Vaccines do not cause autism: WHO

By AFP
December 12, 2025


More than half of the world's completely unvaccinated children live in just eight countries, research finds - Copyright AFP John WESSELS

A new analysis by the World Health Organization reaffirmed there is no link between vaccines and autism — contrary to theories being propagated in the United States.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) last month revised its website with language that undermines its previous, scientifically-grounded position that immunisations do not cause the developmental disorder autism.

Years of research demonstrate that there is no causal link between vaccinations and autism or other neurodevelopmental disorders.

But Robert F. Kennedy Jr, the nation’s health chief, has long voiced anti-vaccine rhetoric and inaccurate claims connecting the two.

WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a press conference in Geneva that autism was not a side-effect of vaccines.

“Today, WHO is publishing a new analysis by the Global Advisory Committee on Vaccine Safety that has found, based on available evidence, no causal link between vaccines and autism,” the UN health agency chief said.

The committee looked at 31 studies in multiple countries over 15 years relating to vaccines containing thiomersal — a preservative that prevents bacterial and fungal contamination in multidose vials — and aluminium adjuvants.

“The committee concluded that the evidence shows no link between vaccines and autism, including vaccines containing aluminium or thiomersal,” said Tedros.

“This is the fourth such review of the evidence, following similar reviews in 2002, 2004 and 2012. All reached the same conclusion: vaccines do not cause autism.

“Like all medical products, vaccines can cause side effects, which WHO monitors. But autism is not a side effect of vaccines.”



– Flawed 1998 study –



A purported connection between the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine and autism stems from a flawed study published in 1998, which was retracted for including falsified data. Its results have not been replicated and are refuted by voluminous subsequent research.

“The study was later shown to be fraudulent and retracted, but the damage had been done, and the idea has never gone away,” said Tedros.

Kennedy has a long history of promoting dubious claims, many of which have become articles of faith among adherents to his “Make America Healthy Again” movement, a vital part of President Donald Trump’s fractious Make America Great Again coalition.

The CDC website edits were met with anger and fear by career scientists and other public health figures, including from within the agency, who have spent years fighting against false information.

Tedros said that over the past 25 years, under-five mortality has plunged by more than half, from 11 million deaths a year to 4.8 million, with vaccination being a major reason behind the drop.

“Vaccines are among the most powerful, transformative inventions in the history of humankind,” he said.

“Vaccines save lives from about 30 different diseases, including measles, cervical cancer, malaria and more.”

WHO chief upbeat on missing piece of pandemic treaty


By AFP
December 5, 2025


The PABS system will determine how vaccines are shared during future pandemics - Copyright AFP Patrick T. Fallon

The World Health Organization chief said Friday that countries were in a strong position to finalise the vital missing piece of the pandemic treaty, which will determine how vaccines are shared.

In April, WHO member states concluded a landmark Pandemic Agreement on tackling future health crises, after more than three years of negotiations sparked by the shock of Covid-19.

The accord aims to prevent the disjointed responses and international disarray that surrounded the Covid-19 pandemic by improving global coordination and surveillance, and access to vaccines, in any future pandemics.

But the heartbeat of the treaty, the Pathogen Access and Benefit-Sharing (PABS) system, was left aside in order to get the deal over the line.

Countries were given another year to thrash out the details of how it will work.

The PABS mechanism deals with sharing access to pathogens with pandemic potential, then sharing the benefits derived from them: vaccines, tests and treatments.

Countries are tasked with getting the PABS system finalised by the next World Health Assembly in mid-May. The annual gathering of member states is the WHO’s decision-making body.

“This is both a generational opportunity and a generational responsibility,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said, after countries wrapped up a week of talks.

“As we get ready to close out this year, we are in a strong position to forge consensus, finalise the draft, and prepare for adoption at next year’s World Health Assembly.

“Together, we are moving toward a world that is better prepared for future pandemics.”

Countries will resume their fourth round of talks on January 20-22.

Once the PABS system is finalised, the entire agreement can then be ratified by members, with 60 ratifications required for the treaty to enter into force.

“As we cross the half-way mark in negotiations on the PABS system, I am encouraged by the progress we’ve made towards enabling a faster and more equitable global response to future pandemics,” said Matthew Harpur, co-chair of the talks.

Co-chair Ambassador Tovar da Silva Nunes of Brazil added: “We are confident we can build a strong and balanced PABS system that will benefit all people.”

In India’s mining belt, women spark hope with solar lamps


By AFP
December 4, 2025


Santosh Devi completed a solar engineering course in rural India, now earning a small income by installing panels - Copyright AFP HIMANSHU SHARMA

Julie Fraysse

Santosh Devi is proud to have brought light — and hope — to her hamlet in western India, taking up solar engineering through a programme for women like her whose husbands suffer chronic disease from mining work.

Her husband is bedridden with silicosis, a respiratory illness caused by inhaling fine silica dust which is common across some 33,000 mines in Rajasthan state, where the couple and their four children live.

Santosh, 36, has joined seven other women for a three-month course at Barefoot College in Tilonia, a two-hour drive from her village in the desert state’s Beawar district.

There, the group learned the basics of solar engineering — installing panels, wiring them, and assembling and repairing lamps — to help light up homes and provide electricity for anything from charging phones to powering fans.

With their sick husbands out of work, the training has allowed these women to make a living and support their families.

Barefoot College has trained more than 3,000 women from 96 countries since it was set up in 1972, according to Kamlesh Bisht, the technical manager of the institute.

The college offers rural women new skills with the aim of making them independent in an environment where jobs are scarce and healthcare generally inaccessible.

