Source: Al Jazeera [Qatari state media]
“A French court has found cement group Lafarge guilty of financing ‘terrorism’ through its Syrian subsidiary, fining the company and jailing its former CEO. The Paris court ruled on Monday that Lafarge had paid protection money directly to ISIL (ISIS) and other armed groups and breached European sanctions to operate in northern Syria during the country’s civil war in 2013-2014. The case is just the latest of several concerning the company’s conduct during the conflict. The court ordered Lafarge to pay a fine of 1.12 million euros ($1.32m), and for 30 million euros ($35.1m) worth of its assets to be confiscated. An additional fine was levied for having disregarded international sanctions. The ruling can be appealed.” (04/13/26)
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/4/13/french-court-rules-cement-giant-lafarge-guilty-of-funding-syrian-terrorism
Source: The Reframe
by AR Moxon
“If you live where I live, which is the United States, your country has been at war overseas for the last many weeks, and also for your entire life. The latest iteration of this war is between a fanatical religious autocracy whose militaristic posture, nuclear ambitions, and zeal for apocalyptic outcomes threatens the future of human life on the planet, and Iran. Yes, despite the best efforts of corporate media propaganda outlets to try to channel the U.S.’s latest needless adventures in overseas civilian-murder into more traditional narratives of American exceptionalism, it has not escaped the attention of most people that the current temporary U.S. president and longtime child rapist Don Trump is utterly deranged.” (04/13/26)
https://www.the-reframe.com/a-confrontation-with-truth
Source: Miami Herald
“Keiko Fujimori appeared headed for yet another presidential runoff in Peru after early results from Sunday’s election showed her leading a fragmented field, setting up a potential showdown with ultraconservative former Lima mayor Rafael López Aliaga in a vote shaped by rising crime, political instability and disputes over the electoral process. … The preliminary outcome, if confirmed, would mark the fourth consecutive time Fujimori advances to a second round. She previously lost runoffs in 2011, 2016 and 2021, but her latest showing suggests she remains one of the most durable political figures in the country despite years of polarization surrounding her candidacy and the legacy of her father, former President Alberto Fujimori, the authoritarian leader who governed Peru from 1990 to 2000, and who remains one of the country’s most polarizing figures.” (04/13/26)
https://archive.is/ChYLA
Source: TomDispatch
by Robert Lipsyte
“Seventy-five years ago, my father and I gazed down from the stands at Joe DiMaggio and Mickey Mantle in the outfield at Yankee Stadium. I was thrilled by the sight of two heroes of my time, but Dad was not impressed. He had seen Babe Ruth. I think about that now, in a time desperate for such symbolic representatives of our better selves, which we once derived from sports figures like Mickey, Joe, and the Babe. They distracted us from pain and poverty. They gave us hope. I wonder if the answer to ‘Where Have You Gone, Joe DiMaggio?’ (that line from Simon and Garfunkel’s famed song ‘Mrs. Robinson’) is the same as to so many other wrenching questions these days: Donald Trump. Consider the following: Until he wore himself (and his welcome) out with such excess, he was indeed superb at commanding attention and winning ugly.” (04/12/26)
https://tomdispatch.com/trump-as-the-goat/
Source: Engadget
“Many countries are pursuing social media bans for anyone under 16, but a recent poll is putting the effectiveness of such laws into question. The Molly Rose Foundation, a charity organization that focuses on preventing online harm, recently published a study that polled 1,050 Australian children between ages 12 and 15 in March. The study’s results showed that 61 percent of those between 12 and 15 who previously had access to affected social media platforms still have one or more active accounts. Australia made a first-in-the-world decision to ban social media for those under 16 years old, beginning on December 10. While it’s only been a few months since the ban went into effect, the foundation’s poll concluded that the ban doesn’t have a ‘clear positive or negative impact on children’s wellbeing.’ The study also noted that 70 percent of children trying to get on restricted platforms said that it was easy to get around the ban.” (04/13/26)
https://www.engadget.com/social-media/majority-of-australian-kids-are-still-on-banned-social-media-platforms-study-finds-162922768.html
Source: Paul Krugman
by Paul Krugman
“[W]hile Orbán didn’t manage to end elections in Hungary — probably because Hungary remains highly dependent on aid from the European Union — he tried hard to lock in one-party rule. His party largely killed the free press, making sure that its allies controlled the media. It rigged the electoral system in ways that would allow it to stay in power unless there was a landslide vote for opposition parties. Again, it did what MAGA is trying to do in America. But despite (or perhaps partly because of) JD Vance’s unprecedented campaigning for Orbán, he was, in fact, handed a landslide defeat by the Hungarian people. And to his credit, Orbán did what Trump never has: he conceded defeat.” (04/13/26)
https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/the-axis-of-autocracy-loses-a-wheel
Source: Liberal Currents
by Matthew McManus
“Conservatism, and even more radical forms of right-wing thought, has often been defended with insight and even profundity. Liberals and leftists would benefit from spending more time internalizing the wisdom of the right. Nevertheless Mill, who was very familiar with intelligent right-wing contemporaries like Carlyle and Coleridge, grasped an important point that Kirk rarely acknowledged: the undeniable anti-intellectual streak that has pervaded the right down to Donald Trump declaring his love for the uneducated and JD Vance proclaiming professors are the enemy. This is a feature, not a bug, of many (though obviously not all) on the right’s worldview.” (04/13/26)
https://www.liberalcurrents.com/the-right-wants-you-stupid/
Source: CBS News
“The federal government has agreed to officially restore the Pride flag that was removed from the Stonewall National Monument in New York’s Greenwich Village. The move marks a reversal by the Trump administration, which had the flag removed back in February. It comes on the heels of a lawsuit brought by several nonprofit groups against Department of Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, the National Park Service and others. The agreement to restore the flag settles the lawsuit. The National Park Service said it removed the flag under guidance from the Department of Interior, which had said non-agency flags could not be officially displayed on flagpoles managed by the National Park Service.” (04/13/26)
https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/news/stonewall-national-monument-pride-flag-restored/
Source: Niskanen Center
“Recovering the lost genius of liberalism, with Adrian Wooldridge.” (04/13/26)
https://www.niskanencenter.org/recovering-the-lost-genius-of-liberalism-with-adrian-wooldridge
Source: The UnPopulust
by Laszlo Gendler
“Magyar’s victory was not supposed to be possible. Orbán was not supposed to lose his grip on power. How, exactly, did Orbán fail to steal the election? The structural advantages were real and formidable. The gerrymandered electoral map had delivered Fidesz 135 seats on 54% of the vote in 2022. Campaign spending limits had been abolished. Fidesz and its proxies outspent Tisza 11 to 1 on advertising. … Part of the answer is that the EU held its ground. The €19 billion in frozen funds — suspended over rule-of-law violations — became a material argument that Orbán’s system carried a direct cost for ordinary Hungarians. … But the larger answer, put simply, is bravery. Autocracy runs on fear—on the assumption that enough people, confronted with sufficient consequences, will decide that compliance is safer than truth. What dismantled Orbán’s operation was the accumulation of individual decisions to the contrary.” (04/13/26)
https://www.theunpopulist.net/p/orban-lost-spectacularly-because
