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On February 1, 2021, the Myanmar military arrested de facto head of state Aung San Suu Kyi and other elected politicians and declared a national emergency, giving absolute power to commander-in-chief Min Aung Hlaing.

The coup marked a dramatic political backslide in a country that had been moving toward democracy for the past decade, and triggered widespread unrest. Peaceful protests erupted nationally, government workers launched a civil disobedience movement, and millions of students boycotted school.

Over the following months, soldiers and police fatally shot hundreds of protesters and jailed thousands of dissidents. In response, young people began heading to the forests and mountains by the thousands, seeking training in combat warfare.

One of them was Rupa, a recent high school graduate. She had been living with her parents in the central city of Pyin Oo Lwin at the time of the coup, waiting for schools to reopen after a year of COVID-19-related closures so she could start university. But after witnessing the mobilization of the Myanmar public via social media, she decided to put her education on hold and join the anti-junta uprising.

Known as the Spring Revolution, the uprising seeks to remove the military from power and establish a federal democracy; many but not all of its supporters advocate for an armed as well as a nonviolent response. The movement advocates not only for an end to military rule but also for a more inclusive and just society, and a decentralized political system that addresses the long-standing grievances of ethnic minorities across the country.

When we spoke with Rupa in October 2024, she said that she was initially inspired to action by the diversity and energy of the movement, even though her political awareness at the time was limited. “I didn’t fully understand politics, revolution, or armed resistance,” she said. Still, she felt it was the “right time for me to participate and take responsibility for my country.” (To reduce the risk of retaliation against her or her family, she has been given a pseudonym.)

Author: Unknown
Published on: 29/04/2025 | 00:00:00

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I heard there were massive blackouts in Spain Portugal and parts of France. If you can still somehow access the Internet, how are you doing?

Karla Jay remembers joining the second night of street protests during the 1969 Stonewall uprising in New York City. For her, and for so many other LGBTQ+ people, something had shifted: People were angry. They didn’t want things to go back to normal—because normal meant police raids. Normal meant living underground. It meant hiding who they were at their jobs and from their families. They wanted a radical change.

Radical change meant organizing. Jay joined a meeting with the Gay Liberation Front, which would become the incubator for the modern LGBTQ+ political movement and proliferate in chapters across the country. At those meetings, she remembers discussing what freedom could look like. Holding hands with a lover while walking down the street without fear of getting beaten up, one person said. Another said they’d like to get married. At the time, those dreams seemed impossible.

Jay, now 78, is worried that history will repeat itself. She’s worried that LGBTQ+ people will be put in the dark again by the draconian policies of a second Trump administration.

“Are things worse than they were before Stonewall? Not yet,” she said. “It’s certainly possible that people will have to go back to underground lives, that trans people will have to flee to Canada, but it’s not worse yet.”

The 19th spoke with several LGBTQ+ elders, including Jay, about what survival looks like under a hostile political regime and what advice they would give to young LGBTQ+ people right now.

“I recall Midwestern summer nights, standing on my grandparents’ hushed lawn,” Ray Bradbury told me in 2010, “and looking up at the sky at the confetti field of stars. There were millions of suns out there, and millions of planets rotating around those suns. And I knew there was life out there, in the great vastness. We are just too far apart, separated by too great a distance to reach one another.”

For the young Bradbury, who would grow up to make that great vastness feel, to many, as almost as tangible as home, there was one celestial body more captivating than any other: Mars.

Mars: The fourth planet from our sun, some 140 million miles from us on average. The only planet in our solar system, other than our own, deemed by scientists and stargazers over the centuries to be—possibly, at one time—hospitable to life.

The planet has been part of our collective imagination for centuries, from the tales of ancient mythology, to H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds, to David Bowie’s The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders of Mars. Ray Bradbury may have been yet another in a long line of artists dreaming about Mars, but he was the first science fiction writer to elevate the planetary tale beyond the marginalized gutter of “genre fiction,” with his 1950 story cycle The Martian Chronicles.

While Bradbury’s 1953 novel Fahrenheit 451 is often cited as his crowning achievement, it was The Martian Chronicles—arguably a superior work—that put his name on the literary map. The Martian Chronicles was published by Doubleday 75 years ago, on May 4th, 1950. Until that point, science fiction had been mostly dismissed by the firmament as “kids’ stuff,” littered as it was with pulpy tropes such as ray guns, little green men, and scantily clad damsels in distress. But The Martian Chronicles subverted all that, addressing a range of vital, vexing, timeless societal themes in the midst of McCarthy era America: nuclear war, genocide, environmental destruction, the rise of technology, corporatization, censorship, and racism.