Santosh, who is illiterate, said she wants to “offer a good education and a better future” to her children, aged five to 20.

She now earns a small income by installing solar panels, and hopes to eventually make the equivalent of $170 a month.

The time away from her family was tough, but Santosh said it was worth it.

“At first, I was very scared,” she recalled. “But this training gave me confidence and courage.”

She showed with enthusiasm the three houses where she had installed a photovoltaic panel powering lamps, fans and chargers.



– Slow killer –



Her husband used to cut sandstone for pavers exported around the world.

But now he can barely walk, needs costly medication and relies on a meagre state allowance of $16 a month.

Wiping away tears with the edge of her bright red scarf, Santosh said she has had to borrow money from relatives, sell her jewellery and mortgage her precious mangalsutra, the traditional Hindu wedding necklace, to make ends meet.

The family share a similar fate with many others in Rajasthan state’s mining belt, where tens of thousands of people suffer from silicosis.

According to pulmonologist Lokesh Kumar Gupta, there are between 5,000 and 6,000 cases in just a single district, Ajmer.

In Santosh’s village of 400 households, 70 people have been diagnosed with silicosis, a condition that kills slowly and, in many cases, has no cure.

An estimated 2.5 million people work in mines across Rajasthan, extracting sandstone, marble or granite for less than $6 a day.

Those using jackhammers earn double but face even higher exposure to toxic dust.

Vinod Ram, whose wife has also graduated from the Barefoot College course, has been suffering from silicosis for six years and struggles to breathe.

“The medication only calms my cough for a few minutes,” said Vinod, 34, who now weighs just 45 kilos (99 pounds).

He started mining at age 15, working for years without a mask or any other protective gear.



– No choice but to work –



His wife Champa Devi, 30, did not even know how to write her name when she arrived at Barefoot College in June.

Now back home, at a village not far from Santosh’s, she is proud of her newfound expertise.

But her life remains overshadowed by illness and poverty.

Champa, who has dark circles under her eyes, has installed solar panels in four nearby homes but has not yet been paid.

For now, she earns about 300 rupees ($3.35) a day working at construction sites — hardly enough to cover her husband’s medical bills, which come up to some $80 a month.

The couple live in a single dark room with thin blankets covering the floor, and the near-contact sound of detonations from nearby mines.

“There is no treatment for silicosis,” said pulmonologist Gupta.

Early treatment can help, but most patients come only after five to seven years, he said.

Under state aid schemes, patients receive $2,310 upon diagnosis, and their families get another $3,465 in the case of death.

Ill miners, who are physically capable, sometimes continue to cut sandstone for a pittance to support their families, despite the dire health risks.

Sohan Lal, a 55-year-old mine worker who suffers from shortness of breath and severe cough, sees no other option but to keep working.

“If I were diagnosed, what difference would it make?” he said.

Filipino typhoon survivors sue Shell over climate change

By AFP
December 11, 2025


Typhoon Rai struck the southern and central regions of the Philippines in December 2021 - Copyright AFP ROEL CATOTO, ROEL CATOTO

Alexandra Bacon with Pam Castro and Cecil Morella in Manila

Survivors of a deadly 2021 typhoon in the Philippines have filed a lawsuit against British oil giant Shell, seeking financial compensation for climate-related devastation, three NGOs supporting them said Thursday.

Typhoon Rai struck the southern and central regions of the Philippines in December 2021, toppling power lines and trees and unleashing deadly floods that killed over 400 people and left hundreds of thousands homeless.

The lawsuit on behalf of 103 survivors argues Shell’s carbon emissions contributed to climate change, impacting Philippine communities.

Trixy Elle, a plaintiff from a fishing community whose home and four boats were swept away in the typhoon, told AFP the lawsuit was about getting justice.

“Island residents like us contribute only a small percentage of pollution. But who gets the short stick? The poor like us,” said the 34-year-old, who is still paying off high-interest loans she needed to rebuild.

“I am not speaking only for my community but for all Filipinos who experience the effects of climate crises,” Elle said, adding that her now 13-year-old son still suffers from trauma caused by the storm.

In a joint statement, the NGOs backing the suit said it represents “a decisive step to hold oil giant Shell accountable for the deaths, injuries and destruction left by the climate-fuelled storm”.

While typhoons are a regular weather pattern in Southeast Asia, scientists have long warned that climate change is making storms more intense because a warmer atmosphere holds more moisture and warmer seas can turbocharge the systems.

In Manila on Thursday, Greenpeace climate campaigner Virginia Benosa-Llorin called the lawsuit a “test case to hold the corporations accountable”.

The suit will be the “first time claimants in the Global South are bringing action related to significant personal injury and property damage… caused through the alleged acts of common measures in the Global North”, added UK-based lawyer Joe Snape via videolink.



– Lost ‘everything’ –



Plaintiff Rickcel Inting, a fisherman, told AFP his family had lost “everything in an instant” when Typhoon Rai slammed into Bohol province, surviving only because they lashed themselves to a thick column on their rooftop.

“Shell caused what we have suffered because of its actions, causing pollution and harming the environment… they owe poor individuals like us,” said the 46-year-old, adding he had never been able to afford to replace his lost fishing boats.

The lawsuit marks the latest step in a wider international movement to assign responsibility to major companies for climate damage.

A German court in May ruled that firms could, in principle, be held responsible for harm caused by their emissions, fuelling hopes that other countries would follow suit.

Shell dismissed the lawsuit as “a baseless claim”, with a spokesperson saying “it will not help tackle climate change or reduce emissions”.

“The suggestion that Shell had unique knowledge about climate change is simply not true,” the firm added.



