daily prayers.

Thus it is likely that a section of social media users may have misattributed the representative generic image in Harvard Health’s X post as Harvard Health promoting the ‘Sujood’ posture as a remedy for back pain and later shared the claim with an image of an Muslim person. The fact is that Harvard Health’s article, which talks about strategies to combat back pain, has no reference to the Islamic act of prostration, known as the ‘Sujood’, ‘Sijda’ or ‘Sejdah’.

The post No, Harvard University did not claim Islamic act of prostration or ‘Sujood’ posture is remedy for back pain appeared first on Alt News.

This content originally appeared on Alt News and was authored by Prantik Ali.

The men from the mostly Muslim minority from the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in China have been held at Thailand’s Immigration Detention Center since 2014, after attempting to escape Beijing’s persecution through Thailand.

The rights group Justice for All said recently that reports from the detained Uyghurs indicated that Thai authorities were coercing them to fill out forms in preparation for their deportation.

An Immigration Bureau spokesperson told Radio Free Asia last week that no decision had been made regarding the Uyghurs, and a government spokesman reiterated on Thursday that no deportation was planned.

“There is no policy to do so. I don’t understand why there’s been talk about this,” spokesman Jirayu Huangsab told RFA.

“I have nothing to clarify,” Jirayu said, when asked about Thailand’s position on the issue. He also questioned the source of the information of “the person who blew the whistle about this.”

U.N. experts on Tuesday joined rights groups in raising concern about the Uyghurs, urging Thailand to halt their deportation to China.

“The treatment of the Uyghur minority in China is well-documented,” said the experts, collectively known as the Special Procedures of the U.N.’s Human Rights Council. “We are concerned they are at risk of suffering irreparable harm, in violation of the international prohibition on refoulement to torture.”

The prohibition on refoulement prevents returning detainees to a country “where there is real risk of torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.”

Uyghurs in China’s vast Xinjiang region have been subjected to widespread human rights abuses, including detention in massive concentration camps.

The U.N. experts also called on Thailand to provide access to asylum procedures and medical care for the group of detained Uyghurs “without delay.”

(Sakchai Lalit/AP)

Rubio promised intervention

The group of refugees is part of an originally larger cohort of over 350 Uyghur men, women and children, 172 of whom were resettled in Turkey, 109 deported back to China, and five who died because of inadequate medical conditions.

In 2015, Thailand, Washington’s longest-standing treaty ally in Asia, faced stiff international criticism for those it did deport back to China.

Thailand is not a signatory to the 1951 U.N. Refugee Convention, and therefore does not recognize refugees.

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New U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said at his confirmation hearing last week that he would reach out to U.S. ally Thailand to prevent the return of the Uyghurs to China.

The treatment of Uyghurs in China was not “some obscure issue” that should be on the sidelines of U.S.-China ties, Rubio said.

“These are people who are basically being rounded up because of their ethnicity and religion, and they are being put into camps. They’re being put into what they call re-education centers. They’re being stripped of their identity. Their children’s names are being changed,” he said.

“It’s one of the most horrifying things that’s ever happened,” he added.

“They’re being put into forced labor – literally slave labor.”

China denies accusations of slave labor in Xinjiang.

Edited by Taejun Kang and Mike Firn.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Pimuk Rakkanam for RFA.

ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they’re published.

The man tapped by President Donald Trump to be second-in-command of the federal agency that protects the public from environmental dangers is a lawyer who has represented companies accused of harming people and the environment through pollution.

David Fotouhi, a partner in the global law firm Gibson Dunn, played a key part in rolling back climate regulations and water protections while serving as a lawyer in the Environmental Protection Agency during Trump’s first administration.

Most recently, Fotouhi challenged the EPA’s recent ban of asbestos, which causes a deadly cancer called mesothelioma. In a brief filed in October on behalf of a group of car companies called the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, he argued that, for the specific uses that were banned, the “EPA failed to demonstrate that chrysotile asbestos presents an unreasonable risk of injury.”

The EPA banned the carcinogen in March, long after its dangers first became widely known. More than 50 other countries have outlawed use of the mineral. The agency had worked toward the ban for decades, and workers died while lobbyists pushed to delay action, as a 2022 ProPublica investigation showed.

Less than a day after Trump’s inauguration this week, the White House webpage that celebrated the historic ban was gone.

Fotouhi’s nomination to be the EPA deputy administrator must yet be approved by the Senate.

The asbestos rule is just one of several environmental issues at the heart of the EPA’s regulatory mission on which Fotouhi has represented companies accused of polluting. The 39-year-old lawyer, who is expected to play a critical role running the agency, represented International Paper in lawsuits accusing the firm of contamination from PFAS, or “forever chemicals”; a tire company that allegedly released a chemical known to kill endangered salmon (the firm disputed the claim and is fighting the lawsuit); and a coalition of businesses in Washington state that sued the EPA over its water quality standards for legacy pollutants known as PCBs.

Environmentalists are calling on Fotouhi to recuse himself from decisions regarding asbestos and other issues he’s recently worked on at Gibson Dunn. “Here’s a guy who wrote a very biased and one-sided attack on the EPA rule on asbestos. I would not want him to come anywhere near EPA decision-making on the asbestos rule,” said Robert Sussman, an attorney who represents the Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization and served as EPA deputy administrator during the Clinton administration.

“I recused myself from everything involving former clients,” said Sussman.

Fotouhi declined to comment for this story.

Government ethics law calls for attorneys to recuse themselves for a year from matters on which they provided services in the previous year.

The issue may be a mere formality in an administration that in its first day took steps to roll back environmental and health protections put in place by the previous administration. Within hours of his inauguration on Monday, Trump ordered the withdrawal of the U.S. from the Paris climate accords, halted the approval of leases for new offshore wind projects in federal waters and revoked several executive orders relating to climate change.

It is not unusual for political appointees to the EPA to have ties to industry, especially in Republican administrations. Among the people returning to the agency from Trump’s first term are Nancy Beck, a former lobbyist for the American Chemistry Council, the influential industry trade group; Aaron Szabo, a lobbyist who represented the American Petroleum Institute and contributed to the Project 2025 chapter on the EPA; and Lynn Dekleva, who also worked for the American Chemistry Council and DuPont.

In announcing his nomination of Fotouhi on Truth Social earlier this month, Trump wrote that “David will work with our incredible EPA Administrator, Lee Zeldin, to advance pro Growth policies, unleash America’s Energy Dominance, and prioritize Clean Air, Clean Water, and Clean Soil for ALL Americans.” His expertise could be essential for Zeldin, the former U.S. representative from Long Island whom Trump nominated to run the agency and who has little experience with environmental issues.

While working at the EPA in the first Trump administration, Fotouhi served as deputy general counsel and acting general counsel. He played a central role in a revision of the Waters of the U.S. rule that removed federal protections from wetlands and streams. He later described it as some of his most important work. His Gibson Dunn online biography says he also “played a critical role in developing the litigation strategy to defend” the agency’s decision not to impose financial requirements on companies that extract minerals and ore from rock. Environmentalists had pushed for the requirements to protect taxpayers from being held responsible for costly environmental cleanups.

Fotouhi also advocated for landfills and ponds that contain coal ash to be deemed “clean” even though they didn’t meet the agency’s usual standards — a position favorable to the coal industry, according to one waste expert who worked with him during the Trump administration. “Dave was adamant about that issue,” said the former colleague, who asked not to be named to avoid public involvement in political discussions. The former colleague described Fotouhi as a brilliant lawyer who knows the environmental statutes but “doesn’t hesitate to get creative” to find a way to use them to take industry-friendly positions.

A Harvard-educated attorney, Fotouhi led an office of hundreds of lawyers at Gibson Dunn and has defended clients and provided legal counsel under every major environmental law, according to his bio on the firm’s website. He represented International Paper in two suits over PFAS, persistent industrial chemicals that cause cancer and other diseases. The chemicals were at the heart of two cases in which the company was accused of spreading PFAS-containing biosolids in Maine. The biosolids, or sludge, have been found to contribute to PFAS contamination of food and water throughout the state. (Gibson Dunn is representing ProPublica pro bono in a case against the U.S. Navy.)

Nathan Saunders, a plaintiff in one of the suits, learned in 2021 that his well water in Fairfield, Maine, had extremely high levels of the chemicals. After he learned that PFAS were linked to kidney damage, the discovery made sense to the lifelong Maine resident, whose wife had developed kidney failure more than a decade earlier.

Fotouhi succeeded in getting his client dismissed from the Saunders suit by arguing that there wasn’t information to tie the company’s conduct to the water contamination. Saunders’ attorney, Elizabeth Bailey, described the legal strategy as common among companies facing PFAS contamination suits and difficult for plaintiffs to overcome without access to internal company information. “They say, ‘Yes, there’s contamination, but there’s no way for you to show whose contamination it was and — oh, by the way, if you can’t specifically identify how our contamination got from our location to your client’s location at the very beginning of the lawsuit, we shouldn’t be in this case at all,’” said Bailey.

Fotouhi also attempted to overturn EPA’s water quality standards for toxic chemicals known as PCBs, which have been linked to cancer. In December 2023, he filed a suit against the agency on behalf of Washington state business groups that claimed that the standards are impossible to meet.

If the EPA chooses not to continue fighting the case, those standards could be overturned. The loss would be devastating to waterways, according to Katelyn Scott, water protector at Spokane Riverkeeper, an advocacy organization devoted to protecting the river and its watershed. “Without the EPA at the helm fighting to protect them, our river would be vulnerable to higher levels of pollution that would really put our fish and our people at risk of harm,” she said.

Phillip Landrigan, a physician who has spent decades working to protect public health from environmental threats, said the potential consequences would be similarly dire should the EPA choose to overturn the asbestos ban.

“President Trump came into office saying that he was going to make life better for working Americans,” said Landrigan. Reversing the decades-in-the-making asbestos ban, he said, “would expose working American women and men to a known human carcinogen and fly in the face of that promise.”

Kirsten Berg contributed research.

This content originally appeared on ProPublica and was authored by by Sharon Lerner.

Since 2006, North Korea has conducted six nuclear tests and has consistently declared that it will never relinquish its nuclear weapons. It also demands recognition as a nuclear power, which both the U.S. and its ally, South Korea, firmly reject, instead calling for North Korea’s “denuclearization.”

But Trump’s reference on Monday has raised the possibility of a shift in U.S. policy towards recognizing the country’s nuclear status.

“As a responsible nuclear weapons state, we will continue to make efforts to prevent all forms of war and to protect peace and stability,” said Jo Chol Su, North Korea’s permanent representative to the United Nations Office at Geneva during a U.N. conference on disarmament on Tuesday.

“The United States has been conducting aerial espionage against North Korea since the beginning of the year … U.S. political and military provocations are the root cause of triggering armed conflicts and undermining regional stability.

“The strongest defense is the only way to protect peace. We will strongly deter any attempt by hostile forces to provoke us militarily,” Jo added.

Jo’s remarks were in response to criticism from U.N. member states over the North’s nuclear and missile programs.

In particular, Kim Il-hoon, South Korea’s deputy permanent representative to the U.N. in Geneva, pointed out that North Korea had violated U.N. Security Council resolutions by providing Russia with a large quantity of weapons and ballistic missiles, as well as sending more than 11,000 troops to help Russia in its war against Ukraine.

“The recent capture of two North Korean soldiers is a sign of North Korean troops’ participation in the war,” Kim said.

As many as 12,000 North Korean soldiers are in Russia’s Kursk region, fighting Ukrainian forces there, according to Ukraine and the U.S. – although neither Moscow nor Pyongyang has acknowledged this.

Ukraine said its forces captured two North Korean soldiers in Kursk in January. Both were wounded and are in custody in Kyiv, reportedly receiving medical attention.

“North Korea has redefined inter-Korean relations by framing the South as an enemy state, effectively dismantling the psychological barrier to launching a preemptive nuclear attack on our people – all of whom are Koreans,” Kim said, referring to Pyongyang’s decision to officially abandon its long-standing goal of peaceful reunification with South Korea.

In January 2024, the North declared the South its “primary foe and invariable principal enemy,” closing agencies dedicated to inter-Korean cooperation and enhancing its military capabilities.

“The lowered threshold for North Korea’s nuclear aggression poses a direct threat to peace and stability in the region,” Kim added.

North Korea’s comments followed Trump’s reference to it as a nuclear power, which hinted at a possible softening of the longstanding U.S. demand that the North dismantles its weapons program.

(Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)

Japan and South Korea – two important Asian allies of the U.S. – rejected the term.

“North Korea’s nuclear and missile development is a threat to the peace and security of Japan and the international community, and we cannot accept it,” said Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi on Tuesday.

“We will also work with the international community, including the U.S. and South Korea, to demand the complete dismantlement of North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs by promoting the full implementation of the relevant U.N. Security Council resolutions,” he added.

South Korea earlier said the North could never be recognized as a nuclear power because to do so would imply abandoning the goal of denuclearization.

The U.S. had refused to recognize North Korea as a nuclear state to uphold global non-proliferation norms and avoid legitimizing Pyongyang’s defiance of international agreements.

There have been lingering concerns that acknowledging the North’s nuclear status could destabilize regional security, embolden Pyongyang, and encourage South Korea and Japan to pursue their own nuclear programs.

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Trump was inaugurated as the 47th U.S. president on Monday, marking the beginning of his second term. During his first term, he embarked on unprecedented but ultimately unsuccessful engagement with North Korea to try to get it to abandon its nuclear weapons in exchange for sanctions relief.

North Korean state media reported his inauguration without comment.

“Donald Trump was inaugurated as president in the United States, and he was elected as the 47th president of the United States in the election held last November,” the North’s state-run Korean Central News Agency reported on Tuesday.

The article was also published in Rodong Sinmun newspaper, which North Koreans can read.

North Korean state media did not report any news related to the U.S. election in November.

Edited by Mike Firn.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Taejun Kang for RFA.

In the video, the victim can be seen joining his hands and asking for forgiveness. Another man can be heard stating that the accused had consumed alcohol. The victim is dragged along and made to sit in front of a wall adorned with banners.

Asianet News published an article on January 11, 2025, with a headline stating, “Muslim youth beaten up, detained for urinating on Kumbh banner.” The report states that a Muslim youth was beaten up by a mob on the charge of urinating on a Kumbh banner. Police was informed and the accused was detained. They added, “Not much information is available about who this young man is and what he does. The police have not yet taken any action against the mob that attacked the young man.”

UttarPradesh.ORG News shared the video on X and wrote that a young man from “another community” was beaten up by the locals on the accusation of urinating on the Maha Kumbh banner. People present in the area caught the young man and thrashed him after chasing him down. A video of the incident went viral on social media. Upon receiving the information, the police arrived at the scene and took the young man into custody. (archive)

#रायबरेली के बछरावां कस्बे में महाकुंभ के बैनर पर पेशाब करने के आरोप में गैर समुदाय के युवक की लोगों ने पिटाई कर दी। आसपास मौजूद लोगों ने युवक को पकड़कर दौड़ा-दौड़ाकर पीटा। घटना का वीडियो सोशल मीडिया पर वायरल हो गया। सूचना मिलने पर पुलिस मौके पर पहुंची और युवक को हिरासत में लिया।… pic.twitter.com/w7Kv3UgJTq

— UttarPradesh.ORG News (@WeUttarPradesh) January 11, 2025

X user Baba Banaras posted the video on January 14 claiming that a Muslim man had been found urinating on the photos of Maha Kumbh and Hindu deities featured on a wall in Rae Bareilly. (archive)

Rae Bareilly, UP: Abdul Urinates on Photos of Mahakumbh and Hindu Deities on Wall, Caught by Locals. pic.twitter.com/Kih0SYmtNQ

— Baba Banaras (@RealBababanaras) January 14, 2025

Readers should note that AltNews has debunked several cases of misinformation shared by the X user, Baba Banaras.

Frontal Force also reshared the tweet by Baba Banaras with a similar claim. Later, the post was deleted.

Another X user, Dr. Linda Mikhaylov, shared the video with the claim that local people caught a Muslim terrorist urinating on the Mahakumbh banner who was heavily beaten by them. She poses her concern in the caption saying “Now Muslims have problem with the banner of Maha Kumbh also.” (archive)

Several other social media users have shared the video accompanied by similar claims. A few of them are featured in the gallery below:

Fact Check

Raebareli police issued a statement on January 11, 2025, to clarify that the name of the accused was Vinod and the claim that the youth belongs to another community was entirely false and baseless. 

According to the police statement, Vinod is a resident of Kannauj district who works as a vendor and travels around the market riding his bicycle. On the night of January 10, 2025, at around 8 pm, Vinod was sitting near a wall in Bachhrawan block while being highly intoxicated. In his drunken condition, he started to urinate about 3-4 feet away from the wall, the statement clarified. It further mentioned that some people present at the scene objected to his actions, accused him of being from another community, and began assaulting him. However, people who knew Vinod intervened and ultimately took him away from the spot. 

To sum up, the media outlets Asianet News and Uttarpradesh.ORG News misreported the incident based on false social media posts. According to the Raebareli police statement, the man accused of allegedly urinating on a banner of Maha Kumbh Mela was identified as Vinod, a Hindu vendor. Police clarified that he had not urinated on the wall and that he was in a state of intoxication. There is no communal angle to the case.

The post No, man accused of urinating on Maha Kumbh Mela banner in Raebareli is not a Muslim appeared first on Alt News.

This content originally appeared on Alt News and was authored by Ankita Mahalanobish.

In response, Food & Water Watch Senior Food Policy Analyst Rebecca Wolf issued the following statement:

“This move by the FDA is long overdue, but represents a step in the right direction for consumer safety from harmful, cancer-causing chemicals. This is exactly the action we need to see from the FDA. If the incoming FDA is serious about food safety and system reform, they should build on this win by endorsing scientifically sound policies and regulatory changes that Food & Water Watch has supported for years. These include ending the GRAS loophole that companies use to pollute our food system, removing antibiotics from animal feed, and supporting a ban on harmful chemicals in food.”

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

In the video, the crowd surrounding the woman shines a torchlight on her and calls for her to come out while others assure her that she won’t be beaten up. Those sharing the video allege that the no one helped the tormented woman who was being made fun of by “extremists”. The incident is purportedly from Narayanganj in Bangladesh.

The neighbouring country has been in the eye of flaring communal tensions for some time now.

The above video was shared by Faraz Pervaiz (@FarazPervaiz3) on X (formerly Twitter) on December 27, 2024 with a caption saying that a Hindu woman was brutally raped in Araihazar village in Narayanganj while Muslims made fun of her.

The post garnered around 44,000 views.

The claim was further amplified by X account Rinti Chatterjee Pandey (@mainRiniti), who shared Asifur Rahaman Chowdhury’s post the following day. The translated text reads, “A Bangladeshi Hindu woman is raped by several people and then a video is being made. Not even a single person came to save her, and our government is sending rice to feed Bangladeshi dogs. This is too much.”

एक बांग्लादेशी हिंदू महिला के साथ कई लोग बलात्कार करते हैं और फिर उसका वीडियो बनाया जा रहा है । बचाने एक आदमी तक नहीं आया , और हमारी सरकार बांग्लादेशी कुत्तों का पेट भरने के लिए चावल भेज रही है हद है pic.twitter.com/QIOLB68WRN

— Riniti Chatterjee Pandey (@mainRiniti) December 28, 2024

The post garnered around 1.5 million views.

Another X user, Asifur Rahman Chowdhury (@Asifurrahman71), also shared the video with a similar claim and the hashtag #SaveBangladeshiHindu. His post had around 206,000 views.

Several others also shared similar claims. You can see them in the gallery below.

Fact Check

A keyword search led us to a news article by Bangladeshi media outlet Somoy News. The report, published on December 27, 2024, features an image similar to the visuals in the viral video. According to this report, the previous day, a group of seven or eight people were trying to steal a car from Ilumdi road in Kahindi village, Araihazar, Narayanganj. However, the residents soon realised what was happening and began chasing the robbers, who then tried to escape. However, one of the robbers, Billal, was caught by the mob and lynched to death. The mob also spotted an alleged associate of Billal, a woman named Lovely. In a bid to save herself, this woman reportedly jumped into a canal. The report identifies her in an image, making it clear that it is the same woman seen in the viral video. 

INSERT SIMILARITY EDIT

The villagers rescued her and handed her over to the police. She was then sent to the Araihazar Upazila Health Complex.

Confirming the incident, assistant superintendent of Araihazar police, Mehedi Islam, told Somoy News that the deceased robber, Billal, was a known criminal with at least nine pending cases. He had been named in murder and robbery cases in the past. He said that the woman, Lovely, had been arrested and they were preparing to file a case against her, adding that the 25-year-old woman was also beaten up by the mob.

Dhaka-based news outlet Prathom Alo reported that during initial investigation, Lovely admitted to being associated with the gang of robbers that escaped but later denied any involvement. She claimed that she was a sex worker and with a client in the area at the time of the incident. Reportedly, scared after people began screaming, she tried to run away but was caught and beaten up by people, who suspected she was with the gang of robbers. She then jumped into the canal to escape, the report said.

