Canadian milk and butter appear to contain increasing amounts of palm oil.

Is Alexei Navalny a prisoner of conscience?

Plainly he is: he has been jailed for nonviolent defense of democracy. Therefore Amnesty demands his release. However, it has got itself in a pickle by stating criteria for designating someone as a "prisoner of conscience" which include other requirements besides being a prisoner of conscience.

The other pertinent requirement is "who has not advocated violence". Does comparing immigrants to "rotten teeth" constitute advocating violence against them? It could be interpreted that way. But it is not relevant to his imprisonment today; Russia has not accused him of "hostility towards immigrants." (Not that an opinion could justify imprisoning someone.) So Amnesty should not consider his past or present views on immigrants relevant to determining whether he is a prisoner of conscience.

If Amnesty wants a designation limited to people who have been exemplary in all aspects of their political lives, it would do better to call that something different — perhaps "exemplary prisoner of conscience." Then it could recognize Navalny as a prisoner of conscience who has not been exemplary.

Another man killed because a thug kept a knee on his neck for 5 minutes.

The thugs had come, supposedly, to help him because he was freaking out. If Antioch, California, had defunded the "police", 9-1-1 would have sent paratherapists instead of thugs, and they would have talked him down with no loss of life.

Accusing North Korea of forcing prisoners to mine coal for export.

Where does the exported coal go? China, I suppose. Few other countries would buy it.

There is no way to stop North Korea from exporting coal to China, and no way to pressure China from ceasing to buy it. But this becomes part of a bigger issue: China must stop burning coal! We can, and already do, put pressure on China to cut down and eventually cease its use of coal.

I don't know from the article whether the exported coal is thermal coal (burned for the heat alone) or coking coal (used to mix carbon into iron). That makes a difference, since the world needs to eliminate use of thermal coal, but it will not cease the much smaller use of coking coal.

Two Pakistani Christians, Shagufta Kausar and Shafqat Emmanuel, face execution for "blasphemy" on account of text messages they may not even have sent.

The two are married but imprisoned separately in solitary confinement for 7 years so far.

Any law against "blasphemy" expresses contempt for freedom of expression. I was invited once to Pakistan, but I decided it is not safe there — not for me, nor for anyone.