– Oil profits –



The claimants are seeking financial compensation for “lives lost, injuries sustained and homes destroyed”, NGOs supporting the lawsuit said.

Shell, along with many rival energy giants, has scaled back various climate objectives to focus more on oil and gas in order to raise profits.

The United Nations in 2022 said destruction caused by Typhoon Rai was “badly underestimated” in initial assessments, tripling the number of people “seriously affected” to nine million.

The Philippines — ranked among the most vulnerable nations to the impact of climate change — is hit by an average of 20 storms every year.

The UK lawsuit follows an historic climate ruling by the International Court of Justice in The Hague in July, which declared states had an obligation under international law to address the threat of climate change.

ICJ advisory opinions are not legally enforceable but are seen as highly authoritative in steering national courts, legislation and corporate behaviour around the globe

Unchecked mining waste taints DR Congo communities


By AFP
December 4, 2025


Many locals, including Helene Mvubu, say they have suffered from contaminated water discharges by a Chinese company - Copyright AFP Glody MURHABAZI

Camille LAFFONT

Carrying her sore-pocked daughter across her decaying field, Helene Mvubu says she is one of thousands to have fallen victim to the toxic waste defiling the Democratic Republic of Congo’s mining capital.

Global powers, notably China and the United States, are in a race to extract strategic minerals in the DRC, which supplies more than 70 percent of the world’s cobalt, essential for making electric batteries and weaponry.

But human rights groups say the mining operations are resulting in severe environmental damage in the mineral-rich African nation.

Mvubu told AFP that she has for years suffered the consequences of flooding from contaminated water discharged by Congo Dongfang International Mining (CDM), a Chinese company that processes copper and cobalt ore in the outskirts of Lubumbashi, capital of the mineral-rich Katanga province in the southeastern DRC.

“The food we prepare becomes bitter, our water sources are polluted,” said the farmer as she walked across her plot, where the sugarcane has turned yellow with disease.

Mvubu’s field is located directly within the path of runoff water from the CDM site, surrounded by an imposing concrete wall guarded by officers, on a mountain overlooking residential neighbourhoods.

The extent of the pollution is unknown.

But when it rains, red water can be seen gushing out from four drainage points under the enclosure.

Residents and civil society groups interviewed by AFP accused CDM of taking advantage of rainy periods to discharge mining wastewater.

At the beginning of November, thousands of cubic metres of the reddish water poured out from the Chinese company site over two days, despite no rainfall.

Outrage over the flooding forced Congolese authorities to act by suspending the site’s activities and appointing an investigative commission — a rare move in a country where mining companies generally operate with impunity, often with the complicity of local administrations.



– ‘For show’ –



“Everyone was surprised to see the waters flooding us even though it hadn’t rained,” said resident Hortance Kiluba, as she busied herself washing her laundry.

Joseph Kongolo, a member of the investigative commission and provincial coordinator of the National Human Rights Commission (CNDH), said the Chinese company “was misled by the weather and opened the valves before the rains fell” that would have otherwise hidden the flow.

CDM, however, claimed that the November flood was caused by the accidental rupture of a retention basin.

Several members of the investigative commission charge that pollution from the site dates back several years.

But no study on the toxicity of the wastewater has yet been made public.

Residents told AFP they have experienced harmful effects firsthand.

Martiny, a vendor of fruits and vegetables at the local market, showed her “damaged” hands and feet that she blamed on the exposure to “acidic” water.

The November flood, which inundated the market, also soaked her supply of dried fish, leaving it inedible.

To calm the upset, CDM employees distributed masks and bottles of water to the community.

The firm has also led the repairs of a stretch of road damaged by the waters.

“It’s just for show,” said a local chief, under the condition of anonymity, claiming that the firm also bribed officials to convince the public that the release of wastewater was accidental and not planned.



– ‘Responsibilities are shared’ –



A CDM representative denied any negligence on the company’s part when contacted by AFP, asserting that “the materials are processed on site” and that “there could not have been any prior pollution” before November.

A subsidiary of Chinese multinational Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt, CDM has long been in the crosshairs of human rights organisations.

Hubert Tshiswaka, director general of the DRC’s Institute for Human Rights Research (IRDH) and member of the investigating commission, has for years fought to get CDM to comply with social and financial obligations — such as the payment of mining royalties — required by law.

“Curiously, CDM obtained all the permits to set up on top of this hill,” where rains naturally flow down to the neighbourhoods below, he said.

Although the spill pointed to CDM’s “disregard for basic standards” with “serious repercussions on the environment”, mining minister Louis Watum Kabamba admitted following the investigation that “responsibilities are shared”.

“Our administration should have played its role,” he said.

NAKBA II

‘Land without laws’: Israeli settlers force Bedouins from West Bank community


By AFP
December 4, 2025


AFP visited Ahmed Kaabneh weeks before he was forced to flee his home in the al-Hathrura area - Copyright AFP Menahem Kahana

Alice CHANCELLOR

As relentless harassment from Israeli settlers drove his brothers from their Bedouin community in the central occupied West Bank, Ahmed Kaabneh remained determined to stay on the land his family had lived on for generations.

But when a handful of young settlers constructed a shack around 100 metres above his home and started intimidating his children, 45-year-old Kaabneh said he had no choice but to flee too.

As with scores of Bedouin communities across the West Bank, the small cluster of wood and metal houses where Kaabneh’s father and grandfather had lived now lies empty.

“It is very difficult… because you leave an area where you lived for 45 years. Not a day or two or three, but nearly a lifetime,” Kaabneh told AFP at his family’s new makeshift house in the rocky hills north of Jericho.