During our investigation, we found a video uploaded on the Facebook page of local news portal, Araihazar Times, on December 27, 2024. The caption refers to the woman as Lovely Begum. In this, she can be heard saying that she was attacked by robbers while travelling in an auto-rickshaw. They took her hostage while the auto driver fled and informed local residents. This led to the now-deceased robber getting lynched and Lovely was also beaten as a suspect. 

Alt news spoke to a Bangladeshi journalist who confirmed that the woman seen in this video was named Lovely and she was not a Hindu. Neither was she raped. She jumped into a canal to save herself from the being beaten up by the angry villagers, who presumed she was involved in a robbery.

Thus the viral video has been falsely given a communal angle. The woman in the clip is not a Hindu. Her name is Lovely Begum and she belongs to the Muslim community. She jumped into a canal to save herself from being beaten up by the villagers, who believed she was involved in a robbery. 

The post No, this video does not show Hindu woman raped and tortured in Bangladesh village appeared first on Alt News.

This content originally appeared on Alt News and was authored by Ankita Mahalanobish.

During protests by both NDA and the Opposition on Thursday and the resulting chaos outside the Parliament building, both sides allege that they were pushed, shoved and suffered injuries. Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge claimed that he suffered an injury to his knee and wrote to the Lok Sabha Speaker to look into the matter. Meanwhile, two BJP MPs, Pratap Sarangi and Mukesh Rajput, were also hurt and hospitalized as they sustained injuries to the head. They have reportedly been admitted to Delhi’s Ram Manohar Lal Hospital.

Against this backdrop, Lok Sabha MP Anurag Thakur shared a video of Rahul Gandhi on X (formerly Twitter) where the latter is responding to reporters. In the video, Gandhi can be heard saying, “Dekhiye, haan kiya hai, kiya hai, magar thik hai… dhakka-mukki se humein kuch hota nahi hai.. Magar…” (See, yes it happened, it happened but it’s alright, we are not perturbed by scuffles… But…).

Thakur posted this with a Hindi caption that translates to: “Rahul Gandhi himself is admitting that he has pushed, and is shamelessly saying that nothing is achieved by pushing. Due to his push, a senior MP’s head got fractured, two MPs are admitted in hospital and Rahul ji is saying that nothing happens due to push. Arrogance, tyranny and dictatorship run in the veins of the Gandhi family…shameful.” (Archive)

राहुल गांधी ख़ुद मान रहे हैं कि उन्होंने धक्कामुक्की की है, और बड़ी बेशर्मी से कह रहे हैं कि धक्का मुक्की से कुछ नहीं होता।

इनके धक्के से एक वरिष्ठ सांसद का सर फट गया, दो सांसद अस्पताल में भर्ती हैं और राहुल जी कह रहे धक्के से कुछ नहीं होता।

अहंकार, अत्याचार और तानाशाही गांधी… pic.twitter.com/MSD8UZey55

— Anurag Thakur (@ianuragthakur) December 19, 2024

BJP leader Amit Malviya, who is in-charge of the party’s information technology cell, also shared the same video on X claiming “Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi admits on camera to having assaulted BJP MP Pratap Sarangi…” (Archive)

Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi admits on camera to having assaulted BJP MP Pratap Sarangi, leaving him grievously injured. This calls for criminal charges against him. There is overwhelming evidence, video footage and his own admission to convict Rahul Gandhi. The law must… pic.twitter.com/WSxCDD23Pz

— Amit Malviya (@amitmalviya) December 19, 2024

BJP’s Bengaluru South MP Tejasvi Surya also posted the same on X with the claim that Rahul Gandhi admitted to manhandling BJP MPs. (Archive)

After admitting to manhandling, Shri Rahul Gandhi shamelessly dismisses his aggressive behaviour by saying, “Nothing happens with a push.”

It’s shameful that he downplays an incident that has caused a head injury to a senior MP and two MPs being hospitalized, all due to his… pic.twitter.com/mmtN0ly8Hs

— Tejasvi Surya (@Tejasvi_Surya) December 19, 2024

The same video and the claim that Gandhi “admitted” to assaulting BJP MPs was also amplified by BJP national spokesperson Shehzad Poonawalla (@Shehzad_Ind, the party’s Gujarat media co-chief Zubin Ashara (@zubinashara) as well as the BJP’s Assam X handle (@BJP4Assam). (Archives 1, 2, 3).

X user Mr Sinha (@MrSinha_) who identifies as a Hindu Rights Activist and shares communal propaganda and misinformation regularly, also claimed the same. (Archive) 

Needless to say, the posts and Rahul Gandhi’s video are went viral across social media platforms after BJP MP Pratap Sarangi claimed that Gandhi had pushed an MP who fell on him causing him to fall down. “I was standing near the stairs when Rahul Gandhi came and pushed an MP who then fell on me…” he told news agency ANI.

Fact Check

We found that the viral video being shared by BJP leaders is clipped from a slightly longer video of Rahul Gandhi on the Parliament premises shared by ANI. (Archive)

#WATCH | Lok Sabha LoP Rahul Gandhi says, “This might be on your camera. I was trying to go inside through the Parliament entrance, BJP MPs were trying to stop me, push me and threaten me. So this happened…Yes, this has happened (Mallikarjun Kharge being pushed). But we do not… https://t.co/q1RSr2BWqu pic.twitter.com/ZKDWbIY6D6

— ANI (@ANI) December 19, 2024

On carefully listening to the video, we found that Rahul Gandhi was responding to reporters asking him about what happened during the scuffle. When a reporter specifically asks him “Kharge ji ke saath dhakka-mukki hui hai?” (Was Kharge ji subjected to jostling and shoving?), Rahul Gandhi responds by saying “… Haan kiya hai, kiya hai, magar thik hai… dhakka-mukki se humein kuch hota nahi hai…” (Yes, it happened, it happened, but it’s fine… the pushing and shoving does not affect us).

Below is a slowed-down clip of the same exchange captured by the Press Trust of India (PTI) where the question can be clearly heard.

Note that ANI’s post on X and its longer report (screenshot below) with the same video also clearly specify that Rahul Gandhi’s response was to a question on Kharge being pushed. There is no reference of him admitting to the pushing anyone.

To sum up, Alt News found the claim by BJP leaders that Rahul Gandhi admitted to pushing BJP leaders is false and misleading. The video shared by them has been taken out of context. The Congress leader was actually responding to a reporter’s query on Mallikarjun Kharge being pushed.

The post No, Rahul Gandhi did not admit to pushing BJP MPs on Parliament premises; claim by BJP leaders false appeared first on Alt News.

This content originally appeared on Alt News and was authored by Diti Pujara.

BJP IT cell head Amit Malviya (@amitmalviya) posted the viral claim, re-tweeting a Times Now video report on the ‘dissolution’ of the Waqf Board, which terms it a ‘stealth strike’ by Chandrababu Naidu. (Archive)

Andhra Pradesh government strikes down the Waqf Board. There is no provision in the Constitution, which supports the existence of one in a secular India. pic.twitter.com/5ybwGTRRKp

— Amit Malviya (@amitmalviya) December 1, 2024

Verified X account The Jaipur Dialogues (@JaipurDialogues) also posted the viral claim. At the time of this article being written, the post has gathered a staggering 10 Lakh views, besides being re-tweeted some 10,000 times. It has since then been deleted. (Archive) 

Alt News has, several times in the past, fact-checked and debunked false claims by this X account.

BJP member Tripurari Kumar Tiwari alias Manish Kashyap (@ManishKasyapsob) alleged the same in a tweet. He wrote that the existence of a Waqf Board was unconstitutional in a secular country like India. (Archive)

Andhra Pradesh government strikes down the Waqf Board. There is no provision in the Constitution, which supports the existence of one in a secular India.@PawanKalyan @ncbn pic.twitter.com/TNBfd4TzaV

— Manish Kasyap Son Of Bihar (@ManishKasyapsob) December 1, 2024

Verified X user Rishi Bagree (@rishibagree) also shared the viral claim. At the time of this article being written, this post has accumulated around 2.7 Lakh views, and has been re-shared almost 2,500 times. (Archive)

Note that Alt News has fact-checked and called out false claims by Rishi Bagree on several occasions. 

Congress thought that Secular allies would tone down the Hindutva quotient of Modi Govt 3.0

Pawan Kalyan and Chandrababu came out of syllabus pic.twitter.com/qDRKF5aLy1

— Rishi Bagree (@rishibagree) December 1, 2024

X verified user (@ocjain4) also sharedd the viral claim, with a caption in Hindi. This has also seen a lot of traction, with over 1 Lakh views, and close to 2,000 re-tweets. (Archive) 

बड़ी खबर

वक्फ कब्ज़ा’ पर चल रही बहस के बीच, रिपोर्ट में दावा किया गया है कि आंध्र प्रदेश सरकार ने वक्फ बोर्ड को भंग कर दिया है।

चंद्रबाबू और पवन कल्याण ने यह किया है!! pic.twitter.com/19XvYEMMif

— ocean jain (@ocjain4) December 1, 2024

The viral claim was shared by several other X users. (Archives- 1, 2, 3)

Fact Check

Alt News ran a keyword search on Google, which led us to this news report by The Economic Times.

The report clearly mentions that the Andhra Pradesh government revoked a previous government order (GO) issued on October 21, 2023, for the purpose of maintaining good governance, protecting Waqf properties, and ensuring the smooth functioning of the Waqf Board. It also said that the earlier board, which had come into existence by dint of the previous GO, “had been non-functional for a long time and faced legal challenges.”

According to the report, the GO No. 75 (pic below), which sparked off the viral claims upon its release on November 30, mentions that the chief executive officer of the state Waqf Board had brought to the government’s attention the prolonged non-functioning of the 11-member Board formed under the YSR Congress. The coalition government in power, thus aims to address the vacuum in the functioning of the Waqf Board, by introducing a new GO that withdraws the previous one, issued in October 2023.

Another report, by India TV, reiterates that the new government order is expected to provide a legal framework for the reconstitution of the Waqf Board, with a focus on proper governance and transparency. It is thus evident that the Waqf Board has not been permanently dissolved in the state of Andhra Pradesh, contrary to the claims on social media. It also quotes the Andhra Pradesh minister for law and minority welfare, Mohammed Farooq, as clarifying that “The government will take all necessary steps to protect and manage Wakf properties transparently and effectively. The welfare of minorities is a top priority for the current government.”

Journalist Anusha Ravi Sood (@anusharavi10) shared a clarification on X, calling attention to the fact that new members would be added to a newly constituted Waqf Board in Andhra Pradesh, following the disbandment of the previous one, which was riddled with organisational deficiencies. She also states in her caption that ‘The NDA (TDP, JSP, BJP) government has not abolished the board.’ (Archive)

Lot of misinformation going around about Andhra Pradesh Waqf board. The NDA (TDP, JSP, BJP) government has not abolished the board.

It has only withdrawn a GO from 2023 that appointed members.
New members to Andhra Waqf board to be appointed soon pic.twitter.com/hJGbIiaVSV

— Anusha Ravi Sood (@anusharavi10) December 1, 2024

Moreover, the official fact-checking unit of the Andhra Pradesh government issued a notice of clarification in reply to Amit Malviya’s tweet. It clearly states that the previous GO had to be withdrawn through the new order released on November 30, citing challenges to its validity, and including ‘…the absence of adequate representation from Sunni and Shia scholars, the non-inclusion of former MPs, the appointment of junior advocates without transparent criteria, questions surrounding the eligibility of certain members, and the inability to elect a chairman owing to ongoing litigation.’ (Archive)

The Andhra Pradesh Waqf Board has remained non-functional since March 2023, leading to a period of administrative stagnation. The withdrawal of G.O. Ms. No. 47 became imperative due to several substantive concerns. These include 13 writ petitions challenging its validity, the… https://t.co/0yXCvIdK4q

— FactCheck.AP.Gov.in (@FactCheckAPGov) December 1, 2024

To sum up, the social media claim that the Andhra Pradesh government has permanently done away with the Waqf Board is misleading. The state government has issued an order that withdraws a previous order made under the YSRCP, and has made promises of constituting a functional Waqf Board at the earliest.

The post No, Chandrababu govt has not abolished Waqf in Andhra; it only revoked a YSRCP-regime order appeared first on Alt News.

This content originally appeared on Alt News and was authored by Prantik Ali.

In the video, the group can be seen walking through what appears to be fields and sounds of shots being fired can be heard too.

X user @MeghUpdates, who has been found sharing misinformation several times in the past, shared the clip alongside two other videos on November 28 with the following caption: “Radical mob attacked a village in Murshidpur in Sherpur District, Bangladesh. Hindu homes, crops destroyed. Livestock looted. One person has been killed. Even Sufi shrine of unorthodox islamic sect looted and vandalised.” The tweet has received over 3.66 lakh views and has been retweeted over 6,500 times. (Archive)

Radical mob attacked a village in Murshidpur in Sherpur District, Bangladesh.

Hindu homes, crops destroyed. Livestock looted. One person has been killed. Even Sufi shrine of unorthodox islamic sect looted and vandalised. pic.twitter.com/Ta7iHrwMu7

— Megh Updates (@MeghUpdates) November 28, 2024

Right-wing propaganda outlet Kreately.in (@KreatelyMedia) also tweeted the video with a caption that said: “Pray for Bangladeshi Hindus #AllEyesOnBangladeshiHindus”. (Archive)

Pray for Bangladeshi Hindus#AllEyesOnBangladeshiHindus pic.twitter.com/mkTOw2PvAx

— Kreately.in (@KreatelyMedia) November 28, 2024

The video seems to be among a string of similarly viral clips from Bangladesh after erstwhile Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s ouster in August. Since then, the country has witnessed several targeted attacks against minorities including Hindus and several videos have—over the past few months—gone viral as cases of attacks against Hindu minorities there. Alt News has debunked several such (false) claims (Examples 1, 2, 3).

Even after the formation of the interim government headed by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, there’s hardly been a let up in cases of violence and viral claims suggesting the same. Alt News has documented several such cases in a detailed report.

The viral video in question was shared by many claiming that it depicted an attack on Hindu minorities in Bangladesh by Muslims.

So, what’s at play here?

We ran a keyword search and found a news report by Dhaka Tribune from November 27 titled “7 held over attack on Sherpur’s Murshidpur Darbar Sharif”. The report said it was an incident of vandalism and looting that took place the previous day. Note that the this is the same location as the one mentioned in the viral claims. Darbar Sharif is a religious establishment in the Lachhmanpur area of Bangladesh’s Sherpur district. Sources at Darbar Sharif told Alt News that the attack was allegedly orchestrated by local madrasa teachers and residents who were concerned about “anti-Islamic practices” being conducted there. Thirteen people were injured in the incident.

Another report from The Daily Star, an English daily in Bangladesh, corroborates the details. This report also has an image, which helps identify the location from the viral video. Here’s a side-by-side comparison:

From the above context, it is clear that neither of the parties in the above incident is from the Hindu community. Hence, there is no communal angle to the matter.

We also found the same video posted by several users on Facebook with captions that say that a mob was headed towards Murshidpur Darbar Sharif.

Further, upon checking the Google Maps images of the Lachhmanpur area where the incident is said to have happened, we could confirm that the viral clip was indeed filmed near the Darbar Sharif, which had been vandalised. Additionally, the two other videos shared by @MeghUpdates also showed similarities to this area. Below is a comparison of screengrabs from all three videos and the Google Maps images.

Therefore, the claim that the viral video depicts a Muslim mob vandalising Hindu homes and destroying crops is false.

The post No, a Muslim mob in Bangladesh’s Sherpur district did not attack Hindu homes appeared first on Alt News.

This content originally appeared on Alt News and was authored by Oishani Bhattacharya.

Jharkhand went to the polls in two phases on November 13 and November 20, 2024. The results will be known on Saturday, November 23. Marandi’s words are being linked to the assembly elections in the state.  

The said video was tweeted by Prashant Bhushan from his official X (formerly Twitter) account @pbhushan1 on November 16, 2024. He wrote in the tweet, “BJP’s Jharkhand president is speaking the truth. He is saying that if Modiji remains the Prime Minister for five more years, India will become Pakistan! There will be riots every day.” (Archive)

भाजपा के झारखंड अध्यक्ष सच बोल रहे हैं। कह रहे हैं कि अगर मोदी जी पाँच साल और प्रधानमंत्री रहे तो भारत पाकिस्तान बन जाएगा! हर रोज़ दंगा फ़साद होगा। pic.twitter.com/jrKZrnfrod

— Prashant Bhushan (@pbhushan1) November 16, 2024

The tweet has garnered around 1.97 Lakh views.

Psephologist and activist Yogendra Yadav, too, shared the video (@_YogendraYadav) and made a similar claim. He wrote, “…Dividing the countrymen for power and spreading animosity among them is at the core of BJP’s politics. Unfortunately, there are many people in the country, from politics to media, who are standing with the BJP despite knowing this gruesome truth.” (Archive)

“सच सभी को पता है”

भाजपा के झारखंड प्रदेश अध्यक्ष बाबूलाल मरांडी इस वीडियो में भाजपा-मोदी सरकार के हर कुकर्म को पूरी स्पष्टता से बता रहे हैं।

सत्ता के लिए देशवासियों को बांटना, उनके बीच वैमनस्य फैलाना भाजपा की राजनीति के मूल में है।

दुर्भाग्य यह है कि देश में राजनीति से लेकर… pic.twitter.com/vAAvuSdHcD

— Yogendra Yadav (@_YogendraYadav) November 16, 2024

The tweet has around 50,000 views.

Several other social media users have made similar claims while sharing the video.

Earlier, on May 22, 2024, a similar video clip was tweeted from the official X account of the Jharkhan Mukti Morcha (@JmmJharkhand) along with a caption that read, “If the present BJP Jharkhand president Babulal Ji has spoken about Modi Ji and BJP, then he must be speaking the truth…”

मोदी जी और भाजपा के बारे में वर्तमान भाजपा झारखण्ड अध्यक्ष बाबूलाल जी ने बोला है तो सच ही बोला होगा…. pic.twitter.com/WPqiIh5O67

— Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (@JmmJharkhand) May 22, 2024

Fact Check

After breaking the video into multiple keyframes, we ran a reverse image search on a few. This led us to the original video posted on Facebook by a journalist, Ashok Gope, on December 14, 2018. 

The chronology of Babulal Marandi’s political career becomes important here. Marandi was the first chief minister of Jharkhand from the BJP when the state was formed in 2000. He broke away with the BJP in 2006 and formed the Jharkhand Vikas Morcha (JVM). In 2018, when the video was shot, he was not a part of the BJP. In 2020, however, the JVM merged with the BJP. In 2023, Marandi was appointed the head of the BJP’s Jharkhand state unit. 

We came across another video on Facebook uploaded by a local media outlet named Taaza Jharkhand on the same day, i.e., December 14, 2018. This is a different part of the same interview and Marandi can be heard speaking about the controversial Rafale deal. The video introduces the speaker as Babulal Marandi, supremo, Jharkhand Vikas Morcha. 

As the opposition leader at the time, Marandi frequently and strongly criticized PM Modi. Numerous news reports attest to that fact.

To sum up, the video where BJP Jharkhand president Babulal Marandi is seen criticizing PM Modi is not a recent one. The video is from December 2018, when Marandi was president of the JVM and not a part of the BJP. 

The post No, BJP Jharkhand chief Babulal Marandi did not slam PM Modi; viral video is old appeared first on Alt News.

This content originally appeared on Alt News and was authored by Ankita Mahalanobish.

If voting could ever really change anything, it’d be illegal.

— Thorne, Land of the Blind (2006)

After months of handwringing and mud-slinging and fear-mongering, the votes have finally been cast and the outcome has been decided: the Deep State has won.

Despite the billions spent to create the illusion of choice culminating in the reassurance ritual of voting for Donald Trump or Kamala Harris, when it comes to most of the big issues that keep us in bondage to authoritarian overlords, not much will change.

Despite all of the work that has been done to persuade us to buy into the fantasy that things will change if we just elect the “right” political savior, the day after a new president is sworn in, it will be business as usual for the unelected bureaucracy that actually runs the government.

War will continue. Drone killings will continue. Surveillance will continue. Censorship of anyone who criticizes the government will continue. The government’s efforts to label dissidents as extremists and terrorists will continue. Police shootings will continue. SWAT team raids will continue. Highway robbery meted out by government officials will continue. Corrupt government will continue. Profit-driven prisons will continue. And the militarization of the police will continue.

These problems have persisted—and in many cases flourished—under both Republican and Democratic administrations in recent years.

The outcome of this year’s election changes none of that.

Indeed, take a look at the programs and policies that will not be affected by the 2024 presidential election, and you’ll get a clearer sense of the government’s priorities, which have little to do with representing the taxpayers and everything to do with amassing money, power and control.

The undermining of the Constitution will continue unabated. America’s so-called war on terror, which it has relentlessly pursued since 9/11, has chipped away at our freedoms, unraveled our Constitution and transformed our nation into a battlefield, thanks in large part to such subversive legislation as the USA Patriot Act and National Defense Authorization Act. These laws—which completely circumvent the rule of law and the constitutional rights of American citizens, re-orienting our legal landscape in such a way as to ensure that martial law, rather than the rule of law, our U.S. Constitution, becomes the map by which we navigate life in the United States—will continue to be enforced.

