The Tories' plan to handle the growing backlog in asylum applications is to give applicants 20 days to answer a questionnaire in legal English, without legal advice or translation help, and no chance of clarifying errors.

I'm tempted to joke that this seems designed to fail. Alas, with Tories involved, I have a feeling it is precisely true.

*Poor People's Campaign, Families Demand DOJ Probe of Over 100 West Virginia Jail Deaths.*

The UK charges environmental protesters with "causing a public nuisance", then forbids them in court from explaining why this "crime" was necessary for the public good.

Indian Dalits are becoming successful in India as comedians in the teeth of caste prejudice.

I watched a few minutes of Manaal Patil's show on invidio.us (a proxy for Youtube, which I cannot access directly because it requires users to run nonfree software). He made me laugh. I would have watched the rest but I have to work.

*Putin aiming to divide US public opinion with nuclear treaty pullout, experts say.*

It's more of what we've seen several times: "I'm a lunatic with nuclear weapons, so do whatever I say!"