“But what can you do? They are the strong ones and we are the weak, and we have no power.”

Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967, and violence there has soared since the Gaza war erupted in October 2023 following Hamas’s attack on Israel.

Some 3,200 Palestinians from dozens of Bedouin and herding communities have been forced from their homes by settler violence and movement restrictions since October 2023, the UN’s humanitarian agency OCHA reported in October.

The United Nations said this October was the worst month for settler violence since it began recording incidents in 2006.

Almost none of the perpetrators have been held to account by the Israeli authorities.



– ‘Terrifying’ –



Kaabneh, four of his brothers and their families, now live together some 13 kilometres (eight miles) northeast of their original homes, which sat in the al-Hathrura area.

Outside his freshly constructed metal house, boys kicked a football while washing hung from the line. But Kaabneh said the area didn’t feel like home.

“We are in a place we have never lived in before, and life here is hard,” he said.

Alongside surging violence, the number of settler outposts has exploded in the West Bank.

While all Israeli settlements are illegal under international law, outposts are also prohibited under Israeli law. But many end up being legalised by the Israeli authorities.

AFP had visited Kaabneh in the al-Hathrura area weeks before he was forced to flee.

On the dirt road to his family’s compound, caravans and an Israeli flag atop a hill marked an outpost established earlier this year — one of several to have sprung up in the area.

On the other side of the track, in the valley, lay the wreckage of another Bedouin compound whose residents had recently fled.

While in Kaabneh’s cluster of homes, AFP witnessed two settlers driving to the top of a hill to surveil the Bedouins below.

“The situation is terrifying,” Kaabneh said at the time, with life becoming almost untenable because of daily harassment and shrinking grazing land.

Less than three weeks later, the homes were deserted.

Kaabneh said the settlers “would shout all night, throw stones, and walk through the middle of the houses.”

“They didn’t allow us to sleep at night, nor move freely during the day.”



– ‘Thrive on chaos’ –



These days, only activists and the odd cat wander the remnants of Kaabneh’s former life — where upturned children’s bikes and discarded shoes reveal the chaotic departure.

“We are here to keep an eye on the property… because a lot of places that are abandoned are usually looted by the settlements,” said Sahar Kan-Tor, 29, an Israeli activist with the Israeli-Palestinian grassroots group Standing Together.

Meanwhile, settlers with a quadbike and digger were busy dismantling their hilltop shack and replacing it with a sofa and table.

“They thrive on chaos,” Kan-Tor explained.

“It is, in a way, a land without laws. There (are) authorities roaming around, but nothing is enforced, or very rarely enforced.”

A report by Israeli settlement watchdogs last December said settlers had used shepherding outposts to seize 14 percent of the West Bank in recent years.

NGOs Peace Now and Kerem Navot said settlers were acting “with the backing of the Israeli government and military”.

Some members of Israel’s right-wing government are settlers themselves, and far-right ministers have called for the West Bank’s annexation.

Kan-Tor said he believed settlers were targeting this stretch of the West Bank because of its significance for a contiguous Palestinian state.

But Kaabneh said the threat of attacks loomed even in his new location in the east of the territory.

He said settlers had already driven along the track leading to his family’s homes and watched them from the hill above.

“Even this area, which should be considered safe, is not truly safe,” Kaabneh lamented.

“They pursue us everywhere.”

Aid cuts causing ‘tragic’ rise in child deaths, Bill Gates tells AFP

By AFP
December 4, 2025


Bill Gates has warned about the effect steep foreign aid cuts will have on children in developing countries - Copyright AFP ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS

Daniel Lawler

Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist Bill Gates told AFP on Thursday it is “tragic” that child deaths will increase worldwide for the first time this century because wealthy Western countries have slashed international aid.

The United States has cut the deepest, with Gates saying fellow billionaire Elon Musk’s so-called US Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) was “responsible for a lot of deaths”.

However Britain, France and Germany have also “disproportionately” slashed aid, Gates, a major funder of numerous global health programmes, said in a video interview from Seattle.

The cuts mean that the number of children dying before their fifth birthday is projected to increase to 4.8 million this year, up 200,000 since 2024, according to the Gates Foundation’s annual Goalkeepers report released Thursday.

Gates said it was a “tragedy” to see child mortality rise after it had steadily fallen from around 10 million annual deaths at the turn of the millenium.

Aid for developing countries has plummeted by 27 percent this year, threatening progress against a range of diseases including malaria, HIV and polio, the report said.

If global aid cuts of around 30 percent are permanent, 16 million more children could die by 2045, according to modelling by the Gates-funded Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation.

“That’s 16 million mothers who are experiencing something that no one wants to or should have to deal with,” Gates said.



– ‘Chaotic’ DOGE cuts –



Gates criticised the “chaotic situation” earlier this year when Musk’s DOGE abruptly cut off grants from the US Agency for International Development (USAID), which has been dismantled since Donald Trump returned to the White House in January.

“I’m talking to President Trump about encouraging him to restore aid so that it is at most a modest cut — I don’t know if I’ll be successful with that,” the 70-year-old said.

Gates, a major donor of the Gavi alliance which distributes vaccines around the world, said he was disappointed the US did not renew its funding for the organisation in June.

US Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr also sent a video to the Gavi fund-raising event “that repeated his extremely debunked and misguided views that these childhood vaccines shouldn’t be used,” Gates said.

“Although the Gates Foundation works with every administration — and we find some areas of agreement with Secretary Kennedy when it comes to vaccines — we have essentially opposite views about the roles vaccines have played in the world.”