The government’s war on the American people will continue unabated.  “We the people” are no longer shielded by the rule of law. While the First Amendment—which gives us a voice—is being muzzled, the Fourth Amendment—which protects us from being bullied, badgered, beaten, broken and spied on by government agents—is being disemboweled. Consequently, you no longer have to be poor, black or guilty to be treated like a criminal in America. All that is required is that you belong to the suspect class—that is, the citizenry—of the American police state. As a de facto member of this so-called criminal class, every U.S. citizen is now guilty until proven innocent. The oppression and injustice—be it in the form of shootings, surveillance, fines, asset forfeiture, prison terms, roadside searches, and so on—will come to all of us eventually unless we do something to stop it now.

The shadow government— a.k.a. the Deep State, a.k.a. the police state, a.k.a. the military industrial complex, a.k.a. the surveillance state complex—will continue unabated. The corporatized, militarized, entrenched bureaucracy that is fully operational and staffed by unelected officials will continue to call the shots in Washington DC, no matter who sits in the White House or controls Congress. By “government,” I’m not referring to the highly partisan, two-party bureaucracy of the Republicans and Democrats. Rather, I’m referring to “government” with a capital “G,” the entrenched Deep State that is unaffected by elections, unaltered by populist movements, and has set itself beyond the reach of the law.

The government’s manipulation of national crises in order to expand its powers will continue unabated. “We the people” have been subjected to an “emergency state” that justifies all manner of government tyranny and power grabs in the so-called name of national security. Whatever the so-called threat to the nation, the government has a tendency to capitalize on the nation’s heightened emotions, confusion and fear as a means of extending the reach of the police state. Indeed, the government’s answer to every problem continues to be more government—at taxpayer expense—and less individual liberty.

Endless wars that enrich the military industrial complex will continue unabated. America’s expanding military empire is bleeding the country dry at a rate of more than $93 million an hour (that adds up to $920 billion annually). Incredibly, although the U.S. constitutes only 5% of the world’s population, America boasts almost 40% of the world’s total military expenditure, spending more on the military than the next 9 biggest spending nations combined.

Government corruption will continue unabated.  The government is not our friend. Nor does it work for “we the people.” Americans instinctively understand this. When asked to name the greatest problem facing the nation, Americans of all political stripes ranked the government as the number one concern. In fact, almost three-quarters of Americans surveyed believe the government is corrupt. Our so-called government representatives do not actually represent us, the citizenry. We are now ruled by an oligarchic elite of governmental and corporate interests whose main interest is in perpetuating power and control.

Government tyranny under the reign of an Imperial President will continue unabated. The Constitution invests the President with very specific, limited powers. In recent years, however, American presidents have anointed themselves with the power to wage war, unilaterally kill Americans, torture prisoners, strip citizens of their rights, arrest and detain citizens indefinitely, carry out warrantless spying on Americans, and erect their own secretive, shadow government. The powers amassed by each past president and inherited by each successive president—powers which add up to a toolbox of terror for an imperial ruler—empower whoever occupies the Oval Office to act as a dictator, above the law and beyond any real accountability.

The grim reality we must come to terms with is the fact that the U.S. government has become a greater menace to the life, liberty and property of its citizens than any of the so-called dangers from which the government claims to protect us.

As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, this state of affairs has become the status quo, no matter which party is in power.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by John W. Whitehead and Nisha Whitehead.

Yoon set out his thoughts on Friday, while on a visit to the Czech Republic, when asked by a reporter if South Korea was seriously considering nuclear weapons.

“Seoul sees beefing up its own defense capabilities as well as strengthening the enforceability of the U.S.-South Korean extended deterrent as the best defense against the North Korean nuclear threat,” he said.

“We established the NCG through the ‘Washington Declaration’ in April last year, and the United States and South Korea are currently promoting nuclear strategic planning as well as joint implementation through the Conventional-Nuclear Integration,” said Yoon, referring to a Nuclear Consultative Group and the strategy of being prepared to survive and respond to a nuclear attack.

The U.S. and South Korea held their inaugural  NCG meeting in July last year, when they discussed information sharing, consultation mechanisms, and joint planning and execution to enhance nuclear deterrence against North Korea.

The NCG framework was announced during the bilateral summit in Washington last April against the backdrop of growing demands in South Korea for its own nuclear weapons in light of North Korea’s escalating nuclear threats.

Yoon also highlighted the importance of cooperation between the U.S., South Korea and fellow U.S. ally, Japan.

“Since the Camp David Summit in August last year, the three countries have established a trilateral cooperation system to enhance efforts to promote security and peace in the Indo-Pacific region,” he said.

At their Camp David meeting, the leaders of Japan, the U.S. and South Korea, agreed on several key initiatives aimed at strengthening trilateral cooperation. 

These included commitments to enhance joint military exercises, increase intelligence sharing and deepen economic ties. Additionally, the summit produced a joint statement that emphasized the importance of a free and open Indo-Pacific, underscoring the trilateral alliance’s role in maintaining regional stability and countering China’s growing influence.

“As challenges to the international order based on freedom, human rights, and the rule of law grow, especially if they are pursued through force and coercive diplomacy, the need for cooperation between the three countries as partners of values and interests will only increase,” the South Korean president said.

Yoon’s remarks came about a week after the North unveiled details of its uranium enrichment facility for the first time, with its leader Kim Jong Un calling for increasing the number of centrifuges for uranium enrichment so it can increase its nuclear arsenal for self-defense. 

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Radio Free Asia reported on Thursday, based on analysis of satellite imagery, evidence that a suspected North Korean uranium enrichment facility that may have been toured by leader Kim Jong Un recently has grown significantly since construction was first spotted there in February.

Impact of Russian sanctions

When questioned on whether sanctions against Russia have had any impact on the South Korean economy, Yoon said that since the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, the volume of trade between South Korea and Russia has dropped significantly, and South Korean companies had suffered as a result.

“Nevertheless, as a responsible member of the international community, my government will continue to work in international co-operation to safeguard peace,” he added.

Russian President Vladimir Putin warned South Korea in June that sending  weapons to Ukraine would be a “very big mistake” after South Korea said it would consider doing so in response to a pact between Russia and North Korea to come to each other’s aid if attacked.

At that time, South Korea announced it would reconsider its policy of not sending arms to Ukraine in response to North Korea and Russia signing a treaty that included a mutual pledge to provide immediate military assistance if either was attacked.

Edited by Mike Firn.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Taejun Kang for RFA.

A user on X (formerly Twitter) named The Saviour shared the viral video with the caption, “HINDUS ATTACK A MAN FOR CONVERTING TO CHRISTIANITY.” The tweet garnered close to 6 Lakh views and 4,200 retweets. (Archive)

A parody account of popular YouTuber, Dhruv Rathee (Parody) (@dhruvrahtee), shared the viral video on X with the caption, “Is leaving Hinduism and converting into other religion crime in this country? This man was brutally beaten by mobs just because he left Hindusim and converted himself into Christian.” The video received over 499,100 views, 8,500 likes and 4,600 retweets. (Archive) 

The viral video was also shared on YouTube. A sentence in Bengali translated into English as “Hindus attack a man for converting to Christianity” was superimposed on the YouTube video.

Fact Check

We broke down the viral video into key-frames using Invid software and then reverse-searched one of the images on Google. This led us to a 2022 tweet by X user @SurajKrBauddh, who shared the viral clip with the caption, “Begari Naresh, a SC boy was dragged from his house and mercilessly thrashed with sticks in Sangareddy, Telangana. Such a callous act. We demand strict action against the goons. Stop casteism.” This shows that the incident depicted in the viral video is at least 2-year old.

The Mooknayak reported on this incident in July 2022. The report titled, “Telangana: Video of Dalit youth being beaten up goes viral, case registered” featured a screengrab of the viral clip. According to this report, Naresh is a Dalit man from Sangareddy district in Telangana. He was allegedly having an affair with a woman belonging to a different community. Naresh was allegedly assaulted by the woman’s family members and relatives.

The report also stated that the victim suffered serious injuries and was hospitalised in Zaheerabad. The police had also registered a case against the woman’s family members. 

We also found a 2022 report by Telangana Today on the incident. It said that the victim was allegedly having an extra-marital affair with a married woman. The report says, “In a video that was widely circulated on social media on Monday, the family members of the woman were reportedly caught when she was in a compromising situation with the said man. They caught hold of him and dragged him out of the house. While the entire village was watching helplessly, the family members of the woman were seen beating him brutally with sticks. Police have registered a case against 11 persons.”

To sum up, social media users have given a communal spin to a viral video depicting a man being brutally beaten with sticks. Users have claimed that a Hindu mob assaulted the man for converting to Christianity. However, our fact check revealed that the viral video is from 2022. A Dalit man was thrashed for allegedly being in an extra-marital affair with a married woman. There is no communal angle to the incident.

Abira Das is an intern at Alt News.

The post Hindus thrashed a man for converting to Christianity? No, 2022 video shows Telangana man beaten up for ‘affair’ appeared first on Alt News.

This content originally appeared on Alt News and was authored by Abira Das.

Sandip Ghosh has been in the news since the discovery of the horrific crime at the state-run hospital in Kolkata. Serious questions have been raised about his conduct following the discovery of the postgraduate trainee’s body on August 9 — Ghosh did not even file an FIR in the matter. After he resigned on August 12, he was reinstated by the Bengal government as principal of another state-run medical college within hours. The decision was reversed following a huge backlash and only after the Calcutta high court sent him on compulsory leave. The CBI has questioned him for over 130 hours and 13 consecutive days in the rape and murder case. The central agency has also filed an FIR against him over alleged financial irregularities at R G Kar during his tenure. The Enforcement Directorate, too, has launched a probe into this matter.

The photo, where he is apparently seen with the prime accused, is being shared as ‘proof’ of Ghosh’s complicity in the alleged crime.

X user Jitendra Prasad Singh, who shares misinformation on a regular basis, shared the photo and claimed that it showed Roy celebrating his birthday “with RG Kar Medical College Principal Sandip Ghosh in his cabin…” (Archive)

कोलकाता का दरिंदा संजय राय किसी भी पद पर नहीं था

वह तृणमूल कांग्रेस का कार्यकर्ता था

और तृणमूल कांग्रेस के सिंडिकेट ने उसे मेडिकल कॉलेज में कैंटीन चलाने का और मरीजों को एडमिट करने पर कमीशन का परमिशन दिया था

और उसका रुतबा देखिए कि वह आरजी कर मेडिकल कॉलेज के प्रिंसिपल संदीप… pic.twitter.com/zPZBcjCmPY

— Jitendra pratap singh (@jpsin1) August 29, 2024

The same claim was made by users like Squint Neon (@TheSquind), Mishraji (@R_Mishraji), Krishnendu Mukherjee (@TheKMukherjee), Boiled Anda (@AmitLeliSlayer), News On Thumb (@newsonthumb), The Thinking Hat (@ThinkinHashtag), Satish Chandra Misra (@mishra_satish) and several others.

Republic (Archived version) and Times Now Bengali (Archived version) published reports on the viral photo identifying the man standing as Sanjay Roy. While Republic called it an ‘unconfirmed photo’ and said the man “appears to be Sanjoy Roy”, Times Now wrote in the headline (originally in Bengali), “R G Kar Incident Viral Picture: Smiling Sanjay cutting cake standing next to Sandip, huge row over viral photo.”

Zee News also telecast the image in a bulletin on the Kolkata incident and identified the man in question as accused Sanjay Roy. A similar story was also put out by an outlet named Calcutta Television Network (Archive).

On Facebook, the photo was shared by Kolkata-based filmmakers Pratim D Gupta and Srijit Mukherjee. Gupta said in a suggestive caption, “Friends with benefits!”. Mukherjee shared Gupta’s post.

Others who shared the same photo on Facebook identifying the man on the right as Sanjay Roy include a user named Krishnendu Mukherjee and a page named The Ultimate Trolls.

Fact Check

A reverse image search on the viral photo took us to an Instagram post which contained the same photograph. Shared on August 28 (a day before the photo went viral) by a handle named CNMCRDA (which stands for Calcutta National Medical College Resident Doctors’ Association), the post identifies the man as Prasun Chatterjee, a data entry operator at the Calcutta National Medical College and Hospital (CNMC&H).

The Instagram post contains eight slides; the viral photo is the last slide. The first slide has another photo of Prasun Chatterjee (below, left). And the same photo has been used by Chatterjee as his Facebook profile picture.

We could not access the Facebook profile of Prasun Chatterjee since it is locked.

However, a keyword search on Facebook took us to a post by a user named Prosenjit Dey from January 3, 2020. The post contains several photos showing Prasun Chatterjee celebrating his birthday at the office of Sandip Ghosh, who was then the medical super cum vice principal (MSVP) of CNMC&H.

The Facebook post describes the photos as “Birthday celebration , of Prasun Chatterjee at MSVP office,CNMCH”.

As readers can see, both Chatterjee and Ghosh are wearing the same clothes in these photographs and the viral image, which makes it evident that these photos are taken on the same day. All of them are clicked in the same room as well.

This confirms that the man in the viral photo cutting a cake next to Sandip Ghosh is not the accused in Kolkata’s R G Kar rape and murder, but an indiviual named Prasun Chatterjee. The photo is from January 2020.

Alt News has reliably learnt from its sources in Kolkata’s medical fraternity that Chatterjee, who is officially a data entry operator at CNMC&H, has also functioned for a long time as a close aide to former R G Kar principal Sandip Ghosh. This has been reported by the Bengali media as well. Chatterjee’s Facebook bio says both: “Works at R G Kar Medical College” and “Works at Calcutta National Medical College”.

Chatterjee’s involvement in the events following the discovery of the junior doctor’s body at R G Kar on August 9 has come under the scanner. A viral video showing a crowd inside the seminar room on August 9 after the discovery of the body, which has raised a lot of questions about the sanctity of the crime scene, shows Chatterjee present there along with others.

The post Sanjay Roy cutting cake next to ex-principal Sandip Ghosh? No, man in viral photo is not the R G Kar accused appeared first on Alt News.

This content originally appeared on Alt News and was authored by Indradeep Bhattacharyya.

Ajay Chauhan, who shares communal misinformation and propaganda on a regular basis, shared the video, writing, “Forget about the saffron flag, do they not want the Indian tricolour now?” (Archived link)

भगवा तो दूर की बात अब इन्हें तिरंगा भी नहीं चाहिए ? pic.twitter.com/P2xtCr0p06

— हम लोग We The People (@ajaychauhan41) August 18, 2024

An account named “Trunicle” shared the video with the caption, “This Muslim man objects to putting the Indian flag on his premises.” The tweet was later deleted. (Archived link)

Sadhvi Prachi, a leader of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, shared the video, questioning the patriotism of the Muslim community. (Archived link)

Fact Check

A keyword search led us to a longer version of this video on a YouTube channel named “Ritik Kataria,” uploaded on August 14, 2023. Upon viewing the full video, it becomes clear that this channel produces scripted content.

The video in question was created with the intention of spreading awareness, emphasising that the national flag should be placed at the highest position. The video depicts a staged argument between the vendor and the customers, followed by the appearance of a person dressed in a police uniform. The video concludes by revealing that the Indian flag was already present at a higher place above the stall. At the end, the person in the police uniform extends Independence Day greetings on behalf of Haryana Police.

The person portraying the Muslim vendor is actually an actor named Ritik Kataria. The individual dressed as a policeman, identified by the nameplate reading “Amar Kataria,” is also related to the channel. A look at the channel’s “About” section confirms that it is run by Ritik Kataria, and it mentions that his father, Amar Kataria, is a sub-inspector in Haryana Police with a keen interest in acting. The channel’s username (@amarkataria) also reflects this connection.

Furthermore, Alt News reviewed another video on this channel, where Amar Kataria can be seen acting in a police uniform in similar scripted content.

To sum it up, several users have shared a scripted video, originally intended to spread awareness, in a misleading context, falsely questioning the patriotism of Indian Muslims.

The post Muslim man objects to Indian flag on his roadside stall? No, it’s a scripted video appeared first on Alt News.

This content originally appeared on Alt News and was authored by Abhishek Kumar.

Since the junior doctor was found raped and murdered on August 9, protests, marches and demonstrations seeking accountability from the government and swift punishment of the perpetrator/s have been organised by various social and political groups and other civic institutions in Kolkata, Bengal and beyond. The video is being shared in that context. Users have slammed the BJP and called the event ‘shameful’, ‘sickening’, ‘disgusting’.

Trinamool Congress Rajya Sabha member and national spokesperson Saket Gokhale shared the video on X (formerly Twitter). He wrote, “𝐒𝐢𝐜𝐤𝐞𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠! This is allegedly from a “protest for RG Kar” organized by BJP in Bengal. Is THIS BJP’s idea of “respecting women”? Creepy BJP misogynists hijacked a protest for political agendas with ZERO concern for the victim or any woman.”

𝐒𝐢𝐜𝐤𝐞𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠!

This is allegedly from a “protest for RG Kar” organized by BJP in Bengal.

Is THIS BJP’s idea of “respecting women”?

Creepy BJP misogynists hijacked a protest for political agendas with ZERO concern for the victim or any woman. pic.twitter.com/Pb8NTEJHfe

— Saket Gokhale MP (@SaketGokhale) August 26, 2024

Another X user named Bhavika Kapoor tweeted the video saying, “BJP can protest in its’ own unique styleHere BJP guys are protesting in West Bengal against RG Kar case. Background banners say “we want justice”. Protest hindutvavadi style ”

BJP can protest in its’ own unique style

Here BJP guys are protesting in West Bengal against RG Kar case.
Background banners say “we want justice”

Protest hindutvavadi style pic.twitter.com/3Wd5kkkv8k

— Bhavika Kapoor (@BhavikaKapoor5) August 26, 2024

Congress leader Supriya Shrinate quote-tweeted the above tweet and amplified it.

Others who shared the video and slammed the BJP included author Ashok Kumar Pandey (@Ashok_Kashmir), Trinamool Congress spokesperson Riju Dutta (@DrRijuDutta_TMC), Bengal Trinamool youth secretary Sayan Deb Chatterjee (@SAYANDEBCHATT), a verified user named তন্ময় l T͞anmoy l (@tanmoyofc) and several otehrs.

The video was also shared on Facebook with users linking it to the BJP.

India Today published a report on the video pointing out that the BJP had denied any links with the programme.

Fact Check

On careful inspection, we noticed a banner at the rear wall of the stage which had the word ‘Mela’ or fair in Bengali. We also saw that several users had commented on the above social media posts saying it was a village fair. One can see a Ferris wheel and lights of different bright colours a little distance away from the stage which suggest it is indeed a fair ground.

Digging deeper, we did a keyword search on Facebook and found a post by a user named Pijush Bhowmick who responded to the viral claims but only said that the video was being misinterpreted. In his Facebook post, Bhowmick shared another post by a dance teacher named Debastuti Debnath.

Alt News contacted Bhowmick over phone. He told us that the video was not from a BJP protest but a village fair of which he’s an organizing member. The fair is organized by a local club named Sevak Samiti during Maa Manasa Puja every year at Char Bhrahmanagar in Nabadwip police station area in Bengal’s Nadia district. The area is under CMCB gram panchayat of Nabadwip block. The panchayat is currently held by the ruling Trinamool Congress.

Manasa is the Hindu folkloric deity of snakes. She is worshiped in the month of Shravan primarily by women in Bengal and also in Odisha and Andhra Pradesh. Rural fairs are organized in several parts of Bengal in the month of August during Manasa Puja.

Bhowmick further stated, “The dates of the fair are fixed. It is held during Maa Manasa Puja, which was on August 17 this year. This time, we decided that we should use the fair to spread our message of protest against the R G Kar incident. Hence, the posters were affixed on the stage. The fair was held from August 17 to 22. The particular dance performance that has gone viral was held on August 19.”

“There is no political intervention in the fair. And it is not a protest organized by any party. The fair draws a large number of people and local tradesmen. We are also disturbed by what happened at the R G Kar hospital and hence we thought it would be fit to amplify our demand for justice through the fair,” he added.

He also shared with us a photo of the dais where the banner can be clearly seen:

It says, “Jai Maa Manasa. Maa Manasa and Behula-Lakhinder Mela on the bank of the Ganges. Date: Five days from 31 Sravana. Place: Char Brahmanagar Sevak Samiti Ground and Ganga River bank. Organized by Sevak Samiti.” The banner also has a photo of the deity.

Behula and Lakhinder are the protagonists of the Manasa Mangal Kavya, a long narrative poem in Bengali retold several times by several poets in the 14th Century, which has now become part of folklore. The poem describes the beginning of the cult of Manasa, the deity.

Bhowmick also shared with us a wide-angle shot of the stage. There is no BJP flag seen anywhere on or beside the stage.

We also procured photos of last year’s fair, held from August 17 to 21, where the same banner was used. This confirms that this is not an event organized this year to protest against a recent incident. In the gallery below, the photos along with their metadata can be seen. They were clicked on August 19 and 21, 2023.

The Facebook post that Bhowmick shared had a dance teacher named Debastuti Debnath thanking the organizers of the fair for inviting them to perform. In an attached video, a girl from the dance troupe says standing on the same dais, “…We are glad that these posters have been put up.. we have to speak up against the horrific crime.. Everyone is protesting against it. This fight is not only of the victim…” The group also observes a minute’s silence in honor of the victim.

