There was a protest march against al Shabaab in Mogadishu yesterday.

Thousands of Somalis have demonstrated against those behind the bombing that killed more than 300 people at the weekend, defying police who opened fire to keep them away from the site of the attack.

Wearing red headbands, the crowd of mostly young men and women marched through Mogadishu amid tight security. They answered a call to unity by the mayor, Thabit Abdi, who said: “We must liberate this city, which is awash with graves.”

You know what most of the victims of Islamist violence are? Muslim.

The attack in the heart of Mogadishu on Saturday has been blamed on al-Shabaab, the local violent Islamist group, and was one of

John Nichols at The Nation hints that Jeff Sessions may be less than fully honest.

Jeff Sessions is a liar.

Strongly hints.

As President Trump’s nominee to serve as attorney general of the United States, the veteran senator from Alabama and early supporter of Trump’s presidential bid was asked by members of the Senate Judiciary Committee if he had met with Russian officials during the course of the 2016 campaign. He claimed that he had not—in response to a written question from the senior Democrat on the Committee, Vermont’s Patrick Leahy, and then under questioning from Minnesota Senator Al Franken.

Those were lies.

Well maybe so, but he gets very cross when Al Franken asks him about them.… Read the rest

I didn’t realize the policing of Young Adult fiction was a thing until I read about the Kirkus fubar. It’s a thing.

The Black Witch, a debut young-adult fantasy novel by Laurie Forest, was still seven weeks from its May 1 publication date, but positive buzz was already building, with early reviews calling it “an intoxicating tale of rebellion and star-crossed romance,” “a massive page-turner that leaves readers longing for more,” and “an uncompromising condemnation of prejudice and injustice.”

The hype train was derailed in mid-March, however, by Shauna Sinyard, a bookstore employee and blogger who writes primarily about YA and had a different take: “The Black Witch is the

Yes, North Korea, yes, Iran, yes, Yellowstone and global warming and the toxic gas emanating from the White House – but also antibiotic resistance.

England’s chief medical officer has warned of a “post-antibiotic apocalypse” as she issued a call to action urging global leaders to address the growing threat of antibiotic resistance.

Professor Dame Sally Davies said that if antibiotics lose their effectiveness it will spell “the end of modern medicine”.

Without the drugs used to fight infections, common medical interventions such as caesarean sections, cancer treatments and hip replacements would become incredibly “risky”, she said.

And transplant medicine would be a “thing of the past”, she added.

It will be the way it was before penicillin, when … Read the rest

Being a journalist who investigates corruption is one of the more dangerous professions. Daphne Caruana Galizia is one who has been silenced.

The car bombing that killed investigative reporter Daphne Caruana Galizia has left Malta in shock, alarmed that organised crime and political vendettas may have spiralled out of control.

“There are crooks everywhere you look now. The situation is desperate,” she wrote in her last blog post, published shortly before her car exploded.

Caruana Galizia, 53, died near her home in Bidnija, a village in northern Malta.

She had relentlessly accused various Maltese politicians and other officials of corruption in her popular Running Commentary blog, and had been sued several times.

Now she won’t be doing that … Read the rest

The culture police strike again.

When Laura Moriarty decided she wanted to write a dystopian novel about a future America in which Muslims are forcefully corralled into detention centers, she was aware that she should tread carefully. Her protagonist is a white teenager, but one of her main characters, Sadaf, is a Muslim American immigrant from Iran, so Moriarty began by diving into Iranian books and films. Moriarty explained via email that she asked two Iranian immigrant friends to read an early draft and see if Sadaf seemed authentic to them, and whether the language and accent fit with their memories and experiences. A friend of Pakistani and American descent who is a practicing Muslim gave additional feedback. Moriarty

Trump, sniffing the air for more people to harm, has found them: welfare recipients.

President Donald Trump said Monday his administration will start to consider reforming the welfare system in the United States, saying that some people are “taking advantage of the system.”

The comment comes as the Trump administration struggles to get any sweeping legislation through Congress, despite Republicans controlling both the House and Senate. Trump failed to pass health care reform earlier this year and is currently working — without much success so far — to pass tax reform.

Trump was never trying to pass health care reform – he was trying to destroy the ACA’s attempt at providing health insurance for everyone. That’s not reform; it’s … Read the rest

Originally a comment by Bruce Gorton on Through male eyes.

The problem I think isn’t a craving for sex. Nor is it necessarily misogyny, or at least not exactly what we think of as misogyny.

A lot of it is more about what we think about being male, than what we think about the role of women. We think of being male as being the fighter, being forceful, being willing to take charge.

So with the Catholics, they can try and eliminate any hint of sexual characteristics from women, and they end up… with a massive child rape scandal that spans the entire globe. Islam tries to do the same thing, as I’m sure you’re well aware, and the net … Read the rest

This this this. It’s not just the Harvey Weinsteins, it’s not just the actual men and their actual groping and raping. It’s also the sea they swim in: it’s the content. Kate Hardie knows.

The focus is quite rightly on the horrendous sexual abuse that Weinstein is alleged to have committed. But to focus on that alone is to miss the point that the portrayal of women – of their lives, their feelings, their sexuality and their bodies – is nearly always decided upon and filtered through male eyes. Nearly every actress will tell you about scripts that included scenes of female nudity that seem to have no apparent reason for being there and that are often degrading.