– ‘Tight’ budgets –



While acknowledging that “rich world budgets are very tight,” Gates regretted that international aid was being “disproportionately” targeted in European nations.

Gates said he had spoken about aid cuts with political leaders in France, where the budget has not yet been finalised.

“I talked to the prime minister and the president, among others, and said, please remember how important this is — but it’s a very tough budget situation.”

Gates also expressed hope that new tools such as vaccines would bring child mortality rates back down in the next five years.

He particularly pointed to new vaccines for respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and pneumonia, as well as a groundbreaking twice-a-year HIV-prevention injection called lenacapavir that started being rolled out in South Africa this week.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation launched in 2000, with Melinda French Gates departing last year after the couple’s divorce.

In May, Gates announced he would give away his more than $200 billion fortune over the next two decades, wrapping up in 2045.

Jessica Sklair, who researches elite philanthropy at the Queen Mary University of London, told AFP that Gates already wielded “an enormous influence over the world of global health”.

The aid cuts would likely increase his level of influence, she said, adding that it did not appear that private philanthropy will “step in to fill the gap”.

Other research by the Barcelona Institute for Global Health, exclusively reported by AFP last month, determined that more than 22 million people could die from preventable deaths by 2030 due to the US and European aid cuts.

After 15 years, Dutch anti-blackface group declares victory


By AFP
December 4, 2025


Santa Claus is coming to town - Copyright ANP/AFP ROB ENGELAAR

Stéphanie HAMEL

Cherished Christmas tradition for some, profoundly insulting for others, the Dutch character “Black Pete”, a servant who helps Santa Claus distribute presents, has divided opinion in The Netherlands for decades.

Until recently, Santa’s arrival on the eve of Saint Nicolas Day (December 5) — a major Yuletide celebration for the Dutch — was marked by many people dressing up as Black Pete, complete with blacked-out faces and often afro wigs, creole earrings and make-up to plump out lips.

Stung by the caricature that harks back to Dutch colonial times, Jerry Afriyie founded the “Kick Out Black Pete” (KOZP) movement in 2010 to fight racism and is now wrapping up with the battle won.

“Around this time of the year, you would pass hundreds of Black Petes (Zwarte Piet in Dutch), hundreds of white people in blackface. Today, it is different,” he told AFP.

“Even small children are correcting me. When I say ‘Zwarte Piet’, they say ‘Piet,’ added the 44-year-old poet in an interview in Amsterdam.

In 2010, Afriyie’s foundation “Nederlands Wordt Beter” (“The Netherlands is improving”) set three objectives.

They wanted Dutch colonial history, heavily dependent on slavery, taught in schools, an annual commemoration for the victims and Black Pete to get the boot.

KOZP activists organised peaceful protests whenever Santa came to town with Black Petes in tow. Some were pelted with eggs or even fireworks by Black Pete backers.

The movement hit global headlines, tarnishing the country’s reputation for tolerance, and reached new heights amid the 2020 “Black Lives Matter” protests.

Then Prime Minister Mark Rutte — who had said for years that “Black Pete is just black” — urged the tradition to end.



– ‘This is not normal’ –



Afriyie explained that Black Pete was a figment of the imagination of Jan Schenkman, who popularised the story of Santa Claus in the Netherlands.

Black Pete is “actually a black servant. He (Schenkman) himself said it. It’s a black servant serving a white master,” said Afriyie.

“And I think that in 2025, it’s uncalled for.”

The movement’s goal was to “de-normalise” Black Pete and the blackface tradition, said Afriyie.

“It was as normal as Dutch pancakes. And we felt like, hey, this is not normal. It’s hurting people. A lot of children feel insecure,” he said.

KOZP has been so successful in persuading organisers — often municipal officials — to make the Santa arrival inclusive that it held no protests this year.

According to an Ipsos survey, the percentage of Dutch wanting to maintain the tradition has dropped to 38 percent, compared to 65 percent in 2016.

Sporting a “modern Pete” outfit of a long purple wig, spangles and a face lightly dusted with soot, Gipsy Peters told AFP: “It’s good to keep traditions alive but we can adjust them a little.”

“It should be about children and not about colour or something,” said the 35-year-old, who works in a school.



– ‘It’s not about racism’ –



However, not everyone agrees and maintaining the Black Pete tradition has become a rallying cry for far-right leader Geert Wilders among others.

Several activists in a recent anti-immigration rally in The Hague dressed in the “traditional” Black Pete outfit.

Away from official celebrations, many Dutch still apply blackface as part of the costume.

Jaimy Sanders, 30, who works in a plumbing firm, told AFP: “It’s not about racism. It’s about fun for the children.”

“And I really don’t care if they’re purple, green or whatever colour. As long as we can talk about the children and not the adults who make such a big deal of it.”

Afriyie said much progress had been made, although the war against racism was not won in the Netherlands, still wrestling with its colonial past.

“You have to understand, being a black person in the Netherlands, we have seen it all,” he said.

“I think that this country has made a huge step in fighting racism. But we are not there yet.”

“And it’s good to hold the country accountable for the remaining fight that needs to be fought instead of resting it on the shoulders of a few.”

SCOTT BESSENT STILL IN THE CLOSET

Even self-loathing gay MAGA is tearing itself apart

By U.S. House Office of Photography

Michael Signorile, 

The Signorile Report

December 10, 2025 |


Marjorie Taylor Greene trashed Donald Trump and the GOP on “60 Minutes” this past weekend—causing Trump to erupt in anger at the network he thought he’d just co-opted—and Nancy Mace wrote an op-ed in the New York Times yesterday vilifying intransigent Republican leaders, who are just bowing to Trump.