We spoke to the dance teacher. She told Alt News, “We have been performing at this event for at least six years. I have never seen any political involvement in the fair. I can confirm that it is not a political programme.”

Another member of the organizing committee, Rahul Saha, told us, “The fair is being held for 15-16 years. There is no political party involved. It primarily attracts local women. Many girls from our village also go out to other places for study or work. Hence, it was decided that we should send out a message. We also switched off all the lights for 15 minutes on one of the days in honour of the slain doctor at R G Kar hospital.”

We saw another video of the fair ground where people can be seen watching a dance performance on the stage. There is no protest going on.

To sum up, several Trinamool Congress-linked social media handles have falsely shared a video of a village fair from Nabadwip in Bengal claiming it’s a protest organized by the BJP against the R G Kar incident.

The post Woman dancing at BJP’s R G Kar protest? No, viral video is from a Bengal village fair appeared first on Alt News.

This content originally appeared on Alt News and was authored by Indradeep Bhattacharyya.

Y Quynh Bdap, 32, is a founding member of Montagnards Stand for Justice, which campaigns for the rights of members of abound 30 indigenous minorities from Vietnam’s Central Highlands who say they have faced years of discrimination from authorities.

In January, Vietnam charged Bdap in absentia with terrorism for his alleged role in planning a June 2023 attack on two public agencies in Dak Lak province in which nine people were killed.

Bdap has denied involvement, pointing out that he has been living with his family in Thailand since 2018. However, despite his long stay and being recognized as a refugee  by the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, he was arrested on June 11 for “overstaying” his visa.

On Monday, the Criminal Court in Bangkok heard witness testimony relating to Vietnam’s extradition request.

At the hearing, the Thai police officer who arrested Bdap told the court he had no choice but to arrest Y Quynh because there was an arrest warrant for him, Bdap’s defense lawyer, Nadthasiri Bergman, told Radio Free Asia.

The court also heard from a representative of the Vietnamese Ministry of Public Security’s Prison Management Department who attempted to dismiss claims from rights groups that Bdap faced torture if sent home and imprisoned.

He said prisons in Vietnam always respect inmates’ human rights, treat them in a civilized way, and allow them to see their families periodically.

Despite the hearing lasting from 2:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m., Bdap was given limited opportunity to defend himself, according to Bergman. 

At an Aug. 1 hearing, he was not allowed in court but had to follow the proceedings from his cell at Bangkok Remand Prison. Bdap complained, and was allowed to attend court the following day in shackles, a treatment he described as “inhumane.”

Two more hearings are scheduled for Aug. 30 and Sept. 2.

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On Friday, the International Commission of Jurists, or ICJ, wrote to the Bangkok Criminal Court, urging it not to allow Bdap’s extradition due to his unfair conviction by a Vietnamese court.

Although Thailand and Vietnam have not signed an agreement on the extradition of criminals, Hanoi has asked Bangkok to extradite him and Thai police admitted they had arrested him on Vietnam’s request.

According to the ICJ, the extradition request was aimed at forcing Bdap to serve a 10-year prison sentence under Article 299 of Vietnam’s criminal code.

The ICJ reiterated the views of independent experts, who said Bdap’s trial in absentia did not adhere to international fair trial standards as he wasn’t able to defend himself or have an attorney represent him in Vietnam.

The ICJ also called on Thailand to uphold the non-refoulment principle, to ensure that Thailand did not extradite a foreigner when there were substantial grounds for believing the individual would face serious human rights violations, including torture or forced disappearance, upon their return.

The ICJ said  there were strong grounds for believing Bdap was at risk of being tortured, mistreated, or suffering irreparable harm if repatriated to Vietnam. It said prisoners were systematically tortured or treated inhumanely there with only a few perpetrators held accountable even though Vietnam ratified the U.N. Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhumane or Degrading Treatment or Punishment in 2015.

Translated by Anna Vu. Edited by Mike Firn and Taejun Kang.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Vietnamese.

In an interview with Barkha Dutt on Mojo Story published on August 16, a physician named Subarna Goswami claimed that 150 grams of white liquid that appeared to be semen was found in the body during post-mortem (PM) examination.

Around the 23-minute mark in the interview, Dutt asks Goswami if there could be more than one perpetrator. The doctor claims that the victim’s parents had shared the original post-mortem report with him. After talking about the various injuries mentioned in it, he adds, “They also collected white thick viscid fluid from deep inside the vagina which weighing 151 grams.. 151 grams. and even if it is mixed with some other body fluid like vaginal discharge or you know maybe mucus or some other tissues, but this much amount of semen.. it appears to be semen.. it is to be proved in the forensic lab only.. but this white thick viscid fluid appears to semen as penetration was there… it is clearly written hymen was ruptured at 10 o’clock position… and penetration was there. So it must be semen, nothing other than semen. So this much amount of semen.. it cannot come out from a single rapist. There is every possibility of the involvement of multiple rapists…” (sic)

Goswami is the additional general secretary of the All India Federation of Govt Doctors’ Association. The video has 44,000 views on YouTube. The remarks made by Goswami were carried by multiple media outlets, including the New York Times, India Today, Business Today, The Times of India, and Firstpost among others.

The claim was also made by the victim’s lawyer in the petition filed in the court. The concerned point in the petition reads, “The presence of 150 mg of semen in the hymen, a quantity suggesting involvement of more than one individual, further corroborated the suspicion of gang rape.”

The lawyer representing the family, senior CPI(M) leader Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya asserted in a video interview that the PM report said 150mg white liquid was found in the body. He adds that he never made the assertion that the liquid was semen.

The claim is viral on X (formerly Twitter). Here are some of the tweets which make the claim that 150 grams of semen was found in the victim’s body:

The claim is viral on Facebook as well. Here are some of the posts that mention it:

On Instagram, a template that was shared as ‘story’ over 3.4 million times made the same claim.

Fact Check

Alt News was able to access the post-mortem report of the victim through police sources.

The report consists of multiple rows corresponding to different sections of the body namely thorax, abdomen, cranium and spinal canal, and more. Each row, again, has multiple columns for different organs and parts such as brain, stomach, lung, kidney, and spleen. In many of these cells, the weight of the corresponding organ is stated using the abbreviation ‘Wt’. For eg, the weight of the heart is stated as “Wt- 212gm”, and the weight of the spleen is stated as “Wt- 90gm”.

In a cell titled ‘External and Internal Genitalia’, it is stated, “As noted. White thick viscid liquid present inside endocervical canal, which is collected as noted above. Wt-151gm.”

It would seem that those who initially claimed 150 grams of semen probably misconstrued the above sentence as suggesting that the weight of the thick liquid was 150 grams. However, the weight specified here is that of the ‘External and Internal genitalia’.

Alt News spoke with a forensic expert who on condition of anonymity told us, “Usually seminal liquid is measured in ml (volume), not gm (weight). The PM Report has weights of other organs in grams including the heart, liver, kidney, spleen etc. 151 grams is the collective weight of the internal and external genitalia. Nowhere in the report does it mention that 150mg of semen recovered as claimed”.

The Kolkata police also termed this claim to be false in a press briefing.

#WATCH | Kolkata: West Bengal Police Commissioner Vineet Kumar Goyal says, “Far too many rumours are floating which have no basis, and based on them, a lot of so-called experts are creating narratives…The case has now gone to the CBI and let’s have faith in the agency. In the… pic.twitter.com/vMIfh0B3SR

— ANI (@ANI) August 16, 2024

TMC MP Mahua Moitra in a video posted her X (formerly Twitter) account, also stated that, “This was the total weight of the internal viscera or the reproductive organs, it has got nothing to do with the bodily fluids found.”

Urging media to be responsible while reporting. Genuine concerns need to be addressed. Fake news needs to be busted. @MamataOfficial pic.twitter.com/nljhAbDMkk

— Mahua Moitra (@MahuaMoitra) August 16, 2024

Therefore, those on the victim’s side who floated this claim seemingly misread the post-mortem, and then this rumour gained a life of its own on social media leading to further theories of gang rape. The possibility of more than one accused cannot be ruled out, and the CBI is investigating this case. However, the claim that 150 grams of semen was found in the victim’s body is false.

The post 150 grams semen found in R G Kar victim’s body? No, post-mortem report mentions weight of genitalia appeared first on Alt News.

This content originally appeared on Alt News and was authored by Pratik Sinha.

Against the backdrop of this, allegations of violence against the Hindu minority in Bangladesh are doing the rounds on social media. In one such post, an image of a house on fire is being widely shared with the claim that ‘Islamists’ in Bangladesh had set fire to the house of Bangladeshi cricketer Liton Das, who is a Hindu by faith.

X handle Hindutva Knight (@HPhobiaWatch) shared the above-mentioned image on August 5 with the caption: “Bangladeshi Hindu cricketer Liton Das house has been set on fire”. The tweet has received over 10.4 Lakh views and has been retweeted over 7,100 times. (Archive)

Bangladeshi Hindu cricketer Liton Das house has been set on fire pic.twitter.com/0so4MS1Chp

— Hindutva Knight (@HPhobiaWatch) August 5, 2024

Premium subscribed X user Sunanda Roy (@SaffronSunanda) also shared the same image with the following caption: “He is Liton Das, a Bangladeshi cricketer. He is a national Hero of Bangladesh. His house was set on fire by Islamists. This is the condition of an elite Hindu of Bangladesh. Just imagine the condition of common Hindus. #SaveBangladeshiHindus”. The tweet has received more than 4.35 Lakh views and has been retweeted over 7,600 times. (Archive)

Readers should note that @SaffronSunanda has been found peddling misinformation, especially those of communal nature, on several occasions.

He is Liton Das, a Bangladeshi cricketer.

He is a national Hero of Bangladesh.

His house was set on fire by Islamists.

This is the condition of an elite Hindu of Bangladesh. Just imagine the condition of common Hindus.#SaveBangladeshiHindus pic.twitter.com/lGS1bOrpzU

— Sunanda Roy (@SaffronSunanda) August 5, 2024

Several other users such as @randomsena, @visegrad24, propaganda outlet Sudarshan News, @ChandanSharmaG also amplified the claim that Bangladeshi cricketer Liton Das’ house had been set ablaze.

Fact Check

To verify the claim, we ran a reverse image search on the viral image which is claimed to be of Liton Das’ residence and came across several news reports from Bangladesh that carried the same image. All the reports said it was the house was former cricketer Mashrafe Mortaza.

A report from The Business Standard titled “Mashrafe’s Narail home vandalised, torched”, said that some individuals had vandalised and set fire to the the house of Mashrafe Bin Mortaza, a lawmaker from the Narail-2 constituency, along with the houses of district parishad chairman Adv. Subhash Chandra Bose and district Awami League general secretary Nizam Uddin Khan Nilu. The district Awami League office was also set on fire.

Here is a report from Dhaka Tribune which carried a photo of the same bulding and identified it as Mashrafe Mortaza’s house.

We found several other reports in Bengali and English which too mentioned that the house on fire in the viral belonged to Mashrafe Bin Mortaza. The same had been reported by several Indian News outlets as well.

Mortaza is a former cricketer who also captained Bangladesh’s national cricket team. He joined the Awami League in 2018 and served as a member of parliament from Narail-2 district until August 5.

The Awami League was the leading political party in Bangladesh, led by ex-PM Sheikh Hasina. The party was founded by her late father, Sheikh Mujibur Rehman.

Therefore, the claim that Liton Das’ house has been set on fire and that the viral image showed Das’ house is false. The viral image showed the house of former cricketer and Awami League MP Mashrafe Bin Mortaza’s house.

The post Cricketer Liton Das’ house set afire in Bangladesh? No, viral image shows Narail residence of Mashrafe Mortaza appeared first on Alt News.

This content originally appeared on Alt News and was authored by Oishani Bhattacharya.

Facebook user Sarvesh Kutlehria shared the image on July 12 with a caption in Hindi which said, “The person who recognizes it will get 8500 khata khat taka tak“. The post has received over 20,000 likes and 5,900 shares.

Several other users on Facebook and X shared the image with the same caption. Below are a few instances.

Fact Check

We noticed a watermark at the bottom left corner of the viral image that read: “Remaker.” After conducting a Google search, we discovered that Remaker is an AI creative content generator. It enables users to swap faces in images and videos, allowing them to replace the face of the person in the original content with someone else’s face. This suggests that the viral image is an edited version of the original.

We ran a reverse image search on the viral image, leading us to a post shared on the microblogging website Tumblr in February 2013. The post carried an image which was the same as the viral image except the woman in the image did not appear to be Sonia Gandhi. Below the image, the caption read: “Ghazale Photographed By Farzad Sarfarazi, 2012”.

In the bottom right corner of this image, a copyright mark of the mentioned photographer can also be seen.

Several others have shared this image on several occasions attributing the image to Farzad Sarfarazi.

Hence, from the above findings, it can be concluded that the viral image has been edited using Remaker and the face of the woman in the original image had been swapped with Sonia Gandhi’s picture.

The post Sonia Gandhi holding cigarette? No, viral photo is morphed using AI tool appeared first on Alt News.

This content originally appeared on Alt News and was authored by Oishani Bhattacharya.

In this context, Premium subscribed X (formerly Twitter) user and Right-wing troll Raushan Sinha (@MrSinha_) shared a tweet on June 29 that said: “In NEET UG paper leak case, arrests made by CBI so far :
-Md Jamaluddin who was working for Prabhat Khabar
-Dr Ehsanul Haq, Principal Oasis school
-Imtiaz Alam, Vice Principal Oasis school

A few more such arrests and see how the opposition stops talking about this issue….!!” (Archive)

The user implied that since those arrested were from the Muslim community, the Opposition would no longer address the issue.

In NEET UG paper leak case, arrests made by CBI so far :
-Md Jamaluddin who was working for Prabhat Khabar
-Dr Ehsanul Haq, Principal Oasis school
-Imtiaz Alam, Vice Principal Oasis school

A few more such arrests and see how the opposition stops talking about this issue….!!

— Mr Sinha (@MrSinha_) June 29, 2024

Raushan Sinha peddles pro-BJP propaganda and misinformation, particularly targetting Muslims, regularly on social media.

Several other users on X tweeted the same. Below are a few instances.

Fact Check

Alt News reported on June 21 that the Bihar and Gujarat police had arrested several individuals in connection with paper leak cases in their respective states. The list of arrested persons at that point did not include anyone from the Muslim community.

The first arrests by the CBI were made on June 27. Since then, the CBI has arrested more than 30 people, including several students and their family members. An Indian Express report dated July 1 listed the names of those who have been arrested so far. While the list includes the names mentioned by @MrSinha_, it also features at least 15 names accused who are non-Muslims, for example, Manish Prakash and Ashutosh Kumar from Patna, Purushottam Sharma and Tushar Bhatt from Godhra, Baldev Kumar from Bihar Sharif, Parshuram ROy from Vadodara and others. The report also highlights that an individual named Sanjeev Mukhiya is believed to be the mastermind behind the paper leak case in Bihar.

Below are the non-Muslim names that the Indian Express report mentioned.

The Times Of India also published the list of arrested in the NEET fraud case. This included those who were arrested by the CBI.

The individuals mentioned in the concerned tweets — Dr. Ehsanul Haq, Imtiaz Alam, and Md Jamaluddin — were arrested on June 28 and 29. By June 21, the Bihar police had already arrested 13 individuals, and the Gujarat police had arrested five in relation to paper leak cases in their respective states, all of whom were later transferred to CBI custody.

To sum up, several social media users mentioned three Muslim names selectively in connection with the NEET arrests made by law enforcement agencies. More than 30 people have been arrested so far in the case. A majority of them are non-Muslims.

The post Arrested persons in NEET scam all Muslims? No, the viral claims are misleading appeared first on Alt News.

This content originally appeared on Alt News and was authored by Oishani Bhattacharya.

कोर्ट में CBI ने बहुत बड़ा दावा किया है. केजरीवाल ने सारा दोष मनीष सिसोदिया पर डाल दिया है,केजरीवाल ने आबकारी नीति से पल्ला झाड़ लिया है. #ArvindKejriwalArrested #AAP #SupremeCourt #CBI #ManishSisodia @AnchorAnandN @ManavLive pic.twitter.com/zxZ8rkYe9C

— News18 India (@News18India) June 26, 2024

A clip of an ABP report was also shared by several prominent Right-wing influencers. Tajinder Bagga, the national secretary of the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha, tweeted a screenshot from the said report which displayed the text ”केजरीवाल ने सारा दोष सिसोदिया पर डाला’ (Translation: Kejriwal put all the blame on Sisodia). The tweet garnered over 70,000 views and close to 800 retweets. (Archive)

pic.twitter.com/Xn1dfw6XOx

— Tajinder Bagga (@TajinderBagga) June 26, 2024

Rishi Bagree, who shares misinformation on a regular basis, also tweeted the clip. In it, the ABP reporter is heard saying the CBI levelled the allegations during the proceedings at Rouse Avenue Court. The ABP ground reporter informs viewers that the CBI lawyer argued in court that during the interrogation, Kejriwal had apparently put the blame on Manish Sisodia and claimed that he had no knowledge whatsoever about the liquor policy. Bagree’s tweet read, “Manish Sisodia Thrown under a DTC bus.” (Archive)

Manish Sisodia Thrown under a DTC bus

pic.twitter.com/dK0gVlUIiV

— Rishi Bagree (@rishibagree) June 26, 2024

BJP spokesperson Shehzad Poonawalla tweeted a screenshot of a tweet by Law Today which also said that the CBI had told the court that Kejriwal had put the onus of the liquor policy on Manish Sisodia while seeking custody for the Delhi CM. (Archive)

As expected !

Aisa koi Saga nahi jisko Kejriwal ne thaga nahi pic.twitter.com/z9R2qN4YGa

— Shehzad Jai Hind (Modi Ka Parivar) (@Shehzad_Ind) June 26, 2024

Several other users, including @SaffronSunanda and @erbmjha, shared the same claim. (Archives- 1, 2, 3)

Fact Check

We went through the court proceedings posted through legal reporting handle on X, Bar and Bench. While arguing for the CBI seeking Kejriwal’s custody in the court of Special Judge Amitabh Rawat, advocate D P Singh stated at 12:38 PM on June 26, ‘We need his custodial interrogation… He is not even recognising that Vijay Nair was working under him. He says he was working under Atishi Marlena and Saurab Bharjdwaj. He pushed the entire onus on Manish Sisodia and said he had no idea about the excise policy’. This is statement was picked up by the media outlets almost immediately and telecast.

Singh: We need his custodial interrogation… He is not even recognising that Vijay Nair was working under him. He says he was working under Atishi Marlena and Saurab Bharjdwaj. He pushed the entire onus on Manish Sisodia and said he has no idea about the excise policy.

— Bar and Bench (@barandbench) June 26, 2024

However, after an hour and a half, Kejriwal addressed the court and refuted the claims. Kejriwal stated that no statement had been given by him suggesting that Manish Sisodia was guilty. “Manish Sisodia is innocent, AAP is innocent, I am innocent. The entire plan is to tarnishing us in front of the media,” he said.

Kejriwal: Maine aesa koi bayan nahi diya hai ki Manish Sisodia doshi hai. Manish Sisodia nirdosh hai, AAP nirdosh hai, main nirdosh hu. Unka saara plan hai hame media m badnaam karne ka.

— Bar and Bench (@barandbench) June 26, 2024

In the following tweets in the thread, Bar and Bench reported that Advocate Singh argued that no CBI sources had said anything to the media and that the media persons would report on what was said in court. The court argued that media reports were taken in pieces. Kejriwal further stated that the prosecution’s idea was that the next day’s front page should have the top headline stating that Kejriwal put all the blame on Manish Sisodia.

The court, in agreement with Kejriwal, remarked that the Manish Sisodia allegation did not stand as Kejriwal did not say anything remotely similar to what was being claimed. In response, Kejriwal stated, “They are sensationalizing the issue. This will be the top headline in every newspaper tomorrow. This is their sole purpose today.” The court then added, “The more that is said, the more it will appear in the media. I have read your statement; you did not say this.”

Court: Maine padh liya aesa nahi bola gaya hai.

Kejriwal: They are sensationalising the issue. Ye kal top headline hogi har akhbaar me. Inka aaj kewal ye maqsad hi hai.

Court: Jitna bola jaaega, media m to aur zyada aaega.

— Bar and Bench (@barandbench) June 26, 2024

The same was reported by another legal reporting platform Live Law, in their report.

Thus, a statement made by CBI lawyer D P Singh — that Kejriwal had put the blame for the liquor policy on Manish Sisodia — was picked up by the media and telecast without context. This was further amplified by the Right Wing ecosystem. In reality, Kejriwal had subsequently addressed the court and he refuted the charge that he had put all the blame on Manish Sisodia. Presiding judge Amitabh Rawat concurred on this and said, “I have read your statement, you did not say this.”

The Rouse Avenue Court sent Kejriwal to 3-day CBI custody.

The post Did Kejriwal blame Manish Sisodia for liquor policy? No; false claim by Right-wing users appeared first on Alt News.

This content originally appeared on Alt News and was authored by Shinjinee Majumder.