Lamentably, these themes still tower over us in the Trumpian zeitgeist all these years later, but their continuing relevance only underscores the point: The Martian Chronicles is a serious book about serious human themes. It is science fiction as a reflection of modernity. The writing is exquisite, showcasing Bradbury at the dizzying height of his poetic prowess, lyrical, rich in metaphor, pastoral, with stunning passages of seemingly effortless prose, eschewing the occasionally purple passages of certain other works, like Something Wicked This Way Comes, and the more dialogue driven polemics of Fahrenheit 451. It hits the sweet spot between poetic exposition and complete narrative originality. With its publication, Ray Bradbury, not quite 30 years old, had pulled off a tour de force magique—he had created literary science fiction, and the intelligentsia quickly took notice.

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I posted a few days ago a screenshot of the long shader ISA code produced by the RGA compiler for a single atan2() instruction. The post got quite a large engagement and it felt like a lot of peopl…

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 has sold over a million copies, publisher Kepler Interactive has announced.

We already knew the debut RPG from developer Sandfall Interactive got off to a flying start given it hit a sales milestone of 500,000 copies sold within 24 hours, and now it's doubled that.

"And here we are. Three days after launch. One million copies sold. Thank you for believing in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33," the studio said on social media over the weekend.

That's not the only milestone it hit, either. According to SteamDB, over the weekend Clair Obscur hit a concurrent peak of 121,422 players on Steam. That's significantly ahead of the concurrent peak of any other game from notable RPG developer Atlus, including fellow RPG darling Metaphor: ReFantazio, which released in October 2024 and boasts a concurrent peak of 85,961 players.

Of course, concurrent records are not indicative of the entire player base — Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 also released on PS5, PC, and Xbox Series X and S, and was a day-one launch on the Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscription — so the actual number of players who jumped in over the weekend is likely much highly than that, suggesting Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is very popular right now.

In IGN's 9/10 review of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, we described it as a "modern RPG classic." Developed by the newly formed studio Sandfall Interactive, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is a turn-based RPG that takes heavy inspiration from the genre classics, and follows a crew of Expeditioners in a post-apocalyptic world where each year, a giant being called The Paintress etches a new number and erases anyone older than it. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 sees you join the crew that travels to the ends of the continent to destroy the Paintress.

If you started over the weekend, or are maybe thinking of jumping in this week, be sure to check out our tips for the important things to know before going into Clair Obscur: Expedition 33.

I'm usually a fan of turn based games (unless it's tactical grid based) but I've gotta say I'm having a great time with this game!

The broadcaster gets the Who Do You Think You Are? treatment. Plus: Joe Lycett’s big Brummie adventure continues. Here’s what to watch this evening

9pm, BBC OneBroadcaster Mishal Husain has written a book about her grandparents’ experience of the end of the British empire in India and the formation of Pakistan – and now she takes an utterly absorbing journey through her family history. She starts in India, where an ancestor was personal physician to a maharaja. Hollie Richardson

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Author: Sérgio Ferreira de Almeida
Published on: 29/04/2025 | 00:00:00

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A car crashed through a camp building in Springfield, Illinois, police say. The driver, who was uninjured, was the sole occupant of the vehicle. Several other people were hurt and taken to hospitals, police said. Trudeau's popularity had cratered in the last years of his prime ministership. A wave of by-election losses and high-profile cabinet resignations ultimately drove him to announce his resignation in January this year. But he responded to Trump's intense threats against Canada in the early phase of his presidency with unexpectedly tough and patriotic rhetoric. Bloc Québécois (BQ), are projected to win 23 seats, the New Democratic Party (8 seats), while the Green Party are on course to win Carney: "The old relationship we had with the United States based on deepening integration of our economies and tight security and military cooperation is over" "It’s clear the US is no longer a reliable partner," Carney says in a speech.

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One day we may yet experience the technology of native image albums.

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Paris (AFP) – Amnesty International on Tuesday accused Israel of committing a "live-streamed genocide" against Palestinians in Gaza by forcibly displacing most of the population and deliberately creating a humanitarian catastrophe.

In its annual report, Amnesty charged that Israel had acted with "specific intent to destroy Palestinians in Gaza, thus committing genocide".

Israel has rejected accusations of "genocide" from Amnesty, other rights groups and some states in its war in Gaza.

"Since 7 October 2023, when Hamas perpetrated horrific crimes against Israeli citizens and others and captured more than 250 hostages, the world has been made audience to a live-streamed genocide," Amnesty's secretary general Agnes Callamard said in the introduction to the report.