Far right Kentucky Congressman Thomas Massie led the charge on a vote to release the Epstein files, defying Speaker Mike Johnson and Trump, forcing it down their throats. Republicans in both the House and Senate are now holding up the defense spending bill unless the Trump administration releases unedited videos of strikes conducted against boats Trump claims are drug smugglers.

And a battle raged among Republicans for weeks over Tucker Carlson’s legitimizing Holocaust-denying, Hitler-loving Nick Fuentes within the GOP, while Trump was sidelined—and, as Rolling Stone notes, Fuentes has won.

MAGA is tearing itself apart.

And that’s also occurring in that creepy, self-loathing little corner occupied by gay MAGA.

Milo Yiannopoulos—the former alt-right gay warrior who was banished from Trump World in 2017 after it was revealed just before his CPAC keynote that he apparently supported sex with teenage boys—over the weekend expanded on his outing campaign against MAGA podcaster Benny Johnson, who is vying to be the new Charlie Kirk.

And Yiannopoulos, appearing on Tim Pool’s big MAGA conspiracy podcast along with George Santos, also introduced the idea that Kirk may have been a closet case too!

That was enough to make Santos, the sociopathic convicted fraudster and gay former drag queen—newly released from prison after Trump commuted his sentence—suddenly outraged that anyone would promote…a lie.

Seriously!

Johnson, who has a huge reach and thought he had a big win when he interviewed FCC chairman Brendan Carr—who said he’d being going after Jimmy Kimmel, but lost the war in the end—has pushed ugly anti-LGBTQ garbage for years. And yet, as I wrote a few weeks ago, there’s been a lot of discussion on both the left and the right about the sexual orientation of Johnson, who obsessively shares photos of his wife and children.

Progressive podcaster Keith Edwards pointed to several things a few months ago, including queer novelist Saeed Jones remarking that he “made out” with Johnson—in a closet!—at a Christmas party when they both worked at BuzzFeed in the 2010s (before Johnson went full-blown MAGA), something Jones said, “haunts me to this day.” Jones wrote on social media, “I’m definitely not the only man Benny Johnson has made out with,” and that “men will literally become traitors to their country rather than go to therapy.”

Yiannopoulos—who, by the way, now ridiculously claims he’s “ex-gay” and called homosexuality “demonic” in an interview with Tucker Carlson last week—had asked back in March on X:
WHICH happy-go-lucky podcast host gets trashed and has sex with young boys in the latters’ hotel rooms at Turning Point conferences, leaving his wife weeping in the arms of other men downstairs amid the AIPAC leaflets and trestle tables?

It was taken as a not-so-thinly veiled claim about Johnson. Now Yiannopoulos confirmed on Pool’s show that he was pointing to Johnson, sending a suddenly dumbstruck Santos to the fainting couch.

“One of the most distinctive things about the right-wing in this country is its homosexual overtones. Benny Johnson posts pictures of his children every two days—it’s weird. And everybody knows what went on with Benny Johnson in those lobbies and those hotel rooms at SAS [Student Action Summit, at Turning Point USA]. Everybody knows,” Yiannopoulos said with conviction.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Santos replied, feigning complete astonishment.

“Men, younger men. Not underage, at least I don’t know that. His wife was crying drunk in the lobby three SAS’s in a row about how her husband was upstairs with boys,” Yiannopoulos said. “Go ask her.”

“Come on,” a simply stunned Santos replied. “Come on. Come on, Milo. Aren’t you afraid of being sued?”

That obsessively scheming George Santos is thunderstruck in disbelief by someone bringing forth outlandish claims is enough to have you rolling on the floor laughing until your guts spill out.


But it gets better. Milo says that he “thinks” Charlie Kirk was gay too, and pushes a claim making the rounds of the conspiracists that Kirk and his wife were planning to divorce.

This queerifying of the recently deceased MAGA patron saint of hate—canonized by the Catholic convert JD Vance—and whose likeness has now been made into a hideous, newly unveiled monument—was just too much for Santos, who finally grabbed the smelling salts.

“Why would you even go there, to say something like that?” asked an outraged Santos. “The man’s dead!”

Yes, George Santos, convicted of wire fraud, aggravated identity theft, money laundering, and theft of public funds, having ripped off hundreds of people and the U.S. government—and who lied about his own dead mother, claiming she died in the World Trade Center on 9/11 when she wasn’t even in the country—suddenly cares about the integrity of dead people.


And, I’m sorry, but conjecturing that someone may have been gay, even if they are dead—and even if it’s not true—is not a bad thing.

Santos, newly free and anointed by Trump, seems to be having delusions about leading gay MAGA, while Yiannopoulos is trying to claw his way back from the dead—all as the MAGA mothership is crashing down.

Johnson has seemingly now threatened to sue Yiannopoulos, in a post in which he said he is “duty-bound” to defend himself—but didn’t quite mention what it was about.

But a gleeful Yiannopoulos—who also now says Nick Fuentes is gay, after the Nazi went on Piers Morgan, denigrated women and said he never had sex with a woman —-shot back and told Johnson, in a post he addressed to Johnson and his wife, that he’s got all the receipts:
Dear free speech warrior Benny, dear Kate:
A few notes for your consideration.
— I know more about defamation than any lawyer you will hire. Benny is a public figure. Malice is a nonstarter. I have receipts, and the truth is a total defense against any claim of defamation or libel. Do you want to lose a defamation case to MILO YIANNOPOULOS OF ALL PEOPLE about whether or not you are gay? Do you want to even fight one? The people who have poured money into making you a big deal are about to lose their entire investment.
— I know more about your marriage than you think I do, and I have evidence, and I have witnesses. I know who to subpoena. I know what questions to ask. About nocturnal liaisons dangereuses with chaps in assless chaps and about being caught in flagrante delicto at conferences attended by students, some of whom may have been under 18. (I guess we’ll find out!)