The results were announced on June 4, the same day as the declaration of the general election results. Shortly afterwards, concerns regarding the exam and scores of some candidates began to surface, with allegations of a full-blown ‘scam’ starting to pop up. Opposition leaders, such as Rahul Gandhi, Akhilesh Yadav, Mallikarjun Kharge and several others also raised questions about the conduct of the national-level exam claiming that the results indicated a huge scam. They wrote to Union education minister Dharmendra Pradhan seeking a probe into the matter.

Results Spark Various Concerns

On June 4, the results revealed an unusual situation where 67 candidates achieved the All-India Rank (AIR) 1 with a perfect score of 720, including six candidates from the same centre in Jhajjar, Haryana. This was particularly striking since in the last six years (2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023), the number of students attaining full marks has ranged between zero and three. However, as per NTA, this increase in the number of toppers resulted from more students taking the exam.

Many also pointed out that some candidates had scored 718 and 719, which was practically impossible under the standard marking scheme of NEET-UG, where each question carried four marks, and one mark was deducted for each incorrect answer. Thus, the highest possible scores after 720 should be 716 or 715. The NTA addressed this matter on June 4, stating that several students had reported a loss of time during the exam. As a result, grace marks were given to affected candidates, making it possible for some to receive scores of 718 or 719.

It was later revealed that as many as 1,563 candidates from Punjab, Haryana, Delhi, and Chhattisgarh were granted grace marks by the NTA after they approached respective high courts alleging discrepancies which led to the loss of time. However, this decision faced significant backlash, leading to counter-petitions demanding the scrapping of the grace marks. The NTA announced on June 8 that the education ministry would be forming a four-member panel to re-examine the grace marks given to over 1,500 students. On June 13, the Centre informed the Supreme Court that they had decided to revoke the grace marks, offering the 1,563 candidates the option to retake the exam which is to be held on June 23.

Moreover, even before the results were announced, there were multiple allegations of paper leaks at several centres, including Sawai Madhopur in Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh. In Sawai Madhopur, the exams were reconducted following the intervention of the Collector. However, in Chhattisgarh, students had to approach the court to address the issue.

Dharmendra Pradhan’s Stance: ‘No Paper Leak, No Corruption’ on June 13; ‘Some Irregularities’ on June 16, ‘Taking Moral Responsibility’ on June 20

From the declaration of the NEET-UG results on June 4 until June 12, Union education minister Dharmendra Pradhan had not made any statement addressing or acknowledging the allegations of discrepancies. During this period, Pradhan’s X profile remained active and mostly featured tweets about the BJP’s big win in Odisha and his re-appointment as the education minister. We could not find any news reports with his quote on the matter either during this period.

On June 13, Pradhan finally broke his silence about the matter and responded to Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge’s tweet where Kharge had alleged that the NEET exam had been rigged. Quote-tweeting Kharge’s tweet, Pradhan wrote in Hindi: “…As per the instructions of the Hon’ble Supreme Court, the examination of 1,563 students will be conducted again. No concrete evidence of any kind of rigging, corruption or paper leak has been found in the NEET exam so far. All the facts related to this are before the Supreme Court and are under consideration. I want to remind Congress that to prevent paper leaks and to conduct a cheating-free examination, the Central Government has passed the Public Examination (Prevention of Unfair Means) Act this year, which has many strict provisions. Congress should not be under the misconception that if any nexus is found, no action will be taken against it. The provisions of this Act will be implemented very carefully. It is an old habit of Congress to do politics on the future of students…”

NEET परीक्षा मामले में NTA माननीय सुप्रीम कोर्ट के निर्देशों का पालन करते हुए उचित कार्यवाही करने को कटिबद्ध है। माननीय सुप्रीम कोर्ट के निर्देशानुसार 1563 विद्यार्थियों की परीक्षा दोबारा करायी जायेगी।

NEET परीक्षा में किसी प्रकार की धांधली, भ्रष्टाचार या पेपर लीक की कोई भी… https://t.co/SHh0kfRJoD

— Dharmendra Pradhan (@dpradhanbjp) June 13, 2024

Pradhan further reiterated the same to the media when addressing the allegations regarding the NEET-UG paper leak and stated that there have been no paper leaks and no corruption, he mentioned that there was ‘no concrete proof to back‘ the claims of the paper leak.

#WATCH | On the Supreme Court’s hearing on the NEET-UG 2024 exam, Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan says “I want to assure the students and their parents that the Govt of India and NTA are committed to providing justice to them. 24 lakh students have successfully taken the… pic.twitter.com/pIldTPehEf

— ANI (@ANI) June 13, 2024

Pradhan also described the controversy as “motivated”, suggesting that coaching centres might have instigated the protests. He also addressed the unusual number of toppers in NEET-UG 2024 and said that the increase in high scorers was a result of the government’s efforts over the past three years to align the difficulty level of NEET with that of Class 12 board exams, suggesting that the difficulty level of the examination had been brought down over the years.

On June 16, BJP leader Dharmendra Pradhan changed his stance and said that he had been informed of some “irregularities” in two centres and said that the culprits would receive the “harshest punishment“. However, he did not get into details of what these “irregularities” were.

#WATCH | Sambalpur, Odisha: On the NEET issue, Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan says, “On the recommendations of Supreme Court, the order has been given for re-test of 1,563 candidates…Some irregularities have come to light in two places. I assure students and… pic.twitter.com/yrdvdAcn4g

— ANI (@ANI) June 16, 2024

On June 20, he again repositioned himself vis-a-vis the scam, and told reporters that he was taking ‘moral responsibility’ for the loss of faith of students. The Indian Express has underlined that “his stance on Thursday on the allegations and controversy surrounding NEET-UG is different from last week when he had said there was no evidence of a paper leak. “There is no corruption,” he had told reporters right after taking charge of his second stint as the Education Minister in the newly-formed NDA government at the Centre.”

What Forced Pradhan to Change His Stance?

After being pressed into action, law enforcement agencies in several states have unearthed massive irregularities in the conduct of NEET, which include almost every form of malpractice an examination can suffer from.

In Bihar, Aspirants Paid Rs 30 to 50 Lakh

Fact is, reports of NEET-UG paper leaks and investigations into the same have been in public domain for over a month, since even before the results were announced. According to a Times of India report dated May 13, the economic offences unit (EOU) of the Bihar police discovered that medical aspirants had paid substantial amounts ranging from Rs 30 lakh to Rs 50 lakh each to ‘brokers’ to obtain access to question papers before May 5. It further stated that the EOU had confiscated various documents such as bank cheques and roll codes of candidates from the residences of two individuals — Nitish Kumar and Amit Anand, who ran an education consultancy firm. They were arrested on May 5.

13 Arrested; 35 Candidates were Given Solved Papers

A TOI report from May 22 states that the EOU arrested 13 individuals, including four medical aspirants, three parents, three linemen, two associates, and a driver. Deputy inspector general (DIG) Manavjit Singh Dhillon told the paper the aspirants had confessed to being taken to a secluded house in Ramkrishna Nagar, rented by the linemen, where around 35 aspirants were given marked question papers on May 4. The police recovered burned question papers, which would be reconstructed by an FSL team for comparison with the originals.

Post-dated Cheques for Leaked Papers

On June 16, DIG Manavjit Singh Dhillon, told PTI, “During the course of the investigation, EOU sleuths recovered six post-dated cheques that were issued in the favour of criminals who reportedly facilitated question papers to the aspirants ahead of the examination”. The EOU had issued notices to nine candidates (seven from Bihar, one from Uttar Pradesh, and one from Maharashtra) to join the probe. As per news reports, it was suspected that the nine aspirants, along with four other examinees from Bihar, had received the NEET-UG question paper and answers in a ‘safe house’ near Patna the day before the May 5 exam. DIG Manavjit Singh Dhillon further added, “The evidence of the transaction has also been found, and six post-dated cheques have also been recovered during the course of the investigation. The EOU sleuths also recovered partially burnt question papers from the safe house.”

Bihar Govt Engineer’s Admission of a Racket

A written confession from Sikandar Prasad Yadavendu, an engineer with the Bihar public service commission surfaced on June 19, revealing his connection to a racket specialising in leaking question papers for NEET, BPSC, and UPSC exams. Yadavendu admitted to arranging logistics in Patna for several candidates, including his nephew Anurag Yadav, a NEET aspirant. India Today reported that the guest house bill books mentioned a ‘Mantri Ji’ (Mr/Ms Minister), who allegedly facilitated the stay for Yadavendu’s nephew and other aspirants.

Godhra: Physics Teacher Confesses to Promising Solving of Papers for Rs 10 Lakh  

India Today reported that a case was registered on May 9 against a schoolteacher in Godhra, in Gujarat’s Panchmahal district, and two others for allegedly attempting to assist six NEET-UG candidates at the Jay Jalaram School by promising to solve their exam papers for Rs 10 lakh each. Physics teacher Tushar Bhatt, the deputy superintendent of the exam designated by the NTA at the said centre, along with Parshuram Roy and BJP functionary Arif Vahora, was booked for attempting to help NEET-UG candidates cheat. Police recovered Rs 7 lakh in cash from Bhatt’s car, paid by Vahora as an advance to secure a candidate’s place on the merit list. The report further mentioned that the students were instructed to leave blank questions whose answers they did not know and those will be filled in later. Bhatt confessed to having been promised Rs 10 lakh each to solve the question papers.

Parshuram Roy, Key Accused in Godhra, Among Arrested

One of the main accused in the Godhra paper leak case is Parshuram Roy, who owns a visa and foreign education consultancy firm. Roy is the maternal uncle of Bhaskar Chaudhary, an accused in last year’s Junior Clerk exam paper leak. According to a TOI report, Roy provided Tushar Bhatt with a list of students to assist during the exam in exchange for money.

As of the time of writing this report, the Gujarat police have arrested five persons in relation to the alleged NEET-UG paper leak case in Godhra. Bhatt, Roy, principal of Jay Jalaram school Purshottam Sharma, education consultant Vibhor Anand and a mediator, Arif Vahora. The scam was allegedly orchestrated jointly by Vadodara-based Roy Overseas coaching, Purshottam Sharma, principal of Jay Jalaram school in Parvadi village (the exam centre), and Tushar Bhatt, a teacher and the NEET centre deputy superintendent. The plan allegedly was to alter the mark sheets of 30 students. Police have identified 27 students, linking at least a dozen to Roy and Anand, with the rest being under investigation.

Police have recovered cheques totalling Rs 2.82 crore from Roy’s office, allegedly given by seven students, along with Rs 66 lakh transferred into Roy’s bank account by four students. Blank cheques with parents’ mobile numbers and two lists of parents’ names and contact details were also found. Authorities believe Roy and Anand advised students from other states to choose the Godhra centre for their exams. The police suspect the cheating racket extended beyond just one centre in Gujarat.

‘No Unusual Advantage’: NTA’s Bizarre Explanation

In a response that is nothing short of bizarre, the NTA told the Union education ministry that the examinees under police investigation did not appear to have gained any unusual advantage, based on their scores. According to the NTA, the students who were being scrutinized scored less than 500 out of 720.

However, it should be noted that neither the NTA nor the Union Government has acknowledged a potential paper leak at these centres. Toeing the line of the minister, the NTA had earlier claimed that 63 cases of students using unfair means were reported in NEET-UG but there had been no paper leak and the sanctity of the medical entrance exam hadn’t been compromised.

Hearing two petitions filed by 30 candidates, the Supreme Court on June 18 adopted a firm stance in the matter, with Justice S V Bhatti of a Vacation Bench headed by Justice Vikram Nath telling the lawyers representing the Centre and the NTA, “Even if there is 0.001% negligence on the part of anyone, it should be thoroughly dealt with”.

Justice Nath issued notices and instructed the Union government and NTA to submit their responses within two weeks. The Vacation Bench scheduled the case for hearing on July 8, along with other related petitions challenging different aspects of the conduct of NEET-UG 2024.

The post NEET: Dharmendra Pradhan goes from ‘no corruption’ to ‘some irregularities’ to ‘taking moral responsibility’ in 7 days appeared first on Alt News.

This content originally appeared on Alt News and was authored by Oishani Bhattacharya.

The official X account of Kerala Congress on June 13 claimed that Modi and Rajnath Singh had officially entered the Margdarshak Mandal and this was a sign of Narendra Modi’s impending failure at securing the confidence of the legislature in case of a floor test. At the time of this article being written, the aforementioned post has gathered more than 1.5 Lakh views and over 600 re-tweets.

Modi and Rajnath Singh officially entered Marg Darshak Mandal according to BJP’s website.

Is this indication that the floor test is going to fail and is this a dry run of the page post the disaster?

Link: https://t.co/zblyk7OePr pic.twitter.com/fp7kaabjW3

— Congress Kerala (@INCKerala) June 13, 2024

Mint Published an article on June 13 with the headline, “Narendra Modi and Rajnath Singh join LK Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi in BJP Margdarshak Mandal.” It said, “Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Defence Minister Minister Rajnath Singh have joined the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) Margadarshak Mandal. The names of both Modi and Singh are now appearing on the official website of the saffron party along with their photos. BJP veterans Lal Krishna Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi are already in the Margadarshak Mandal.”

The article was later updated.

Several other verified users on X also posted with the same claim, drawing attention to how PM Modi’s initiation into the Margdarshak Mandal could be evidence of his dwindling power within the party.

The claim is also viral on Facebook, with several users pointing out that the ‘entry’ of Narendra Modi into the list of advisory members points to his imminent retirement from the role of the Prime Minister of India.

Fact Check

We ran a relevant keyword search and came across a press release from the BJP dated August 28, 2014, stating that Narendra Modi, with four other senior BJP leaders, including the late Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Lal Krishna Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi, and Rajnath Singh, had been appointed to the Margdarshak Mandal to guide the party.

Months after Narendra Modi first came to power as the Prime Minister in 2014, the Margdarshak Mandal was constituted as an ‘advisory’ committee within the party. Senior leaders like Advani and Joshi were dropped from the BJP’s parliamentary board and central election committee, and listed as members of the Margdarshak Mandal, which raised some eyebrows.

We ran another relevant keyword search on X, and came across this post from India Today, from August 2014.

Narendra Modi, AB Vajpayee, LK Advani, MM Joshi & Rajnath Singh in BJP Parliamentary Board’s Margdarshak Mandal.http://t.co/oPJOPK45bK

— IndiaToday (@IndiaToday) August 26, 2014

This makes it evident that Narendra Modi has been a member of the Margdarshak Mandal since 2014, and is not a recent inductee in the advisory committee. All the social media claims of his recent induction into the advisory body are, therefore, baseless.

Mint later updated its article and revised the headline to “Narendra Modi and Rajnath Singh join BJP’s Margdarshak Mandal? Here’s the truth.”

Prantik Ali is an intern at Alt News.

The post No, Modi and Rajnath have not recently entered BJP Margdarshak Mandal appeared first on Alt News.

This content originally appeared on Alt News and was authored by Prantik Ali.

The chairman of the SC department of Congress Gujarat, Hitendra Pithadiya (@HitenPithadiya), wrote on X (formerly Twitter), ”This is really alarming!! BJP has won 30 seats with a margin of less than 500. Won more than 100 seats with a margin of less than 1000. These seats should be analysed. Meaning this figure could have possibly been 240-130 = 110″.

This is really alarming!!

BJP has won 30 seats with a margin of less than 500.

Won more than 100 seats with a margin of less than 1000.

These seats should be analysed

Meaning this figure could have possibly been 240-130 = 110

— Hitendra Pithadiya (@HitenPithadiya) June 6, 2024

All India Congress Committee secretary BM Sandeep (@BMSandeepAICC) also amplified the claim and added, “The magic of EVM’s & @ECISVEEP needs to be investigated… These seats should be analysed by by 3 retired SC Justices. – Ashoka University professor had to resign for saying there is a scope of manipulation in such small numbers. If manipulation has been done at the behest of PM Narendra Modi then this figure could have been 240-130= 110 seats for the NDA.” Sandeep was referring to a research paper published by former Ashoka University assistant professor Sabyasachi Das who highlighted electoral frauds and calculated that BJP had won 11 seats in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls by a less than 5% win margin. Das later resigned from his post at the university.

The magic of EVM’s & @ECISVEEP needs to be investigated

The BJP has

– Won 30 seats with a margin of less than 500 votes .

– Won more than 100 seats with a margin of less than 1000 votes.

These seats should be analysed by by 3 retired SC Justices.

– Ashoka University…

— B M Sandeep (@BMSandeepAICC) June 6, 2024

The East Bangalore Congress Sevadal (@Sevadaleblr) also amplified the claim. 

What would you call this scam?

BJP won 30 seats with a margin of less than 500.

Won more than 100 seats by a margin of less than 1000 pic.twitter.com/aJfCWhBkYd

— East Bangalore Congress Sevadal (@Sevadaleblr) June 6, 2024

Fact Check

We checked the Election Commission of India website and found a list of all winning BJP candidates and their winning margins. We found that BJP did not win any seat by a margin of 500 or 1000 votes. The lowest BJP win margin was in Jajpur, Odisha where Rabindra Narayan Behera defeated BJD’s Sarmistha Sethi by 1587 votes.

Hence, the claim by Congress leaders that the BJP won 30 seats with a margin of less than 500 votes and 100 seats with less than 1000 is false. The lowest win margin of the BJP was 1587 votes in the Jajpur seat in Odisha.

Abira Das is an intern at Alt News.

The post No, BJP has not won 30 seats with less than 500 votes; smallest margin 1587 in Jajpur appeared first on Alt News.

This content originally appeared on Alt News and was authored by Abira Das.

Papua New Guinea’s opposition leader James Nomane says Parliament needs to be recalled immediately as the gravity of Wednesday’s actions to adjourn Parliament to dodge no-confidence vote “is something that cannot be taken lightly and can’t be dismissed”.

“This is not a dictatorship but a democratic country,” he said.

“If you say you have the numbers, why didn’t you allow the Vote of No Confidence to go ahead and you test your numbers, because the minute that happens, the PM will be disposed and we will have a new PM,” Nomane said, addressing Prime Minister James Marape.

• READ MORE: Other PNG politics reports

He said Papua New Guineans lived in a country governed by the rule of law — the most important law governing the country was the constitution.

After the constitution, there were Organic Laws, Acts of Parliament, and the rules and regulations.

“The constitution is supreme, the Vote of No Confidence comes from Section 145 of the Constitution and it comes from the supreme law. Members of Parliament and dealing with the [no-confidence vote] need to take it very seriously on both sides of the house.”

‘Completely rejected’
“You have already heard from the last couple of motions we have submitted and it has been completely rejected by this Private Business Committee comprising of members of Parliament,” Nomane said.

He said the PBC is checking if the ‘tees’ and the ‘ayes’ have been crossed

“They have been nitpicking,” Nomane said,

“We brought our numbers, the office of the Prime Minister belongs to the people of Papua New Guinea.

“It is not the private business of one province, one district.

“There is no accountability.”

The government, using its numerical strength, voted 69-0 to adjourn Parliament until September.

Miriam Zarriga is a PNG Post-Courier reporter. Republished with permission.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

The screenshot went viral in the backdrop of the ongoing Israel-Hamas war in Palestine, which has resulted in the deaths of over 15,000 children and left more than  82,000 people injured. On the night of May 26, Israel launched airstrikes on Rafah, an area in southern Gaza which was designated for displaced Palestinians. The resultant deaths caused a massive outrage on social media. People all over the world, including celebrities, condemned the incident and shared an AI-generated image portraying tent camps with the text ‘All Eyes on Rafah’.

Following this, several pro-BJP influencers targeted celebrities for sharing the AI-generated graphic and started circulating an edited graphic of the original image with the text ‘All Eyes on POK’ written over it.

A verified account on X (formerly Twitter), @Incognito_qfs, shared the screenshot with the caption, “All eyes on PoK ~ Narendra Modi” The tweet received 489,000 views, 24,000 likes and 4,100 retweets. This account has been found disseminating misinformation several times in the past.

All eyes on PoK

~ Narendra Modi pic.twitter.com/8sy1AoyMC2

— Incognito (@Incognito_qfs) May 28, 2024

Another verified account, @jpsin1, which is followed by the PM on X, also shared the screenshot.

All eyes on PoK

~ Narendra Modi pic.twitter.com/nsMp51PgOC

— Jitendra pratap singh (@jpsin1) May 29, 2024

Several users also shared it on X.

Fact Check

At first, we ran a relevant keyword search on Google but did not find any news report on Prime Minister Modi sharing such a post on Instagram. He sharing an edited graphic with the text ‘All Eyes on POK’  would have surely garnered significant media attention.

Meanwhile, several users shared compilations of “All Eyes on Rafah” posts by celebrities. We noticed that some details of the Instagram story uploaded by actress Gauhar Khan were similar to the viral screenshot. For instance, the total number of stories, the time of upload and the number of shares (12.4M) were the same as in the viral image.

A closer look at the viral screenshot revealed a ‘1 h’ mark on the top left corner, right beside the PM’s handle name. This implies that the screenshot was taken one hour after the story had been posted. If the Prime Minister had indeed shared such a graphic, social media users would have shared different screenshots of the Instagram story, depicting different time-frames. However, all the images shared as an Instagram story by PM Modi had the same time stamp.

To sum up, all of these suggest that the viral screenshot is fake. The PM did not share an ‘All Eyes on POK’ message on Instagram.

Abira Das is an intern at Alt News.

The post No, PM Modi did not post ‘All Eyes on PoK’ message on Instagram appeared first on Alt News.

