← Feed

Posts

• View post

  Exposing Palantir: Defence Contracts, Stock-Based Compensation, and Tax Avoidance Listen now Governments hand out billions in lucrative contracts to tech corporations to build surveillance systems, track migrants, and process public health data. Yet those same companies use every legal loophole available to avoid paying tax on their profits. In this episode of In Solidarity, openDemocracy editor Aman Sethi and tech reporter Jade-Ruyu Yan sit down with Jason Ward, principal analyst at the Centr...

• View post

  A progressive alliance is now critical to counter a Farage government Two weeks ago, I wrote about the urgent need for a progressive way forward for UK politics. With Nigel Farage’s Reform Party in a relatively strong position – even after a summer of scandals – and progressives split between several political groups, I suggested there was a need for those on the left to work with like-minded people, even if not yet in the form of one united party. Plenty has changed in those two weeks, and th...

• View post

  Why crypto and financial scandals are finally denting Reform UK For many years it’s been something of a shibboleth in the political classes that Nigel Farage isn’t like other politicians and his political projects – UKIP, the Brexit Party, and now Reform UK – are held to different standards than the ‘mainstream’ parties. Negative stories just don’t seem to stick to them in the same way, their opponents grumble.  This different kind of scrutiny is in part to do with the kind of parties Farage h...

• View post

  Meta’s settlement with 52 attorneys general from US states, territories, and the District of Columbia over allegations that Facebook and Instagram harmed children is likely to shift how regulators approach online safety in Europe, too. The agreement announced Wednesday requires Meta to make sweeping changes to how teenagers use its platforms in the US, including default limits on daily use, overnight restrictions and stronger age assurance. Meta is also calling on TikTok and YouTube to adopt si...

• View post

  In this week’s issueExperts warn that an obscure 2003 Blair-era tax loophole is fuelling an unprecedented transfer of taxpayer wealth to Big TechWhy a myth regarding a 12-week limit is being weaponised across Latin America to deny lifesaving abortion care to the most vulnerableAn Argentine village sitting atop a multi-billion-dollar lithium fortune remains frozen without basic gas or electricity, exposing the corporate greed driving the global green energy transitionHow Netanyahu's doubling...

• View post

  In a sleepy village in northern Argentina, some 3,300 metres above sea level, tensions are rising. While Antofagasta de la Sierra’s 2,000 or so residents struggle with a lack of basic services – they have no mains gas or access to electricity networks – mining firms and the Argentinian government reap huge profits from the lithium-rich ground beneath their feet. Antofagasta de la Sierra, in the province of Catamarca, sits within the Lithium Triangle, the region spanning Argentina, Bolivia and C...

• View post

  While Donald Trump insists that his plan for Gaza will be accepted, Binyamin Netanyahu is highly unlikely to agree to any such deal this side of the Israeli general election in October. His immediate response has been clear enough: there will be no Israeli military withdrawal whatsoever until Hamas is completely disarmed.  It follows that the longer-term prospect for the two million Palestinians crowded into barely a third of the original Gaza land area depends largely on whether the Israeli pr...

• View post

  Listen on Apple Podcasts Listen on Spotify Listen on Pocket Casts Are you as open-minded as you think you are? People who rate themselves as highly adaptable often score as the most rigid during unconscious cognitive testing. In this episode of Changed My Mind, hosts Alex Chesterfield, Ali Goldsworthy, and Laura Osborne speak with political neuroscientist Leor Zmigrod. Zmigrod discusses her research into the link between cognitive style and political extremism, explaining how rigid thinking p...

• View post

  Two weeks into Andy Burnham’s tenure in Downing Street, Labour leads over Reform in the polls for the first time in months. Is this shift largely down to Burnham’s political style, his policy changes, or the problems that have recently hit Reform? And, most importantly, will it mean a transformed Labour Party? As for Reform’s top brass, the problems facing Nigel Farage, Richard Tice and Zia Yusuf stem mainly from their collective wealth. All three are multi-millionaires, with a combined wealth...

• View post

  A patient who reported medical sexual misconduct to the General Medical Council (GMC) was sent the intimate personal details of a total stranger who had reported an unrelated offence – an error which she described as “upsetting”. Diana*, whose story openDemocracy reported in December last year, reported her consultant to the GMC, which regulates doctors in the UK, for sexually assaulting her during a routine examination.  The watchdog’s investigation and report took months to complete as it ha...

• View post

  Editor’s note: Shortly after this piece was published, Rajiv Menon was granted a last-minute stay on his appeal. His case will now be heard in September. England prides itself on its legal system, supposedly a pinnacle of fairness, neutrality and justice.  Having faced two trials and 18 months’ incarceration before a verdict was even reached, I’ve witnessed the falsity of these claims. Today will mark another low: the lead barrister on my case, Rajiv Menon, will appear at the Royal Courts of J...