— Discovery will destroy your career beyond any possibility of redemption, Benny, which was never my intention and never in my heart because I believe that family is making you a better man, as I think it did Charlie Kirk, but this will be the inevitable result of your actions. I just want you to be honest because I believe that’s important and I believe that it is in the public interest to report on people who present one way and act another.


I have a feeling Johnson will not be filing a lawsuit any time soon.

Since that post, Yiannopoulos has been trolling Johnson with screenshots of stories Johnson wrote back when he was at BuzzFeed, like this one in 2014 (before he went MAGA).

It doesn’t matter how much of all this is true, by the way, though a fair amount seems so—except for the absurd notion that anyone is “ex-gay.”

The bigger takeaway is that this is another example of MAGA’s implosion, with lots of people making big and small power grabs as Trump loses his grip, with many of them tearing one another down. And I am here for it.

2025’s words of the year reflect a year of digital disillusionment

images.theconversation.com

The Conversation

December 09, 2025

Which terms best represent 2025?


Every year, editors for publications ranging from the Oxford English Dictionary to the Macquarie Dictionary of Australian English select a “word of the year.”

Sometimes these terms are thematically related, particularly in the wake of world-altering events. “Pandemic,” “lockdown” and “coronavirus,” for example, were among the words chosen in 2020. At other times, they are a potpourri of various cultural trends, as with 2022’s “goblin mode,” “permacrisis” and “gaslighting.”

This year’s slate largely centers on digital life. But rather than reflecting the unbridled optimism about the internet of the early aughts – when words like “w00t,” “blog,” “tweet” and even “face with tears of joy” emoji (😂) were chosen – this year’s selections reflect a growing unease over how the internet has become a hotbed of artifice, manipulation and fake relationships.

When seeing isn’t believing

A committee representing the Macquarie Dictionary of Australian English settled on “AI slop” for their word of the year.

Macquarie defines the term, which was popularized in 2024 by British programmer Simon Willison and tech journalist Casey Newton, as “low-quality content created by generative AI, often containing errors, and not requested by the user.”

AI slop – which can range from a saccharine image of a young girl clinging to her little dog to career advice on LinkedIn – often goes viral, as gullible social media users share these computer-generated videos, text and graphics with others.

Images have been manipulated or altered since the dawn of photography. The technique was then improved, with an assist from AI, to create “deepfakes,” which allows existing images to be turned into video clips in surreal ways. Yes, you can now watch Hitler teaming up with Stalin to sing a 1970s hit by The Buggles.

What makes AI slop different is that images or video can be created out of whole cloth by providing a chatbot with just a prompt – no matter how bizarre the request or ensuing output.

Meet my new friend, ChatGPT

The editors of the Cambridge Dictionary chose “parasocial.” They define this as “involving or relating to a connection that someone feels between themselves and a famous person they do not know, a character in a book, film, TV series … or an artificial intelligence.”

These asymmetric relationships, according to the dictionary’s chief editor, are the result of “the public’s fascination with celebrities and their lifestyles,” and this interest “continues to reach new heights.”

As an example, Cambridge’s announcement cited the engagement of singer Taylor Swift and football player Travis Kelce, which led to a spike in online searches for the meaning of the term. Many Swifties reacted with unbridled joy, as if their best friend or sibling had just decided to tie the knot.

But the term isn’t a new one: It was coined by sociologists in 1956 to describe “the illusion” of having “a face-to-face relationship” with a performer.

However, parasocial relationships can take a bizarre or even ominous turn when the object of one’s affections is a chatbot. People are developing true feelings for these AI systems, whether they see them as a trusted friend or even a romantic partner. Young people, in particular, are now turning to generative AI for therapy.

Taking the bait

The Oxford Dictionary’s word of the year is “rage bait,” which the editors define as “online content deliberately designed to elicit anger or outrage by being frustrating, provocative, or offensive, typically posted in order to increase traffic to or engagement with a particular web page or social media content.”

This is only the latest word for forms of emotional manipulation that have plagued the online world since the days of dial-up internet. Related terms include trolling, sealioning and trashposting.

Unlike a hot take – a hasty opinion on a topic that may be poorly reasoned or articulated – rage baiting is intended to be inflammatory. And it can be seen as both a cause and a result of political polarization.

People who post rage bait have been shown to lack empathy and to regard other people’s emotions as something to be exploited or even monetized. Rage baiters, in short, reflect the dark side of the attention economy.

Meaningless meaning

Perhaps the most contentious choice in 2025 was “6-7,” chosen by Dictionary.com. In this case, the controversy has to do with the actual meaning of this bit of Gen Alpha slang. The editors of the website describe it as being “meaningless, ubiquitous, and nonsensical.”

Although its definition may be slippery, the term itself can be found in the lyrics of the rapper Skrilla, who released the single “Doot Doot (6 7)” in early 2025. It was popularized by 17-year-old basketball standout Taylen Kinney. For his part, Skrilla claimed that he “never put an actual meaning on it, and I still would not want to.”

“6-7” is sometimes accompanied by a gesture, as if one were comparing the weight of objects held in both hands. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer recently performed this hand motion during a school visit. The young students were delighted. Their teacher, however, informed Starmer that her charges weren’t allowed to use it at the school, which prompted a clumsy apology from the chastened prime minister.