This content originally appeared on Alt News and was authored by Abira Das.

This article was produced for ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network in partnership with Capitol News Illinois. Sign up for Dispatches to get stories like this one as soon as they are published.

It was on L.J.’s 11th birthday, in December 2022, that child welfare workers finally took him away. They arrived at his central Illinois home to investigate an abuse allegation and decided on the spot to remove the boy along with his baby brother and sister — the “Irish twins,” as their parents called them.

His mother begged to keep the children while her boyfriend told child welfare workers and the police called to the scene that they could take L.J.: “You wanna take someone? Take that little motherfucker down there or wherever the fuck he is at. I’ve been trying to get him out of here for a long time.”

By that time, L.J. told authorities he hadn’t been in a classroom for years, according to police records. First came COVID-19. Then, in August 2021 when he was going to have to repeat the third grade, his mother and her boyfriend decided that L.J. would be homeschooled and that they would be his teachers. In an instant, his world shrank to the confines of a one-bedroom apartment in the small Illinois college town of Charleston — no teachers, counselors or classmates.

In that apartment, L.J. would later tell police, he was beaten and denied food: Getting leftovers from the refrigerator was punishable by a whipping with a belt; sass was met with a slap in the face.

L.J. told police he got no lessons or schoolwork at home. Asked if he had learned much, L.J. replied, “Not really.”

Reporters are using the first and middle initials of the boy, who is now 12 and remains in state custody, to protect his identity.

While each state has different regulations for homeschooling — and most of them are relatively weak — Illinois is among a small minority that places virtually no rules on parents who homeschool their children: The parents aren’t required to register with any governmental agency, and no tests are required. Under Illinois law, they must provide an education equivalent to what is offered in public schools, covering core subjects like math, language arts, science and health. But parents don’t have to have a high school diploma or GED, and state authorities cannot compel them to demonstrate their teaching methods or prove attendance, curriculum or testing outcomes.

The Illinois State Board of Education said in a statement that regional education offices are empowered by Illinois law to request evidence that a family that homeschools is providing an adequate course of instruction. But, the spokesperson said, their “ability to intervene can be limited.”

Educational officials say this lack of regulation allows parents to pull vulnerable children like L.J. from public schools then not provide any education for them. They call them “no schoolers.”

No oversight also means children schooled at home lose the protections schools provide, including teachers, counselors, coaches and bus drivers — school personnel legally bound to report suspected child abuse and neglect. Under Illinois law, parents may homeschool even if they would be disqualified from working with youth in any other setting; this includes parents with violent criminal records or pending child abuse investigations, or those found to have abused children in the past.

The number of students from preschool to 12th grade enrolled in the state’s public schools has dropped by about 127,000 since the pandemic began. Enrollment losses have outpaced declines in population, according to a report by Advance Illinois, a nonprofit education policy and advocacy organization. And, despite conventional wisdom, the drop was also not the result of wealthier families moving their children to private schools: After the pandemic, private school enrollment declined too, according to the same report.

In the face of this historic exodus from public schools, Capitol News Illinois and ProPublica set out to examine the lack of oversight by education and child welfare systems when some of those children disappear into families later accused of no-schooling and, sometimes, abuse and neglect.

Reporters found no centralized system for investigating homeschooling concerns. Educational officials said they were ill equipped to handle cases where parents are accused of neglecting their children’s education. They also said the state’s laws made it all but impossible to intervene in cases where parents claim they are homeschooling. Reporters also found that under the current structure, concerns about homeschooling bounce between child welfare and education authorities, with no entity fully prepared to step in.

“Although we have parents that do a great job of homeschooling, we have many ‘no schoolers’” said Angie Zarvell, superintendent of a regional education office about 100 miles southwest of Chicago that covers three counties and 23 school districts. “The damage this is doing to small rural areas is great. These children will not have the basic skills needed to be contributing members of society.”

Regional education offices, like the one Zarvell oversees, are required by law to identify children who are truant and try to help get them back into school.

We have many ‘no schoolers.’ The damage this is doing to small rural areas is great. These children will not have the basic skills needed to be contributing members of society.

But once parents claim they are homeschooling, “our hands are tied,” said Superintendent Michelle Mueller, whose regional office is located about 60 miles north of St. Louis.

Even the state’s child welfare agency can do little: Reports to its child abuse hotline alleging that parents are depriving their children of an education have multiplied, but the Department of Children and Family Services doesn’t investigate schooling matters. Instead, it passes reports to regional education offices.

Todd Vilardo, who since 2017 has been superintendent of the school district where L.J. was enrolled, said he is seeing more and more children outside of school during the day. He wonders, “‘Aren’t they supposed to be in school?’ But I’m reminded that maybe they’re homeschooled,” said Vilardo, who has worked in the Charleston school district for 33 years. “Then I’m reminded that there are very few effective checks and balances on home schools.”

There’s no way to determine the precise number of children who are homeschooled. In 2022, 4,493 children were recorded as withdrawn to homeschool, a number that is likely much higher because Illinois doesn’t require parents to register homeschooled children. That is a little more than double the number a decade before.

In late fall of 2020, L.J. was one of the kids who slipped out of school. After a roughly five-month hiatus from the classroom during the pandemic, L.J.’s school resumed in-person classes. The third grader, however, was frequently absent.

At home, tensions ran high. In the 640-square-foot apartment, L.J.’s mother, Ashley White, and her boyfriend, Brian Anderson, juggled the demands of three children including two born just about 10 months apart.

White, now 31, worked at a local fast-food restaurant. Anderson, now 51, who uses a wheelchair, had applied for disability payments. Anderson doesn’t have a valid driver’s license. The family lived in a subsidized housing complex for low-income seniors and people with disabilities.

In an interview with reporters in late February, 14 months after L.J. had been taken into custody by the state, the couple offered a range of explanations for why he hadn’t been in school. L.J. had been suspended and barred from returning, they said, though school records show no expulsion. They also said they had tried to put L.J. in an alternative school for children with special needs, but he didn’t have a diagnosis that qualified him to attend.

The couple made clear they believed that L.J. was a problem child who could get them in trouble; they said they thought he could get them sued. In the interview, Anderson called L.J. a pathological liar, a thief and a bad kid.

“I have 11 kids, never had a problem with any of them, never,” Anderson said. “I’ve never had a problem like this,” he said of L.J. The boy, he said, lacked discipline and continued to get “worse and worse and worse every year” he’d known him.

To support the idea that L.J. was combative, White provided a copy of a screenshot taken from a school chat forum in which the boy cursed at his schoolmates.

At the end of the school year, in spring 2021, the principal told White and Anderson that the boy would have to repeat the third grade. Rather than have L.J. held back, the couple pulled him out of school to homeschool. They didn’t have to fill out any paperwork or give a reason.

On any given day in Illinois, a parent can make that same decision. That’s due to a series of court and legislative decisions that strengthened parents’ rights against state interference in how they educate their children.

In 1950, the Illinois Supreme Court heard a case involving college-educated parents who kept their 7-year-old daughter at home. Those parents, Seventh-day Adventists, argued that a public school education produced a “pugnacious character” and believed the mother was the best teacher and nature was the best textbook. The judges ruled in their favor, finding that, in many respects under the law, homeschools are essentially like private schools: not required to register kids with the state and not subject to testing or curriculum mandates.

In 1989, the legislature voted to change how educational neglect cases are handled. Before the vote, DCFS was allowed to investigate parents who failed to ensure their child’s education just as it does other types of neglect. In a bipartisan vote, the General Assembly changed that, in part to reduce caseloads on DCFS — which has been overburdened and inadequately staffed for decades — and also in response to concerns about state interference from families who homeschool.

Since then, DCFS has referred complaints about schooling that come in to its child abuse hotline over to regional offices of education. The letter accompanying the educational neglect referral form ends with: “This notice is for your information and pursuit only. No response to this office is required.”

Tierney Stutz, executive deputy director at DCFS, said that regional education officials are welcome to report back findings, but that “DCFS does not have statutory authority to act on this information.”

“Unfortunately, this is a huge crack in our system,” said Amber Quirk, regional superintendent of the office of education that covers densely populated DuPage County in the Chicago suburbs.

To see how this system is working, reporters obtained more than 450 of these educational neglect reports, representing over a third of the more than 1,200 forwarded by DCFS over three years ending in 2023. About 10% of them specifically cited substandard homeschooling claims. But officials said that in many of the other reported cases of kids out of school, they found that families also claimed they were homeschooling.

Faced with cases of truancy or educational neglect, county prosecutors can press charges against parents. But if they do, parents can lean on Illinois’ parental protections when they defend themselves in court from a truancy charge.

That’s been the experience of Dirk Muffler, who oversees truancy intervention at a regional office of education covering five counties in west-central Illinois. “We’ve gone through an entire truancy process, literally standing on the courthouse steps getting ready to walk in to screen a kid into court and the parents say, ‘We are homeschooling.’ I have to just walk away then.”

More recently, the ISBE made one more decision to loosen the monitoring of parents who homeschool: For years, school districts and regional offices distributed voluntary registration forms to families who homeschool, some of whom returned them. Then last year, the state agency told those regional offices that they no longer had to send those forms to ISBE.

All we want is to be left alone. And Illinois has been so good. We have probably the best state in the nation to homeschool.

“The homeschool registration form was being misinterpreted in some instances that ISBE was reviewing or approving homeschool programs, which it does not have statutory authority to do,” an ISBE spokesperson told the news organizations.

Over the years, the legislature has taken up proposals to strengthen the state’s oversight of homeschooling. In 2011, lawmakers considered requiring parents to notify their local school districts of their intent to homeschool, and in 2019 they considered calling for DCFS to inspect all homeschools and have ISBE approve their curriculum.

Each time, however, the state’s strong homeschooling lobby, mostly made up of religious-based organizations, stepped in.

This March, under sponsorship of the Illinois Christian Home Educators, homeschoolers massed at the state Capitol as they have for decades for Cherry Pie Day, bringing pies to each of the state’s 177 lawmakers.

Kirk Smith, the organization’s executive director and former public school teacher, summed up his group’s appeal to lawmakers: “All we want is to be left alone. And Illinois has been so good. We have probably the best state in the nation to homeschool.”

Just days after child protection workers took 11-year-old L.J. into protective custody on his birthday, a 9-year-old homeschooled boy, 240 miles away, disappeared and was missing for months before police went looking for him.

Though the case of Zion Staples was covered in the media, it has not been previously reported that his homeschooling status delayed the discovery of his death.

Zion had been living in Rock Island, in the northwest part of the state, with his mother, Sushi Staples. The family had a long history of abuse and neglect investigations by DCFS, and Staples had lost two kids to foster care in Illinois nearly two decades before because she mistreated them; the children were not returned to her. The most recent investigation by DCFS was in 2021. The department did not find enough evidence to find mistreatment and the case was closed.

Despite her past involvement with child welfare services, no Illinois laws restricted her from homeschooling the children who remained in her care, including Zion and five others who were then ages 8 to 14.

When reporters asked DCFS for his schooling status, the agency’s responses revealed considerable confusion about where he was being educated. DCFS originally told the news organizations that Zion was enrolled in an online school program, but the company that DCFS said had been providing his schooling told reporters that Zion had never been enrolled. DCFS later clarified that his mother said he was leaving public school in August 2021 to attend an online program, but no one was required to verify this information.

On a December morning in 2022, Staples told police she returned home from running errands and found Zion dead. A coroner would later find that he died from an accidental, self-inflicted shot fired from a gun the children found in the house. His mother hid the body and later confided to her friend, Laterrica Wilson, that she did it because she did not want to risk losing her other children.

“She said: ‘Nobody knows. He’s not in school. He’s homeschooled. I’ve got this figured out,’” Wilson recalled in an interview with a reporter about a conversation she had with Staples a few months after the child had died. “She said she had too much to lose.”

Wilson, who lives in Florida, said it was one of several calls she had with Staples over the course of months as she tried to figure out what had happened and what to do about it. Police records indicate that in July, in response to a call from Wilson, they visited the home. Staples denied the child even existed. Later, when police executed a search warrant, officers found Zion’s body in a metal trash can in the garage; he was still wearing his Spiderman pajama bottoms. He’d been dead for seven months, an autopsy revealed.

Staples was charged with concealing a death, failure to report the death of a child within 24 hours and obstructing justice. Staples pleaded guilty to felony endangering the health of a child in February and was sentenced to two years in prison in April.

Staples did not respond to a letter sent to her in prison seeking comment on this case.

DCFS and its university partners study all sorts of risks to children involved with the child welfare system, but they’ve never examined homeschooling and do not track the number of children the agency comes in contact with who are homeschooled. While the agency’s inspector general is required to file reports on every child who dies in foster care or whose family the agency had investigated within the preceding year of the child’s death, the children’s schooling status is rarely noted in them.

For L.J., homeschooling rules also blinded school officials to abuse he suffered, although their administrative office is within sight of his apartment complex. About five months passed from when he was withdrawn to homeschool in the summer of 2021 before the first signs of help arrived. Following a call to its hotline in January 2022, DCFS found White and Anderson neglectful, citing inadequate supervision, but that did not result in L.J. returning to school. DCFS offered services, but Anderson and White declined.

DCFS received more calls to its hotline in June 2022 and again that September, alleging that Anderson and White had mistreated L.J. In both of those cases, DCFS investigators did not find enough evidence to support those allegations and closed the cases.

The caller in September told DCFS the boy appeared malnourished. L.J. hadn’t been in school since 2019, the caller reported. But DCFS said they did not pursue an investigation into his schooling matters because it wasn’t in their policies to do so.

It did send an educational neglect report to Kyle Thompson, the superintendent of schools overseeing the regional office of education in Charleston. The form didn’t mention physical abuse, but it did say that L.J. had begged for food from neighbors, that doctors were concerned about his weight and that a DCFS caseworker had recently visited the home but no one had answered the door.

Thompson was in his office when the educational neglect report ended up on his desk on an October afternoon. Alarmed when he read the allegations, Thompson went to the apartment that same day. White and Anderson came to the door, Thompson recalled, and eventually agreed to meet with school officials.

“I really feel like we may have saved that kid’s life that day,” Thompson said.

But Anderson and White continued to keep L.J. at home.

In November, a grocery store manager found L.J. in the parking lot begging for quarters and called police, who took L.J. home and later issued a ticket to White and Anderson for violating a city truancy ordinance. L.J. hadn’t been to school the whole year — 70 days.

Anderson said he didn’t know why he was cited, since he was homeschooling. “Apparently, it wasn’t good enough for the school system,” he told reporters.

A few days later, police and child welfare services again visited the home and found welts and bruises on L.J.’s back. L.J. said Anderson had beaten him with a belt as punishment for eating leftover Salisbury steak and potatoes without permission. The boy also told child welfare workers he had not showered for two weeks.

Anderson and White would later tell reporters L.J. was on a diet of fruits and vegetables because he was too fat and prediabetic, but L.J. told police he ate mostly cereal. Though DCFS found credible evidence of both neglect and abuse in its November and December investigations, the couple said they did not abuse L.J. or deny him an education. They are still trying to get the two younger children back, but they say they don’t want L.J. In an April court custody hearing, a judge in their child welfare case admonished them for not accepting responsibility for their treatment of L.J., including keeping him from school.

For its part, the state did ultimately take responsibility for L.J.’s schooling: Caseworkers took the children into custody on a Friday. The following Monday, L.J. returned to public school.

Help ProPublica Report on Education

Have a news tip regarding homeschooling, chronic truancy or educational neglect? Email them to Molly Parker or Beth Hundsdorfer at investigations@capitolnewsillinois.com.

Mollie Simon of ProPublica contributed research. Andrew Adams of Capitol News Illinois contributed data reporting.

This content originally appeared on ProPublica and was authored by by Molly Parker and Beth Hundsdorfer, Capitol News Illinois.

But the video has been edited to omit a crucial part of his speech in which  he referenced an implied statement made by Chinese President Xi Jinping during an earlier meeting between them.

The claim was shared on the X social media platform on May 15, 2024.

“Trump just said China does not have a drug problem!” reads the post in part. 

The claim was shared alongside a one-minute and 14-second video that shows what appears to be a public speech made by Trump.

“China has no drug problems. Because they have what’s called a quick trial,” said Trump, as seen in the video. 

But the claim is missing key context. 

Original video

A keyword search on Google found the clip was taken from a speech Trump gave at a Las Vegas event  in July 2022.

At the 12-minute and 50-second mark of the video, Trump states “China has no drug problem, no, China has no drug problem,” after emphasizing the effectiveness of “quick trials” and executions of drug dealers as a deterrent to narcotics trafficking in China.

However, the video shared by Chinese social media users has been edited to omit a part where Trump was citing Chinese President Xi Jinping. 

At the video’s 13-minute and 54-second mark, Trump notes that Xi had mentioned to him in a previous conversation that China had no drug problem, citing death penalty measures as effective deterrents against  trafficking. 

This indicates that Trump’s conversation with Xi could have been the main source of Trump’s remarks.

A keyword search found such a conversation was cited by several international media outlets, as seen here and here.

Death penalty against drug trafficking

A claim that China’s use of the death penalty is an effective deterrent against drug trafficking has been disputed, with different analyses  showing different results. 

For instance, criminal drug activity in China, such as supply, consumption and abuse of  drugs, had declined on a yearly basis,  according to China’s report on anti-narcotics operations published in 2023, which listed a total of 1.12 million domestic drug users as of the end of 2022,

In contrast, an article published in June 2023 citing these statistics said that drug prices continued to rise around the country and that the use of online drug trafficking had skyrocketed in recent years, particularly following the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Official Chinese statistics cited in a 2017 article by the state-run Xinhua News Agency showed that there were 2.51 million domestic drug users in 2016, following an annual increase of 6.8%.

Translated by Shen Ke. Edited by Shen Ke and Taejun Kang.

Asia Fact Check Lab (AFCL) was established to counter disinformation in today’s complex media environment. We publish fact-checks, media-watches and in-depth reports that aim to sharpen and deepen our readers’ understanding of current affairs and public issues. If you like our content, you can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram and X.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Zhuang Jing for Asia Fact Check Lab.

Right-Wing influencer and BJP supporter Roshan Sinha (@MrSinha_) posted this image, claiming that the picture on the wall was of Jesus.

Similarly, Right-Wing influencer Ajit Datta tweeted this image, stating that it depicted Jesus Christ.

BJP supporter Jitendra Pratap Singh also tweeted the image, calling it a picture of Jesus.

Fact Check

Alt News cropped the relevant part of the viral image and performed a reverse image search on Google. Due to the photo being blurry, we could not find any relevant information. We then uploaded it to the Yandex search engine and found a higher resolution version of the image. Searching this version on Google led us to several related articles.

One of these was on the website “Rethinking The Future“, which contained information about the art gallery of Nicholas Roerich and the viral image. According to the site, the image is titled ‘Madonna Oriflamma’, and it was created by Nicholas Roerich in 1932. The painting depicts a peace banner featuring three red dots inside a circle, which is a symbol of the Roerich Pact. The peace flag is associated with the first international conference dedicated to the protection of artistic, scientific, and historical institutions and monuments.

Investigating further, we checked the website of the Nicholas Roerich Museum. According to information on one of its pages, the devastation of World War I and the Russian Revolution led Roerich to realise that each nation’s cultural heritage was essentially a world treasure. He maintained that besides the physical remains of past cultures, the creative activities associated with universities, libraries, hospitals, concert halls, and theatres should be protected from the ravages of war. Roerich understood the need for an international effort and, with the help of international legal experts, crafted a treaty known as the Roerich Pact. The flag with a red circle and three dots is called the Banner of Peace. This pact stipulates that all sites of cultural value should be declared neutral and protected, similar to how hospitals marked with the Red Cross flag are protected to prevent attacks. The painting seen in the viral image is also seen on this page.

To sum it up, the image in question is not of Jesus Christ but rather a painting by Nicholas Roerich titled “Madonna Oriflamma,” created in 1932. The painting features the “Banner of Peace” with three red dots inside a red circle, symbolising the Roerich Pact.

The post Jesus Christ photo behind Rahul and Sonia Gandhi’s inked selfie? No, false claim by Right Wing appeared first on Alt News.

This content originally appeared on Alt News and was authored by Abhishek Kumar.

Union home minister Amit Shah’s recent speech at Serampore in the Hooghly district of West Bengal contained the communal rhetoric that has now become a common feature in almost every election speech by BJP leaders. Shah, who continually addressed Muslims as ‘ghuspethiyo’ (infiltrators) and ‘Mullah’, made allegations of Muslim appeasement against the Trinamool Congress. During his speech. He made two specific claims:

• At the 18:21 minute mark, Shah said, “…(Mamata Banerjee) grants holidays to Muslims during Ramzan. We do not have a problem with that, give holiday if you want. But we need an answer for why you don’t grant holidays during Durga Puja as well. Why this discrimination?”
• At the 17:46 minute mark: “Should these Imams and Mullahs get salaries from Bengal’s lockers? The High Court said no so Mamata Banerjee went to Waqf board for the funds.”

Does West Bengal Govt Not Grant Holidays on Durga Puja?

The public holidays 2024 of West Bengal government are divided into two lists. Alt News accessed the said document available on the official website of the finance department. According to List-I (Public Holidays in 2024 under the N. I. Act), there are holidays for Mahalaya on October 2, Maha Saptami on October 10, Maha Astami and Maha Nabami on October 11 and Dasami on October 12.

