*Putin needs a drawn-out war — the west’s timidity gives him one.*

The west should disregard Putin's absurd threats, not take them seriously.

Salesh Prasad faces deportation to Fiji, where he knows no one but can confidently expect to be persecuted because he is gay.

A 50-year-old man is not likely to engage in street fighting. There is no reason to keep him off the streets in the US, no reason to deport him to life as a pariah.

In general, adults who have lived in the US for many years, since childhood, should be free to remain.

*Labour is losing its sense of purpose just as the trade unions that gave birth to the party have rediscovered theirs.*

The chief official of New South Wales, of the extractivist Liberal party (like the just-defeated prime minister), calls climate defense protesters "bloody idiots" for practicing civil disobedience tactics that call attention to the danger of his policies.

It is possible for civil disobedience tactics to backfire.

However, when it's an enemy of the cause that says so, you shouldn't listen. Just as Putin keeps saying "Ukraine will be destroyed," planet-roaster Perrottet says, "Your protests are self-defeating," hoping they will give up and cease to oppose him.

India has arrested journalist Mohammed Zubair for supposedly "insulting Hindus" in 2018.

The article does not tell us what the supposed insult actually said, but it is not crucial to judging the issue. Insult is part of freedom of speech, and it includes the freedom to insult anyone — even you or me.

Arundhati Roy: *Many, many of my beloved friends — poets, writers, professors, lawyers, human rights activists and journalists — are in prison, most of them charged under a dreaded law called the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, all of them for speaking up for minorities, Dalits and forest-dwellers facing displacement and state terror.*

* What does it mean to be a bestselling author when the world is breaking? What does it mean to be considered a "success" when the world is failing and everything you care about is being decimated? What is the moral way to be? The moral thing to do?*

I would not use the word "decimated" to describe this. since in this context, with its proper meaning, it is an understatement.