Throw your hands in the air?

The common element that these words share may be an attitude best described as digital nihilism.

As online misinformation, AI-generated text and images, fake news and conspiracy theories abound, it’s increasingly difficult to know whom or what to believe or trust. Digital nihilism is, in essence, an acknowledgment of a lack of meaning and certainty in our online interactions.

This year’s crop of words might best be summed up by a single emoji: the shrug (🤷). Throwing one’s hands up, in resignation or indifference, captures the anarchy that seems to characterize our digital lives.

Roger J. Kreuz, Associate Dean and Feinstone Interdisciplinary Research Professor, University of Memphis

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Forget Die Hard: Eyes Wide Shut is the ultimate Christmas film

Still from Eyes Wide Shut, courtesy Warner Brothers

The Conversation

December 09, 2025 

Forget Die Hard, Eyes Wide Shut is really the Christmas film hiding in plain sight.

Released in 1999 and set entirely during the festive season, the film follows a doctor, Bill Harford (Tom Cruise), whose wife Alice (Nicole Kidman) admits she once considered an affair. Shaken, he becomes obsessed with pursuing his own sexual encounter and stumbles into an underground world of masked orgies and ritualised desire.

Director Stanley Kubrick chose Christmas after deciding that the original mardi gras setting from Arthur Schnitzler’s novella wouldn’t work in contemporary New York. Christmas offered the closest equivalent. After all, it’s a modern period of ritual excess, indulgence and office-party transgressions.

It’s also a season of overeating, drinking and heightened expectations, which makes it the perfect environment for exploring jealousy, deceit and desire, the film’s defining concerns.

Kubrick also uses Christmas to highlight the thin line between social and sexual ritual. Both are governed by rules, masks and secrecy, and by the privileges of those with enough power or money to ignore the rules altogether. 

Eyes Wide Shut (1999) Official Trailer.

In this, Kubrick was curiously prophetic, pointing to the predations of the likes of Jeffrey Epstein. Meanwhile, the lavishness hints at the world of Donald Trump, who, when Kubrick made the film, was just a real estate and hotel entrepreneur.

Christmas is also the season for performing middle-class normality, a performance the film slowly unravels. The festive backdrop disguises the fact that Kubrick recreated New York on London streets and soundstages, contrasting choreographed gaiety with the darker psychological terrain of the story.

The setting also serves a crucial aesthetic purpose. The near-pervasive Christmas lights and decorations suit Kubrick’s love of practical lighting. These are visible, realistic light sources that add texture and colour, contributing to its dreamlike atmosphere. The original story he adapted was called Traumnovelle (German for “dream story”).

There may have been another reason, too. As I’ve written about extensively, Bill functions as a hidden Jewish character like the protagonist of the original book. The pervasiveness of Christmas underscores his sense of being an outsider. As Kyle Broflovski sang in the TV series South Park: “It’s hard to be a Jew on Christmas.”

Eyes Wide Shut depicts the upper-middle-class and moneyed elites of Manhattan, who use those beneath them to “service” their needs. Bill is summoned for his medical expertise when a sex worker overdoses at Victor Ziegler’s lavish party. He might just as easily be a plumber called to fix a leak.

Sex workers fare worse still. In the masked ceremony, the naked participants are staged as tableaux, basically objects, even furniture, for others’ pleasure.

Christmas consumerism also frames Bill and Alice’s marital tensions. The film repeatedly places Bill in service spaces like coffee shops, boutiques, hotels and hospitals. Even the apartment of Domino, the sex worker he meets, is presented as a workplace. On her shelf sits a copy of Introducing Sociology, reinforcing the consumerist theme.

By contrast, the Harfords’ flat, modelled on Kubrick’s own 1960s New York apartment, is warm and inviting. Kubrick lingers on domestic rituals such as brushing teeth, undressing, everyday movement. But even this comfort feels modest beside Ziegler’s townhouse or the opulent mansion where the orgy takes place.

Class anxiety runs through the film. Bill is preoccupied with his status, flashing his medical ID to access restricted spaces like the morgue and a closed costume shop. But such credentials barely get him close to the elite worlds he longs to enter.

To infiltrate them, he must use disguise. Money guides him; his wallet is always full, and his very name, Bill, seems a wry nod to economic power. Affluent by ordinary standards, he is still dwarfed by Ziegler’s wealth.

His masculinity is even more under threat. Alice cuckolds him, shattering his complacent illusion of security. She revels in puncturing his smugness.

Kubrick played cleverly with Tom Cruise’s Mission Impossible persona, simultaneously using and undermining it. Bill’s most heroic act is offering a handkerchief to a model. “That’s the kind of hero I can be,” he says.

We’re not sure whether he’s being self-deprecating. He is flirting, but all his sexual encounters other than those with Alice are unconsummated. The only real act of heroism in the movie is done for him when the mysterious woman saves him at the orgy.

Why was the film so misunderstood?

When Eyes Wide Shut was released, audiences had been waiting 12 years for a new Kubrick film. If you wait 12 years for anything, you’ll probably be disappointed.

Many expected another grand narrative about war, geopolitics or technology. Instead they found a slow, dreamlike study of marital insecurity. And because the film opened in July, most critics missed its subversive Christmas commentary entirely. They didn’t connect the dots.

Kubrick spent his career making subversive films, intellectually and technologically. Eyes Wide Shut was no exception. As his final work, it stands as the ultimate counter-Christmas film, made, fittingly, by a man who knew what it meant to be a lonely Jew at Christmas.

Nathan Abrams, Professor of Film Studies, Bangor University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.