No Picture

1 in 5 Children Live in a War Zone

Source: The Nation

Around the world, a stunning one in five children are growing up in a war zone today. Neither their governments, nor humanitarian-aid groups, nor their families can guarantee the basic elements of survival, much less anything like a happy childhood. That’s according to a bleak accounting by human-rights researchers that reveals that in many regions, it’s not soldiers who suffer the most on the front lines, but the estimated 420 million children who live in conflict-affected areas—about a fifth of all youth. The total count, drawn from an international database, represents an increase of 30 million between 2016 and 2017. The humanitarian group Save the Children (STC) estimates that conflict now impacts children at the highest rate in a generation. read more

Orwell’s Left: Hope Lies in the Proles

George Orwell's relationship to the Left was complicated while he lived, and only grew more so after his death. Always determined to find out what he himself thought, rather than align with a particular party or doctrine, his criticism spared neither enemies nor allies. He both denounced and was denounced by the Communist Party, and he traded public jabs with pacifists and anarchists, remaining all the while a steadfast opponent of capitalism, imperialism, and all forms of totalitarianism.