opendemocracy.net

Bank of America and Goldman Sachs have both been lauded for their LGBTIQ-friendly workplaces. But tax filings uncovered by openDemocracy show nonprofit foundations linked to the banks have also funded ultraconservative groups fighting to roll back civil rights for the queer community worldwide....

Sir Patrick Vallance, the government’s former chief scientific adviser, made the comments in his diary on 14 December 2020, amid a huge Covid wave that led to the third UK-wide lockdown and killed 1,000 people a day at its peak....

Claire Coutinho, appointed minister for energy security and net zero this week, was a senior fellow to the opaquely funded right-wing Policy Exchange, a think tank that helped write the UK’s controversial Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act after explicitly stating the government should pass legislation to target...

cross-posted from: sh.itjust.works/post/7954951...

Bogus defamation and privacy claims are often made to intimidate and financially exhaust journalists and media outlets into dropping investigations into corruption or other crimes by wealthy individuals.

OpenDemocracy.net

The right paved the way for once-unthinkable bans by first pursuing goals that were more palatable to the public, using bathroom bills and school sports bans to normalise hateful anti-trans rhetoric in the American public sphere. This tactic has been effective....

“I will have to leave this country,” Natalia*, a human rights lawyer, told openDemocracy. “Otherwise, there will most likely be legal consequences for me because what I’m doing can ‘spread banned propaganda’.”...

The Israeli leader is emboldened by a hard-right coalition and frustrated with calls for humanitarian pause in Gaza, writes Paul Rogers is Emeritus Professor of Peace Studies in the Department of Peace Studies and International Relations at Bradford University, and an Honorary Fellow at the Joint Service Command and Staff...

The claim, branded “horrific” by bereaved families, emerged from notebooks kept by Imran Shafi, Johnson’s private secretary for public service, during the UK Covid-19 Inquiry, an investigation that has been set up to examine the UK’s response to and impact of the pandemic....

A court order can be issued but the enforcement of that order is also critical. Allegations of forced labour, human trafficking and union busting, it is “typical of international corporate companies to disregard” laws in the continent.

Recently drove in Scotland where built up areas generally have 20mph speed limits. I found It made little difference in overall journey time Felt safer, stopping distance much reduced Easier to join the traffic Similar speed as cyclists Felt safer and more relaxed as a pedestrian, easier to cross the road

Those who stayed in Russia but didn’t want to fight had to avoid being contacted by the military bureaucracy – for example, by moving immediately to a new apartment or city, changing their phone number and leaving their social media accounts. Several NGOs and mass media outlets published guides on how to “run away from the...

Kier Starmer is the leader of Labour, the largest opposition party in the UK.

There’s going to be an Urgent Question on the prisons crisis after PMQs today, so I thought I’d share this for some helpful background info.

The WhatsApp group, called ‘PM Updates’, contained Boris Johnson’s closest advisers and discussions within the group touched on key Covid policies – such as shielding the clinically vulnerable, and the Department of Health and Social Care’s plans for responding to the pandemic....

Civic groups are fast, flexible and innovative, and will be a key driver in “building back better”, said Inna Pidluska, deputy director of the Renaissance Foundation, which fights for a stronger role for civil society in reconstruction....

The Department of Business and Trade said it would suspend and review its export licences for arms to Israel in light of the reported civilian killings. It said the licences were “under continual review” but there were “no immediate plans to stop arms export licences to Israel”....

Alex Thomas, a former civil servant from the Cabinet Office and Department of Health and now a programme director at the non-partisan think tank the Institute for Government, told the inquiry political figures and senior civil servants insulting each other behind people’s backs was “more common than it should be”....

The police will be able to use their discretion except when instructed by the government.

In June, Braverman used secondary legislation – which is subject to less parliamentary scrutiny – to allow police to restrict or shut down any protest that they believe could cause “more than minor disruption to the life of the community”....

At least 25 local councils have now been left responsible for preventing more than 500 Afghans becoming homeless, including 300 children. Some have been allowed to stay in the hotels on a temporary basis but had their meals withdrawn overnight. One man in Bradford said there were no fridges or cooking facilities, meaning he and...