"States watched on as if powerless, as Israel killed thousands upon thousands of Palestinians, wiping out entire multigenerational families, destroying homes, livelihoods, hospitals and schools," she added.

Gaza's civil defence agency said early Tuesday that four people were killed and others injured in an Israeli air strike on displaced persons' tents near the Al-Iqleem area in Southern Gaza.

The agency earlier warned fuel shortages meant it had been forced to suspend eight out of 12 emergency vehicles in Southern Gaza, including ambulances.

The lack of fuel "threatens the lives of hundreds of thousands of citizens and displaced persons in shelter centres," it said in a statement.

Amnesty's report said the Israeli campaign had left most of the Palestinians of Gaza "displaced, homeless, hungry, at risk of life-threatening diseases and unable to access medical care, power or clean water".

Amnesty said that throughout 2024 it had "documented multiple war crimes by Israel, including direct attacks on civilians and civilian objects, and indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks".

It said Israel's actions forcibly displaced 1.9 million Palestinians, around 90 percent of Gaza's population, and "deliberately engineered an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe".

Even as protesters hit the streets in Western capitals, "the world's governments individually and multilaterally failed repeatedly to take meaningful action to end the atrocities and were slow even in calling for a ceasefire".

Meanwhile, Amnesty also sounded alarm over Israeli actions in the occupied Palestinian territory of the West Bank, and repeated an accusation that Israel was employing a system of "apartheid".

"Israel's system of apartheid became increasingly violent in the occupied West Bank, marked by a sharp increase in unlawful killings and state-backed attacks by Israeli settlers on Palestinian civilians," it said.

Heba Morayef, Amnesty director for the Middle East and North Africa region, denounced "the extreme levels of suffering that Palestinians in Gaza have been forced to endure on a daily basis over the past year" as well as "the world's complete inability or lack of political will to put a stop to it".

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Andrew Jackson is probably upset the Native Americans didn't get fully genocided. Oh and he is pissed he is on the twenty dollar bill because he was the OG federal reserve hater.

1:20 AM EST

210/266 polls reporting

| Name | Party | Votes | % | |

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| | Bruce Fanjoy | Liberal | 27,220 | 50.4 | | Pierre Poilievre | Conservative | 24,927 | 46.1|

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/29307388

On March 22nd, this journalist detailed the findings of a UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on “Israel’s systematic use of sexual, reproductive and other forms of gender-based violence since 7 October 2023.” That investigation focused primarily on the hideous, industrial scale rape and sexual abuse of male and female Palestinian detainees in Zionist Occupation Force prisons, a phenomenon so pervasive it can only be dedicated, determined policy, signed off upon and directed by the highest levels of the Israeli government.

Reinforcing that horrifying conclusion, buried within the Commission’s report are bombshell passages unequivocally charging the Zionist entity with deliberately committing “genocidal acts” in Gaza, consciously and intentionally “calculated to bring about the physical destruction of Palestinians as a group.” The details provided are irresistibly persuasive, and point to Israel being in flagrant breach of both the Rome Statute, and Genocide Convention. In a truly just world, the mainstream media’s mass omertà on this landmark ruling would in itself be a criminal act.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/29307388

On March 22nd, this journalist detailed the findings of a UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on “Israel’s systematic use of sexual, reproductive and other forms of gender-based violence since 7 October 2023.” That investigation focused primarily on the hideous, industrial scale rape and sexual abuse of male and female Palestinian detainees in Zionist Occupation Force prisons, a phenomenon so pervasive it can only be dedicated, determined policy, signed off upon and directed by the highest levels of the Israeli government.

Reinforcing that horrifying conclusion, buried within the Commission’s report are bombshell passages unequivocally charging the Zionist entity with deliberately committing “genocidal acts” in Gaza, consciously and intentionally “calculated to bring about the physical destruction of Palestinians as a group.” The details provided are irresistibly persuasive, and point to Israel being in flagrant breach of both the Rome Statute, and Genocide Convention. In a truly just world, the mainstream media’s mass omertà on this landmark ruling would in itself be a criminal act.

Hoi An (Vietnam) (AFP) – Airlifted from Saigon as an 11-month-old baby, Odile Dussart is now back to living in the land of her birth hoping to find her biological mother.

Dussart was one of more than 3,000 children part of Operation Babylift. Removed by the United States at the end of the Vietnam War, they were eventually adopted by families across North America, Europe and Australia.