Moreover, the offices under the Government of West Bengal, except the offices of the Registrar of Assurances, Kolkata and Collector of the Stamp Revenue, Kolkata would also be closed on the days as specified in List II which are not listed under public holidays. List II has additional holidays on Maha Chaturthi on October 7, Maha Panchami on October 8, Maha Shashthi on October 9, and more holidays on October 14 and 15.

In 2023 as well, the Bengal government granted several holidays on account of Durga Puja, as it had done in 2022.

Hence, Amit Shah’s claim that the Bengal government did not grant holidays on Durga Puja is blatantly false.

Do Only Imams Get Salaries from ‘Bengal’s lockers’?

In 2012, the Mamata Banerjee government announced an honorarium for Imams and Muezzins. This decision, at the time, had been struck down by the Calcutta High Court. The monthly allowances have since been routed through the Waqf Board.

Again in September 2020, Banerjee announced an honorarium of ₹1,000 per month to nearly 8,000 Hindu priests in the State. She had reportedly stated that the Wakf Board provides the Imams and the Muezzins with a stipend, but there was no such provision for the Hindu priests. She urged the chief secretary to start the honorarium before Durga Puja that year. Banerjee had said that her government was willing to help representatives of all religions including Christian priests, if they asked for support.

After the announcement, the Opposition parties criticised the move and accused Mamata Banerjee of mixing religion with politics.

In August 2023, a Rs. 500 hike in the monthly allowances of Muslim clerics and Hindu priests was also announced by Mamata Banerjee. Until then, the Imams used to receive a monthly allowance of Rs 2,500, whereas muezzins used to receive a stipend of Rs 1,000 since 2012. After the hike, the Imams now get Rs. 3000 and Musezzins and Hindu priests get Rs. 1500.

The discrepancy in the salaries has also been criticised by Opposition leaders. “Why only 8,000 purohits… There are more than 80,000 in this state. Where is the list of the purohits they are giving this money to? How did they decide on the names? Was there any age or income criteria? The state government is only bribing a select few to show they are being balanced, but that is not the truth,” BJP MP Dilip Ghosh had asked in January 2021. Suvendu Adhikari also questioned this disparity during a public gathering in Kolkata.

Therefore, it is not accurate to say that only ‘Imams and Mullahs’ receive salaries. Hindu priests also receive compensation. However, there is a significant difference in the amount of salary they receive. The stipend for the Hindu priests were also announced eight years after the stipend for the Imams and Muezzins had been announced.

The post ‘No govt holiday on Durga Puja in Bengal’: Amit Shah’s false claim at Serampore rally appeared first on Alt News.

This content originally appeared on Alt News and was authored by Shinjinee Majumder.

Premium subscribed X (formerly Twitter) user Sameet Thakkar (Modi Ka Parivar) (@thakkar_sameet) shared the clip on April 28 with the following caption: “What a fall !!

Uddhav Thackeray is the other name of SHAMELESSNESS.

Watch how congress workers of Wardha denied Uddhav to even make speech in a rally.

Ye log ladenge Modi see ??”

The tweet has received over 3 Lakh 86,000 views and has been retweeted over 2,700 times.

What a fall !!

Uddhav Thackeray is the other name of SHAMELESSNESS.

Watch how congress workers of Wardha denied Uddhav to even make speech in a rally.

Ye log ladenge Modi se ?? pic.twitter.com/WcOFs0TaKV

— Sameet Thakkar (Modi Ka Parivar) (@thakkar_sameet) April 28, 2024

Several other users shared the video claiming the same. Below are a few instances.

Fact Check

We noticed the logo of TV9 Marathi on the top right corner of the frame in the viral video. Besides, the word ‘Wardha’ is written on the top left in Devanagari script. Taking a cue from this we ran a relevant keyword search on YouTube and found the 1 hour 46 min long recorded live stream of the event where Uddhav Thackeray was present. The video was posted on April 22.

In the video, several NCP leaders such as Sharad Pawar and Amar Kale can be seen delivering their speeches. At the 1:33:21 mark of the YouTube video, Amar Kale is interrupted by another person following which he stops his speech. Another man announces Uddhav Thackeray’s name requesting him to deliver a speech.

Thackeray, then, walks up to the mic with NCP Lok Sabha candidate Amar Kale next to him. The viral part of the video starts at the 1:35:04 mark where the Shiv Sena leader can be heard saying, “I will speak for five minutes”, in response to which, the people surrounding him ask him to speak for at least 15 minutes. This part — the response of the men around Thackeray — is missing from the viral clip. After this point, Thackeray delivers a 10-minute-long speech.

Further, we found a 4.17-minute-long video from the same event posted by the official X page of the Office of Uddhav Thackeray (@OfficeofUT) on April 22 wherein the Shiv Sena president is seen delivering a speech. The caption accompanying the video mentions that the video was from a poll campaign rally for the Maha Vikas Aghadi Lok Sabha candidate Amar Kale from the Wardha constituency in Hinganghat.
The Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) is a coalition of ten political parties with Uddhav Thackeray as the president.

महाविकास आघाडीचे वर्धा लोकसभेचे उमेदवार अमर काळे ह्यांच्या प्रचारार्थ पक्षप्रमुख मा. श्री. उद्धवसाहेब ठाकरे ह्यांचे प्रमुख मार्गदर्शन । वर्धा लोकसभा मतदार संघ । हिंगणघाट – #LIVE https://t.co/8M3hzThIfN

— Office of Uddhav Thackeray (@OfficeofUT) April 22, 2024

India Today spoke to Atul Wandile, the state secretary general of the NCP, who called the claim “baseless”. He said that since some of the speeches of the NCP members were extended and Thackeray had to leave early for his programs in Nagpur, he initially said that he would speak for five minutes. The NCP members insisted he speak for at least 10 or 15 minutes as many had come to hear him.

Therefore, the claim that Uddhav Thackeray was not allowed to speak is false. The viral clip is edited.

The post No, Uddhav Thackeray was not stopped from speaking at Wardha rally; clipped video shared appeared first on Alt News.

This content originally appeared on Alt News and was authored by Oishani Bhattacharya.

X (formerly Twitter) user Izhar Alam (@Izharalam00786) shared the above-mentioned image on March 16 with a caption in Hindi that can be translated as, “On Electoral Bond, International Media The New York Times is saying that the king is now naked. ‘Modi’s Family'”. The tweet has received over 1.2 Lakh views and has been retweeted over 1,400 times.

इलेक्टोरल बॉन्ड पर इंटरनेशनल मीडिया दा न्यू यॉर्क टाइम्स बता रहा है कि राजा नं गा हो चुका है,
“मोदी का परिवार” pic.twitter.com/keSVWrdcCU

— Izhar Alam (@Izharalam00786) March 16, 2024

Several other users shared the same image on X and Facebook with the same claim.

Fact Check

To check the authenticity of the image, we searched for the front page of the New York Times edition dated March 15, 2024. We found that the front page of the NYT on that day did not have the viral image. There are several differences between the two pages as can be seen in the comparison below. Readers can also see that in the viral image, the words “SATIRE EDITION” are written above the masthead. Next to the graphic, the text is written in an odd font that differs from the font used by the NYT. Also, one can see on the page that it says ‘Report By – @EducatedBilla’, no such byline can be seen on the original paper.

We searched for the handle @EducatedBilla on X and found a user with this username. This user had shared the viral image on March 15. In the comment section @EducatedBilla says that he created the image. Replying to another comment, the user clarified that he had made this image and that it was only a piece of satire.

It’s a Satire made by me only pic.twitter.com/Q4xgWazqxy

— Schrodinger Ka Billa (@EducatedBilla) March 17, 2024

Further, on running a reverse image search we found the graphic on the website krita-artists.org where artists can share their digital artwork. The image was shared with the title: “The King is Naked” in February 2021. The graphic has been credited to one ‘Astaire’ and it is mentioned to be based on the fairy tale, “The Emperor’s New Clothes”.

Hence, it is clear that the viral image is not an original publication of the New York Times.

The post No, New York Times front page did not carry cartoon mocking PM Modi; viral image is edited appeared first on Alt News.

This content originally appeared on Alt News and was authored by Oishani Bhattacharya.

Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair

“Absent a directed, sustained, and articulated policy of no daylight between the United States and Israel,” Matthew Continetti wrote in the Washington Free Beacon on March 29, “the rift between America and her ally will widen and the world will grow more dangerous.”

Proof that Continetti had things completely bass-ackward arrived on April 1, when Israeli aircraft attacked an Iranian consulate building in Syria, killing 16 and boosting the already not insignificant prospect of a wider regional war. The US regime disclaimed prior knowledge of the Israeli strike, but couldn’t be bothered to actually condemn it.

While occasionally, softly, and grudgingly calling for “restraint” from all parties, Washington has continued its policy of supporting the Israeli regime no matter what it does, and blaming Israel’s adversaries for every Bad Thing that happens in the Middle East.

The US and Israeli regimes remain in a bear hug through which not so much as a single ray of daylight passes. And THAT makes the world more dangerous.

If the US left Israel to its own devices, or at the very least conditioned its billions of dollars in annual aid — not to mention its support in every argument — on good behavior, we might see some progress toward peace.

How many fights would Israel pick with Iran, Syria, and Lebanon if it didn’t have the US threatening to pound anyone who doesn’t comply with its every demand?

Without the US backing its every play, might not Israel eventually consider withdrawing to within its own borders and leaving the state of Palestine to chart its own future course, instead of continuing  decades of military occupation both rooted in, and giving rise to, numerous large and small wars?

The US-Israeli relationship is, essentially, a big bully standing behind a smaller bully, routinely supporting the smaller bully’s bullying.

When, as (very) occasionally happens, Big Bully whispers “hey, you might want to take it down a notch,” Little Bully ignores the whisper.

But instead of walking away and letting Little Bully experience the full consequences of his actions, Big Bully always gives in and protects Little Bully from those consequences.

That raise the interesting question of who’s really the more powerful bully in the relationship. And, more importantly, it tells Little Bully “there are no consequences for bad behavior — do whatever you feel like doing with impunity.”

Such a policy both creates and increases the dangers of war. For everyone.

The post US Foreign Policy: “No Daylight” Is Where Peace Dies In Darkness appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Thomas Knapp.

We speak with Mahmood Mamdani, a professor of government at Columbia who has spoken with many of the pro-Palestine protesters camping out on school grounds to show solidarity with Gaza and demand the school divest from Israel. He says there is growing outrage from faculty after the school’s leadership called in the police to raid the Gaza Solidarity Encampment and conduct mass arrests, while administrators have started suspending and evicting some students. “There has been no due process on the Columbia campus,” says Mamdani.

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

Israeli police arrested the internationally renowned feminist Palestinian academic Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian at her home in Jerusalem on Thursday on charges of incitement to violence. Shalhoub-Kevorkian, who holds both Israeli and U.S. citizenship, was suspended by Hebrew University last month after saying in an interview Israel was committing genocide in Gaza, though the university later reinstated her. We speak with anthropologist Sarah Ihmoud, who describes Shalhoub-Kevorkian as a mentor and inspiration to her and many others. “We hold the Hebrew University of Jerusalem responsible for the arrest and detention because of its persistent and public repression of her academic freedom, which led directly to yesterday’s arrest,” says Ihmoud, who teaches at College of the Holy Cross and is co-founder of the Palestinian Feminist Collective. “We see this as yet another example of Israel attacking Palestinians wherever they are, whoever they are. It underscores that no Palestinian is safe under Israel’s racist apartheid rule.”

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

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This article is an excerpt from the book “On The Move: The Overheating Earth and the Uprooting of America,” about climate migration in the U.S. For more, see abrahm.com.

Another great American migration is now underway, this time forced by the warming that is altering how and where people can live. For now, it’s just a trickle. But in the corners of the country’s most vulnerable landscapes — on the shores of its sinking bayous and on the eroding bluffs of its coastal defenses — populations are already in disarray.

A couple of miles west of downtown Slidell, Louisiana, and just upstream from the broad expanse of Lake Pontchartrain — the 40-by-24-mile-wide brackish estuary separating what is now the mainland from New Orleans — a five-room shotgun house sits on a plot of marshy lawn near the edge of Liberty Bayou. Colette Pichon Battle’s mother had been born in that house. Colette, bright-eyed and ambitious, devoutly Catholic, a force on the volleyball court, was raised in the house until the day she left for college. The family’s very identity had grown from the waters of the marsh around it. From a humble rectangle of wood, framed onto brick stanchions that kept it hovering several feet above the ground, shaded by the long beards of Spanish moss hanging from the limbs of towering oaks and a hardy pine, a family was born. Its Creole heritage near the acre of low-lying land goes deeper than the trees, deeper than the United States as a nation, to around 1770. Those roots withstood the tests of centuries: slavery, war and more than their share of storms.

Then, Hurricane Katrina arrived. Colette was in her law office in Washington, D.C., in 2005 when she saw a graphic weather forecast on the television screen: a swirling monster of a Category 5 storm, broader than anything she’d ever seen before, was headed straight for her family home. She rushed into a conference room and called her mother.

On the bayou, people don’t run from storms. They cope with a familiar nuisance the way Minnesotans cope with the snow. For all Colette’s life, the hurricanes that routinely swept Louisiana were more cause for bonding than for fear — families would gather in one place, bringing the food that had to be eaten before the power went down, and they’d barbecue it and talk and share stories while the storm passed overhead. That the water would sometimes come wasn’t a surprise; it was why the home was elevated. But time and warming and the erosion of a protective coastline had already changed the nature of the storms. And Katrina looked different. “I need you to get out of there,” Colette told her mom.

Mary Pichon Battle, a vibrant 60-year-old schoolteacher, had raised her children to travel the world. She was a living tie to Liberty Bayou’s rich history, one of the last remaining people there still fluent in the Creole language. And she’d clung to that home, even with the boot of Louisiana on her back, throughout the Civil Rights era, all while raising Colette, teaching her French and Creole, and then sending her off to Kenyon College in Ohio, and to law school at Southern University in Baton Rouge. Liberty Bayou wasn’t just an asset. It was her history, her identity. She saw no reason to leave. Colette, though, acting on instinct more than habit, was insistent. Mary would drive to her brother’s house in Breaux Bridge, just a few hours away. It would only be for a couple of days. Then she’d be back.

All around, people were taking flight. The displaced from New Orleans and the coastlines headed north toward higher ground, gathering the people of Slidell along with them. When the storm hit, it pushed a surge of waters across the lake onto its north shore. The shotgun house filled steadily, the water pushing Mary’s cherished paintings of Jesus off their hooks and setting them afloat, along with the contents of boxes of family photographs — prints of Colette and her twin brother as babies; photos of her grandmother, a beauty, before she used a wheelchair. All were carried toward the rafters, and lost, as the peak of the house’s tin roof disappeared. Slidell was inundated by tidal surges more than 20 feet deep. The water washed through buildings downtown at head height, transforming the entirety of the flat, low-lying landscape into a sea pocked only by occasional trees and obstacles jutting from the water. By the time those surging waters sloshed back into the lake, flowing south again to overcome the levees around New Orleans, the community of Liberty Bayou, for the most part, had already been destroyed. Mary Pichon Battle, who’d packed just three days’ worth of clothes and left a lifetime’s worth of belongings, had little to come home to. The house was unlivable. “It was in the water, in the ocean,” Colette recounted. “The tidal surge took it.” And much of Slidell had gone with it.

As tens of thousands of people continued to leave the wreckage of Louisiana in the weeks and months following the storm — and Mary remained a refugee — Colette moved back home. Fifteen generations on the bayou, a legacy in jeopardy, exerted a gravitational pull she could not resist. The devastation spoke to her. The rebuilding beckoned. She thought about the survivors.

“There are these trees here,” she says, describing the deeply rooted, majestic oaks that dot the landscape of southern Louisiana and the Mississippi coast. The tidal surge snapped the pines like Pixy Stix. The briny ocean water turned grasses brown and dead, killing animals and fish both, along with flowers and shrubs. “Not everything made it,” she said, “but these trees, these oaks, they made it. And they stood.”

Colette knew that her home might never be rebuilt. She knew her mother might never come back. But she tells the story, grasping for an explanation for why she herself returned, trying to find words that could describe the role she felt suddenly compelled to fulfill. “And I feel more like that, right?” she says, comparing herself to the aged oaks. “I feel like that. I’m watching other trees go down, I’m watching changes, but I’ve got the roots that are strong enough to hold.”

And so Colette became the resistance, pushing back against all the forces arrayed against her: the storm after the storm. She thought, at the time, she’d join a great healing, the rebuilding that would bring her mother home and the restoration of all the ties that gave life there meaning. She would bring the whole Bayou home. She began to talk about the risks in terms that the bayou communities around her could not recognize. She warned that if they failed to rebuild, to be resilient, the only option would be to migrate away from Louisiana’s southern coast — that while the recovery from the storm looked bleak, the alternative could be far worse. “People thought we were crazy,” she says, “but that’s how it begins.”

People have always moved as their environment has changed. But today, the climate is warming faster, and the population is larger, than at any point in history.

As the U.S. gets hotter, its coastal waters rise higher, its wildfires burn larger and its droughts last longer, the notion that humankind can triumph over nature is fading, and with it, slowly, goes the belief that self-determination and personal preference can be the driving factors in choosing where to live. Scientific modeling of these pressures suggest a sweeping change is coming in the shape and location of communities across America, a change that promises to transform the country’s politics, culture and economy.

It has already begun. More Americans are displaced by catastrophic climate-change-driven storms and floods and fires every year. The Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, the global nongovernmental organization researchers rely on to measure the number of people forcibly cast out of their homes by natural disasters, counted very few displaced Americans in 2009, 2010 and 2011, years in which few natural disasters struck the United States. But by 2016 the numbers had begun to surge, with between 1 million and 1.7 million newly displaced people annually. The disasters and heat waves each year have become legion. But the statistics show the human side of what has appeared to be a turning point in both the severity and frequency of wildfires and hurricanes. As the number of displaced people continues to grow, an ever-larger portion of those affected will make their moves permanent, migrating to safer ground or supportive communities. They will do so either because a singular disaster like the 2018 wildfire in Paradise, California — or Hurricane Harvey, which struck the Texas and Louisiana coasts — is so destructive it forces them to, or because the subtler “slow onset” change in their surroundings gradually grows so intolerable, uncomfortable or inconvenient that they make the decision to leave, proactively, by choice. In a 2021 study published in the journal Climatic Change, researchers found that 57% of the Americans they surveyed believed that changes in their climate would push them to consider a move sometime in the next decade.

Also in 2021, the national real estate firm Redfin conducted a similar nationwide survey, finding that nearly half of Americans who planned to move that year said that climate risks were already driving their decisions. Some 52% of people moving from the West said that rising and extreme heat was a factor, and 48% of respondents moving from the Northeast pointed to sea level rise as their predominant threat. Roughly one in four Americans surveyed told Redfin they would no longer consider a move to a region facing extreme heat, no matter how much more affordable that location was. And nearly one-third of people said that “there was no price at which” they would consider buying a home in a coastal region affected by rising seas. When Redfin broadened its survey to include more than a thousand people who had not yet decided to move, a whopping 75% of them said that they would think twice before buying a home in a place facing rising heat or other climate risks.

Global migration experts say that what is happening in Louisiana is a textbook case of how climate-driven migration begins: First, people resist their new reality. Second, they make modest, incremental adjustments to where they live. Slidell, after all, is still within commuting distance of friends and jobs in St. Bernard Parish to the south. Third, they climb the ladder toward a safer place, rest on a rung for a while, and then continue on, only to be replaced by others worse off than they are, climbing up behind them.

What Colette hoped to avoid was the situation unfolding to her south, in the small Indigenous community of Isle de Jean Charles. There, Biloxi, Chitimacha and Choctaw people were clinging to an exposed tendril of Louisiana’s subsiding land. The Choctaw people had escaped to the south in the first half of the 19th century, finding refuge in the rural wild marshes of the uninhabited coast as white Americans pursued a brutal campaign of ethnic cleansing that drove the rest of the tribe — and tens of thousands of others — west on the Trail of Tears. Nearly 200 years later, the descendants of those exiles described a land where horses and cattle roamed across solid earth and their grandfathers slung freshwater bass and catfish out of Lake Tambour. The area now referred to as the Isle covered 22,000 acres.

But then the waters began to rise. Levees built along the Mississippi blocked the natural flow of sediment to replenish the marsh soils, while the oil companies dug thousands of miles of canals. The canals allowed salt water to overcome freshwater marshes, choking off plant life that also nourished the delicate ecosystem. It killed the wetlands and led the land to subside and erode. All the while, the climate got hotter, and the water levels of the Gulf of Mexico rose, doubling the effect of the change. Lake Tambour became a map label in an open sea of salt water. Today, 98% of the Isle’s land is gone.