• View post

  Last week, Donald Trump’s ‘Board of Peace’ announced that it has dropped its full ‘Gaza recovery plan’ in favour of a small pilot project that is unlikely to start before the end of the year.  The original grand proposal to reconstruct the entire Palestinian enclave, announced by the US president at the World Economic Forum in Davos back in January, involved an initial 100-day plan to significantly increase aid deliveries, repair water, electricity and sewage systems and rebuild hospitals and...

• View post

  El personal de recursos humanos de una fábrica de prendas de vestir en las afueras de la capital india dijo que unas pequeñas cámaras sujetadas en la cabeza de cada sastre permitirían a potenciales clientes ver la calidad de lo que producían. Así aumentarían los pedidos y subirían los salarios de todos. Pero las costureras y sastres sospecharon que la verdadera razón era la IA. El joven trabajador textil Ankush Yadav y sus compañeros abrieron las cámaras, extrajeron las tarjetas de memoria y l...

• View post

  Nasima’s labour pains began in late December 2025. She was 30 years old, a mother of two, living in a remote village in Ashtarlay district, Daikundi province. Like many women in rural Afghanistan, she expected to give birth at home.  But after two days of worsening contractions, Nasima’s family brought her to the district clinic. Health workers told them her blood pressure was dangerously high, a warning sign of pre-eclampsia. The condition can be serious and often requires medical intervention...

• View post

  Listen on Apple Podcasts Listen on Spotify Listen on Pocket Casts After a 23-year career at the BBC, award-winning broadcaster Nihal Arthanayake changed his mind about the institution's capacity for change. In this episode of Change My Mind, Nihal speaks candidly with hosts Ali Goldsworthy, Laura Osborne, and Alex Chesterfield about his decision to leave public service broadcasting for a new role as Chief Storyteller at a major tech firm. He details the growing frustration and isolation h...

• View post

  The world feels more unsettled than at any point in living memory. War has returned to Europe. Great-power rivalry has hardened into economic coercion. Climate impacts are outpacing the institutions meant to manage them, and progress on ending extreme poverty has stalled. Meanwhile, the rules-based international order is under threat, not least from some of the very countries that built it. Andy Burnham’s new government will inherit a foreign policy that has been busy but fundamentally defensiv...

• View post

  In this week’s issueHow a plan to force Indian factory workers to train their own robot replacements backfiredWhy Andy Burnham’s first vote as PM-in-waiting fuelled fears of a draconian new era for refugeesAs deadly heatwaves hit the UK, the government is suppressing an intelligence report warning of ecosystem collapse and food insecurityBritain is no longer a superpower – but that doesn’t mean it has to be a bystander A harrowing new investigation reveals the extent of femicide against older wo...

• View post

  The past two months have seen exceptionally hot weather across much of Western Europe, with even the UK witnessing record temperatures. Even now, England and Wales are well into their third heatwave this year, with some areas on their 13th consecutive day of temperatures above 30°C.  More than 2,700 people are thought to have died as a result of the extreme heat in England and Wales, with scientists estimating that 440 people died during each of the three peak days of June’s record-breaking hea...

• View post

  HR staff claimed the tiny cameras affixed to each tailor’s head would mean prospective clients saw the quality of their products and placed more orders, resulting in pay rises for everyone at the garment factory on the outskirts of India’s capital.  But the workers suspected the real reason was AI. So Ankush Yadav, a young tailor, and his friends pried open the cameras, pulled out the memory cards and plugged them into their phones.  “We viewed the footage on our mobiles and found it was reco...

• View post

  In this week’s issueHow Palantir exploited lucrative corporate loophole to slash its UK tax bill, as it rakes in millions from public contractsOur investigation into the death of a TikTok content moderator in Kenya exposed allegations of exploitation and labour traffickinWhat Western fears over an AI apocalypse miss about China’s hyper-futuristic tech boomHow a campaign to protect Albanian wetlands from Jared Kushner-backed mega-resort exploded into a nationwide ‘Flamingo Revolution’ against cor...

• View post

  The reality of #ReformUK run councils is vastly different to what they're promising. https://www.opendemocracy.net/reform-farage-potholes-elections-council-tax-first-year-power/

• View post

  NHS England’s Federated Data Platform, built and run by Palantir Technologies, poses risks to patient trust, staff wellbeing, data quality, national sovereignty and the long-term integrity of NHS data infrastructure. We should know, we’re the people working on it. That’s why NHS Analysts Together has launched an open letter on the FDP and Palantir Technologies, open to all data and digital workers in NHS organisations to sign with their name or anonymously. We believe we must collectively exp...

• View post

  “We get elected, we do what we say,” vowed Gawain Towler, a Reform UK board member, after the party won more than 677 new councillors at last year’s local elections. Other Reform leaders were similarly bullish about their capabilities. “We’re pretty high-agency people,” said Zia Yusuf, then the party’s chair.  So a year on, what’s happened?  Council tax is increasing in every local authority under Reform’s control, contrary to the party’s election leaflets that unambiguously promised freezes o...