The stories of the evacuees and others involved illustrate the way the conflict still resonates 50 years later.

The very first flight of the controversial mass evacuation -- with Dussart among 314 people on board -- crashed minutes after take-off from Saigon.

One of the 176 survivors, she was adopted by a couple in France. Now 51, she has returned to seek her Vietnamese family.

"I just want to know if my biological mother is alive or dead... I want to know her story," she told AFP at her newly rented home overlooking the rice fields of Hoi An, where the ancient city centre is listed by UNESCO.

"Maybe it's impossible to find her. But I have hope."

The communists of North Vietnam defeated the US-backed South on April 30, 1975, and on Wednesday a grand celebration in Ho Chi Minh City -- formerly Saigon -- will mark 50 years since its capture.

The children of Operation Babylift were part of a mass exodus from South Vietnam in the run-up to its fall. Some were babies of US soldiers, others taken from orphanages and hospitals.

The operation, authorised by then-US president Gerald Ford, prompted questions about whether the children were all really orphans or if they had been separated from their families or given up in a desperate bid to get them out of the war-torn country.

The very first flight on April 4, 1975, was a catastrophe.

After its rear access door blew off and fell into the South China Sea, the C5-A Galaxy plane crash-landed, with 78 children among the 138 dead.

"I remember seeing the sky, the clouds and bodies being tossed around and sucked out the back rear entrance," said US Air Force medical technician Phillip Wise, who later lost consciousness.

"I did not want folks to know that I was affiliated with that mission" for almost a decade, he added on a visit to Ho Chi Minh City this month to mark the disaster's 50th anniversary.

Dussart -- whose Vietnamese name is Bui Thi Thanh Khiet -- was treated for her injuries in Saigon, then sent to San Francisco, and finally put on a flight to France.

"I had bruises on my back, neck, and head. At 11 months, I was only the size of six-month-old baby," she said.

But Dussart does not identify as a victim: she describes the crash as a "non-event" in her life.

"No vision, no sound, no smell," she said.

"People who died in the crash, military who had PTSD, families who lost (loved ones)... and parents who expected to have babies in their arms but had only dead bodies... they are the victims, not me."

James Ross Tung Dudas was three years old when he was airlifted from Saigon on Operation Babylift's second flight, and has been searching for 10 years for his birth family on intermittent trips from the United States.

He travelled to Vung Tau, close to Ho Chi Minh City, this month to find more information about a woman he believes could be his mother, and is awaiting the results of a DNA test.

"It would be nice to get to know who they are, where exactly I came from," said 53-year-old Dudas, who was born Hoang Thanh Tung.

"I am mostly American. But my heart still says I am Vietnamese," he added by phone from New Jersey, where he grew up.

Both evacuees grew up as minorities in predominantly white communities.

"All my life in France... French people considered me Asian, not French, because of my face," Dussart explained.

"My principle of life is French. I am French with my mentality. But I think my soul and my behaviour is Vietnamese," she added, proudly showing off the Vietnamese nationality certificate she obtained last year.

Dudas works in the garment industry and Dussart was a lawyer in the town of Saint-Raphael in the French Riviera before starting over in Vietnam.

"I am thankful for life," said Dussart. "And thankful to the pilot and military who risked their lives to save mine."

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/33523587

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Russia is ramping up immigration enforcement to pressure migrants to join the frontline in Ukraine and increase deportations of people from various Asian countries. As part of the Kremlin’s efforts to bolster military strength, foreigners continue to be coerced into fighting in Ukraine–with many being threatened with deportation should they refuse to fight. And since the Crocus City Hall terrorist attack in Moscow in March 2024, xenophobic rhetoric targeting migrants from Tajikistan and other countries in Central Asia has ballooned, leading to “sweeping” raids that have resulted in thousands of people being locked up in the country’s sprawling immigration detention system. In February, legislation came into force creating a new “expulsion regime,” increasing authorities’ ability to deport without judicial oversight.

Although the Russian economy relies heavily on migrant labour, particularly from Central Asia, prejudice against migrants is persistent. According to the extremism monitor Sova Research Center, since 2023 Russia has witnessed an increase in hate crimes and racial violence. In particular, the Center reports that violence has targeted persons “visually perceived as ethnic outsiders”–such as migrants from Central Asia, persons from the Caucasus and, more broadly, persons with non-Slavic appearance. Anti-migrant sentiment is also reflected in polls conducted by the Levada Center, who in early 2025 found that fifty-six percent of Russians believe that Central Asians should either be completely blocked from the country, or only permitted to enter temporarily.

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