When the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers began to build a 72-mile system of levees, dams and locks to protect the southern Louisiana coast in the early 2000s, it decided it was too expensive to include Isle de Jean Charles, and so it cut the small Indigenous community of around 325 people out of the protection zone. Isle de Jean Charles was forsaken as irredeemable, counted among the first sacrifices of sovereign land that the U.S. government would make to climate change. And ever since the Corps’ decision, the people living there have been forced to consider where they’ll go when they lose their land entirely. By the time of Katrina, they had started to negotiate a way out — a total and complete retreat. It seemed likely that a community that had held together for hundreds of years would be scattered on the wind. Their hope was that if they fled all at once, they could move together. Perhaps the fabric of community and spiritual support, and the legacy of culture and heritage, could be preserved. It just might have to be moved somewhere else, though.

Colette Pichon Battle watched that painful progression to her south and wanted nothing of it. Her heart ached at the injustice she observed there, where an Indigenous tribal community could not rally the same protections from their representatives in the towering capitol buildings in Baton Rouge and Washington as the wealthier, white towns around them, and where they were left to fend for themselves against the consequences of an upheaval they did not cause.

In her town, the rebuilding process unfolded slowly. The displaced, she said, returned on weekends, driving determinedly from Atlanta or Dallas to swing hammers and cart off debris. Mary Pichon Battle, who had moved to join family in Dallas, visited once in a while, too. But when she came, little was familiar. St. Genevieve’s, the Catholic church with its small cupola sitting on an idyllic grassy shoreline on the edge of the bayou, had collapsed into a heap of broken red brick. Never mind that right up until the storm the congregants sat segregated, with Slidell’s white residents on one side and its Creole parishioners on the other. To Mary it represented home and God, so she joined makeshift prayer sessions on the heavily damaged church grounds, gathering in the shade of a majestic oak tree. Colette and her mother both thought only about the day the homecoming could be permanent.

But a tree on uneven ground under the hot Louisiana sun was no match for Mary’s ever-more frail and tired body — even if it did offer a reunion of brothers and neighbors. The discomfort began to overshadow the joy. In town, the visits grew demoralizing and progress less and less visible. Abandonment began to happen quietly. “At first, after the storm, it’s volunteers pulling out trash,” says Colette, about all the work the community did in the months after the disaster. “Then, it’s not destruction, but the aftermath of destruction.” Streets and yards get cleaned up, but homes are not yet rebuilt and people still do not live there.

The faces in the grocery store remain unfamiliar, the fence-line conversations with neighbors infrequent, the fence lines themselves overgrown with vines because there is no one there to tend them. This stage, the reconstruction stage, demands that people dig deep into their pockets and savings — often savings they do not have. Each visit back to Slidell becomes a reminder of the burden and the stress. Eventually, the space between the trips got longer, and more painful. The fights with the government and insurers for payment became more desperate, and less successful and more exhausting. The applications for federal and state aid more futile, and less fair.

The years passed, and suddenly it was a decade since the storm. Eventually, people gave up. So began another stage of migration, not the stage in which people flee, but the one in which they decide never to come home. In Slidell, the periodic visits were saved for special occasions, crawfish boils, communions and funerals. Then, even those slowed. “You realize they got their voting card in a different city … or it just became easier to go to church at your kids’ home in Atlanta or wherever,” Colette says. “Your community is now dispersed across the U.S., and the thing that kept us together was proximity and seeing each other all the time. And so eventually, you lose the culture.” Her mother, Mary, was never to return home. Slidell’s Creole existence — the language — slipped away with her. She had graduated from “climate displaced” to “climate migrant.”

That is not to say that Slidell, though, shriveled up and died, the way Isle de Jean Charles was dying. Viewed through the lens of climate migration, Slidell, and all of St. Tammany Parish around it, was a confounding place. Because even as those who were displaced found it unlivable, others found it irresistibly inviting. The dramatic change facing southern Louisiana was relative — better for some than where they began, worse for others for the fragility it brought. Though Slidell’s loss was devastating for Colette and the long-standing community she’d been raised in, the small city seemed like refuge to people coming from farther south. And so it became a stopping point for climate evacuees fleeing from other, even more vulnerable places. Even today in Slidell, people can’t decide if they are coming or going. The small city is strangely booming.

There are some 60 miles still between Slidell and the actual coast of the state of Louisiana. In late 2022, I drove east on State Route 90 north of Houma, then south along vanishing branches of land until I reached what felt like the end of the earth. Billboards advertised Hurricaneaid.com, and in places huge trees lay lodged against the broken walls they’d fallen on during Ida a year earlier. The roofs of many houses still had gaping holes, all signs that people here were unable to recover from one storm before the next one hit.

Soon enough, though, it’s not the dilapidation, but the water that commands my attention. It is suddenly everywhere. Just as when you’re standing on a broad, flat beach while the tide comes in, you almost don’t notice the loss of land until it is already gone. Lawns fade into water, which looks swollen and rises right to the joists of the bridges that connect each driveway to the main road. The farther south I go, the closer the water comes to the pavement, until it is but an inch or two shy and in places spills out over it. More and more homes here, entering the towns of Montegut and then Pointe-aux-Chenes, sit destroyed from earlier storms, and there are fewer signs of rebuilding, more indications of surrender. Boats sit dry and askew on their hulls in driveways. I pass what looks like a small orange spaceship — a flying saucer of metal with sealed portal windows like a submarine. It is an escape pod, likely washed ashore from one of the large oil platforms in the Gulf. And there is a sense that here, too, people will one day need it.

Then the road ends. It had to end. I bumped up over a levee and passed through an enormous steel floodgate, 15 feet high, at least 5 feet thick, built in 2017 as a part of the larger coastal hurricane protection system that is the state’s last defense. On the other side, the expansive, sunny sky drops straight to the water, which, though calm and at low tide, now brims over the top of the road and into a parking lot. On this day, the lot is full of pickup trucks and boat trailers belonging to people who drove here, to the end of the road, for a day of fishing. In the distance, the scraggly skeletons of tall, once-majestic trees reach up out of the cordgrass, a reminder that not long ago this wasn’t marshland at all. To the right, across a canal and outside the protection zone of the levee, I can see Isle de Jean Charles. A sign on the side of the marina building with half its roof torn off reads, “Bayou Living. Kick back and relax.”

In the 18 years since Katrina, Louisiana’s southernmost territories had started to hollow out, steadily accelerating their quiet migration northward as Louisianans fled their coast. It is, indeed, the next great migration already well underway. In St. Bernard Parish, the thin escarpment of delicate soil still extending east from downtown New Orleans and the levees of the Mississippi River, the population has decreased by 39%. The houses that remain tower above the land, having been raised on to stilts 10 feet — even 25 feet — into the sky. They indicate that the people who remain are committed to live on land they know is disappearing, and that they will stay there, for a while longer anyway, content to treat their homes like islands.

In Orleans Parish, just a few miles south of Slidell across the Interstate 10 bridge, there are 17% fewer residents today than in 2005. In New Orleans itself, where more than two-thirds of the city’s residents left during Hurricane Katrina, the population still hasn’t recovered. Katrina, it turns out, wasn’t a singular anomalous crisis. It was the beginning of a new era in which the reality of the storms and coastal surges was plain to see and looked nothing like the past. People began to realize that adaptation was less of an option than it used to be. Many simply had to leave. Almost every parish closest to the coast — parishes that have been protected by seawalls and levees, or whose residents have taken advantage of decades of subsidized coastal insurance and federal flood insurance programs incentivizing people to stay and rebuild — has been fast losing population despite those efforts. In those places all the legal mechanisms and incentives that for decades blinded society to the real costs of climate change are beginning to crumble as the true scale of change looms on the horizon.

And yet the population of St. Tammany Parish, where Slidell and Liberty Bayou are, has grown by 40%. People flee. And others arrive. Slidell has become the odd epicenter of America’s new era of climate migration. In 2012, a new seawall was built around the inner core of Slidell, and thousands of new homes were erected across bulldozed spits of marshland infill. Families leaving the parishes farther south stopped here. The price of homes has skyrocketed, driving gentrification that makes it even more difficult for poorer, long-standing residents to rebuild or to find a new home. Traffic is a growing concern; when a single dry causeway is all that connects islands, a car accident can grind life to a standstill. And state and local officials here have adopted language used by migration experts around the world, calling Slidell a “receiver community,” as refugees from the land south of it take new homes.

It all goes to show that there will be no clear-cut boundaries or perfect tipping points for climate and migration. Change, here, means two steps forward and one back, as a mélange of competing and conflicting interests all swirl in cycles of short-term opportunities that may later recede to reveal the persistence of long-term trends. A place can grow even as its core shrivels. A climate migration event, as it begins, comes into focus not as a sharply defined arrow pointing north, but as a hodgepodge of conflicting signals. It suggests that even as the nation’s population shifts north — which on balance it inevitably will — and receiving communities must prepare for mass migration, a part of this evolution will be the story of those who remain in place. And it billboards the fact that new policies and leadership will be demanded by these circumstances, not just to help growing places plan for their future, but to soften the landing of the people left behind.

It’s a strange phenomenon to see residents from Louisiana’s southern coast taking refuge in Slidell, because Slidell isn’t exactly high ground. Much of the city is merely 13 feet above sea level. Parts of it, including the bayou where Colette’s family home is, are significantly lower. So when the people in St. Tammany Parish compete for access to this place and approve building permits for a thousand homes on spits of land with only gabion walls — structures of wire filled with stone — to protect them against the waves of Lake Pontchartrain, what they are really fighting for are the slivers of slightly higher ground, the marginal leftovers, so to speak, between New Orleans to the south and Baton Rouge to the west. Here, the lenders will still lend and the insurers will still engage.

But for how long? Eventually, the lands encircling Slidell are going to be worse off than they are today, and the people moving there may well have no choice but to move on again. In 50 years, according to St. Tammany Parish’s own planning documents, the region encircling Slidell could often be under 6 to 15 feet of water, except for the core protected by a levee. And yet they build anyway.

Several years after Katrina, Colette sat in a community auditorium to hear a team of professors describe the coming sea level changes to the people who lived in the parish. The professors showed a series of time-lapse satellite images of a receding and flooded shoreline. It was something already well-known to researchers, but this was the first time Colette recalls it being shown to the people living in the places that were to be affected. “You see your community is going, and they tell you that this is going to happen no matter what,” Colette said. “So even if we are successful in what we do next, we will lose those places. I couldn’t believe what I saw, that this place I hold so dear and that I have such a long memory of, all of those stories are going to go. Who I am and what I am describing is going to be lost. It’s surreal. That land for me and the right to be there was tied to our freedom. It was the difference between being enslaved and not. And to lose that was to lose everything.”

This content originally appeared on Articles and Investigations - ProPublica and was authored by by Abrahm Lustgarten.

China’s state-owned Xinhua News Agency reported Sunday Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, on an official visit to China, said the U.S. “appreciates the progress made in U.S.-China economic dialogue and cooperation, does not seek ‘decoupling’ from China.”

Xinhua reported that the remarks were made during Yellen’s “candid” meeting with the Chinese Premier Li Qiang at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. It did not mention any reciprocal comment from Li regarding decoupling.

Yellen’s meeting with Li is also the highest level of contact between the world’s two biggest and rivaling economies since  the phone call between the U.S. President Joe Biden and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping last week. 

The two leaders discussed China’s “destabilizing actions” against U.S. ally the Philippines in the South China Sea, its support for Russia in the war in Ukraine, a new security law in Hong Kong and Taiwan’s upcoming presidential inauguration, a U.S. official had said.

The phone call came ahead of Yellen’s visit and a pending trip by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken “in the coming weeks,” according to the official.

Prior to her China trip where her first leg began in the southern city of Guangzhou, Yellen had raised concerns of China’s excess manufacturing capacity, accusing Beijing of “flooding” markets by heavily subsidizing products like electric vehicles, lithium-ion batteries and solar panels to revive economic and export growth.

But during her meeting with Li in Beijing, the Chinese premier pushed back on Yellen’s assertion, according to Xinhua which quoted him as saying the U.S. should “refrain from turning economic and trade issues into political or security issues, and view the issue of production capacity objectively and dialectically from a market-oriented and global perspective.”

Li stressed that the development of China's new energy industry will make important contributions to the global green and low-carbon transition. China hopes the two countries, whose economic interests are deeply intertwined, will be partners rather than adversaries for a win-win cooperation, he added.

According to a U.S. Treasury Department readout Sunday, the meeting between Yellen and Li was “frank and productive,” where she raised issues of concern, including industrial overcapacity in China and the impact that could have on American workers and firms. She also emphasized the importance of working together on global challenges, including debt distress in low-income and emerging economies.

This year is an election year in the United States, and the Chinese economy is facing a series of severe challenges involving pillar industries such as real estate and exports, as well as debt and employment.

Sunday’s meeting was Yellen’s second face-to-face meeting with Chinese officials in nine months to discuss thorny U.S.-China trade issues.

According to international media reports, Yellen told Li that bilateral relations are now more stable because the two sides can have “difficult” discussions. But she stressed, “That doesn’t mean ignoring our differences or avoiding difficult conversations. It means understanding that we can only make progress if we communicate with each other directly and openly.”

Reuters quoted a senior U.S. Treasury Department official as saying after the meeting that the two sides discussed in detail China’s industrial overcapacity problem and the government support that contributes to the problem. Li has shown a willingness to let the U.S. and Chinese economic teams explore the issue further.

Translated by RFA Staff. Edited by Mike Firn and Taejun Kang.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By He Ping for RFA Mandarin.

We continue our conversation with Israeli journalist and filmmaker Yuval Abraham about the award-winning new documentary No Other Land, which he co-directed with Palestinian activist Basel Adra, about land dispossession in Masafer Yatta in the occupied West Bank. While accepting the audience award for best documentary at the Berlinale, Abraham said Israel was practicing apartheid, a comment for which he later received death threats. “You have German politicians who are not Jewish who labeled me as an antisemite. For what? For calling for a ceasefire? For calling for equality between Israelis and Palestinians? For using the word 'apartheid,' which should be common sense to describe these parallel systems of inequality?” says Abraham, who calls for an end to the “apartheid reality” in Israel and Palestine. “If there is no full political equality and really full freedom to everybody who lives in this land, then there can be no future here. We are going to continue to fight to change this.”

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

A senior National Court judge in Papua New Guinea has dismissed an expatriate prisoner’s request to have his sentence suspended due to poor health.

The state prosecutions objected to the request saying he was a main actor in the crime and deserved the highest penalty of 25 years’ imprisonment.

Justice Mogish then said: “It could be seen as a double standard.”

Melyne Baroi is a PNG Post-Courier reporter. Republished with permission.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

Right-Wing influencer Ajeet Bharti tweeted a video of the alleged incident. At the end of the video, CJI Chandrachud seems to be getting up from his seat. Bharti said, “Wow! The lawyer kept speaking, and Chandrachud got up and left without saying anything! This video shows how arrogant and disrespectful the judiciary can be with its familial talent and appropriate DNA sequence-bearing judges. This is the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court!” He later deleted the tweet. (Archive)

The readers should note that Alt News has found Ajeet Bharti sharing misinformation several times in the past.

User @AmitLeliSlayer also tweeted the same video with the same claim. (Archive)

Bhaag gaya Pencho Miyalord pic.twitter.com/rUHKnEb1ah

— Boiled Anda (Modi’s Family) (@AmitLeliSlayer) March 18, 2024

Verified user Jayesh Mehta quote-tweeted the viral video and called it a gross humiliation and insult to the Government of India. The user also suggested that all the judges including CJI Chandrachud should be “hauled up and forced to resign by the President of India”. (Archive)

How can the #CJI behave in this manner?
SG is presenting his arguments before him and without adjourning, he and other judges simply walked away..
This is gross humiliation and insult to the Govt of India..
All the judges including the CJI Chandrachud, should be hauled up and,… https://t.co/vS1n74sFSX

— Jayesh Mehta (@JMehta65) March 18, 2024

Several other users amplified the viral claim. (Archives- 1, 2, 3, 4)

Fact Check

The full-length live stream of the hearing is available on the YouTube channel of the Supreme Court of India. This is a live streaming of Supreme Court proceedings on March 18. We located the viral bit at approximately 27:06 of the YouTube livestream. CJI Chandrachud can be seen getting up to readjust himself in the chair and the hearing continues.

Around this time, SG Mehta is heard discussing the implications of the Supreme Court’s decision regarding disclosing the details of electoral bonds. “My purpose is to inform your Lordships that there is something else playing which neither your Lordships intended, not the scheme intended… On 11th of March, we thought that this information would help the voters to take a call whether to vote for a particular party or not..” At this point, CJI Chandrachud says, “Okay, we’ll… [inaudible] the order.” Then he repositions himself in his chair and tries to dictate the order, but gets interrupted by other lawyers.

Hence, it is clear that several Right Wing users tried to mislead their followers by claiming that Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud walked out in the middle of the hearing when solicitor general Tushar Mehta was making his arguments. Alt News found that the CJI had got up to reposition himself in the chair and the hearing continued. The viral video has been clipped in a way that it suggests the CJI got up from his chair.

The post No, CJI Chandrachud did not leave in the middle of electoral bonds hearing appeared first on Alt News.

This content originally appeared on Alt News and was authored by Shinjinee Majumder.

A verified X (formerly Twitter) user posted the viral clip with a caption in Hindi that can be roughly translated as – ‘Kharge Sahab is also saying that Congress is dividing the country in the name of caste.’ (Archive)

खरगे साहब भी कह रहा है कि कॉंग्रेस जाति के नाम पर देश को डिवाइड कर रही है

That’s #WhyModi pic.twitter.com/bmbjIHFVGd

— Himanta Biswa Sarma ( Congressiyon ke Papa) Parody (@HimantaBiswa_S) March 7, 2024

Another user posted on Facebook with a similar claim that the Congress President had inadvertently condemned his own party. (Archive)

Fact Check

Alt News ran a reverse image search on one of the key frames from the viral video, and came across this YouTube video posted by the news channel, Times Bharat, on February 16, 2024. The caption indicates that the speech is from a Congress rally held at Aurangabad, Bihar, as a part of the Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra, in February 2024.

We ran a relevant keyword search on Google and came across this video uploaded by the official channel of Congress on YouTube.

In the full speech, Kharge speaks about the party’s commitment to conducting socio-economic caste surveys in order to assess the progress of various communities in India since its independence. 

At the 13:11 mark, Kharge can be heard exclaiming ‘Modi says that the Congress Party is always trying to divide the country on the basis of caste differences…What are we doing? All we are trying to do is provide justice to the people’ (Translation from Hindi). It is thus evident that he attributes the comment from the viral clip to Prime Minister Modi, criticizing him for not supporting the move for the caste survey. 

In the small clip which has gone viral, the segment of the speech where Kharge mentions PM Modi’s name has been cut out to make it look like Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge is blaming his own party for the division of the country on the basis of caste. 

To sum up, the viral clip is part of a longer speech by Mallikarjun Kharge, wherein he implicates Prime Minister Modi for not supporting the nationwide caste survey. The claim that the Congress president criticized his own party for dividing the country on caste-based differences is thus false. 

Prantik Ali is an intern at Alt News.

The post No, Mallikarjun Kharge did not say Congress had divided India on caste appeared first on Alt News.

This content originally appeared on Alt News and was authored by Prantik Ali.

More than 400 people have reportedly been detained in Russia for publicly mourning the death of Alexei Navalny, who died in an Arctic penal colony on Friday at age 47. He was the most prominent critic of Vladimir Putin in Russia and was serving a 19-year sentence at the time of his death on “extremism” charges. U.S. President Joe Biden and other Western leaders directly have blamed Putin for Navalny’s death. Prison authorities say Navalny died of “sudden death syndrome,” but his family has not yet been given access to his body to allow for an independent autopsy. For more, we speak with Russian American writer Masha Gessen, who charts Navalny’s political evolution from an ethnonationalist libertarian tapping into “xenophobic discontent” to an anti-corruption activist promoting a vision of civic nationalism. “I have no doubt … that he was killed,” says Gessen. “Putin was determined to see Navalny die in prison.”

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

Campbell, previously the Indo-Pacific Affairs coordinator on the White House’s National Security Council, was confirmed in an overwhelming 92-5 vote to replace Wendy Sherman, who retired in July.

During his confirmation hearing in December, Campbell said he would prioritize the strategic threat posed by China if confirmed, and coax the Senate to ratify the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea to help push back against Beijing’s expansive South China Sea claims.

“Even our allies and partners say, ‘Hey, wait a second. You're holding China to account to something you yourself haven't signed up for?’” Campbell said at the time. “We've gotten very close in the past; I'd love to get that over the finish line. It'll be challenging. I'm committed to it.”

During the hearing, he was praised by Democrats and Republicans alike, with Sen. Bill Hagerty, a Republican from Tennessee who was the ambassador to Japan during the Trump administration, praising Campbell for his “most helpful, most insightful” guidance.

In the Obama administration, Campbell was credited as being the architect of the president’s “pivot to Asia,” which aimed to reorient U.S. foreign policy away from the Middle East toward East Asia. In the current White House, he has been credited with reinvigorating “the Quad” dialogue between the United States, Australia, India and Japan.

Campbell’s appointment shows the Biden administration’s increasing focus on China in its foreign policy. The longtime public servant was described as being possibly “the biggest China hawk of them all” by Politico upon his appointment to the White House in 2021.

However, he also led the charge in organizing last year’s high-profile summit in San Francisco between U.S. President Joe Biden and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, which paved the way for the ongoing easing of diplomatic tensions between Washington and Beijing.