‘Irresponsible’ or ‘antiwar’: US fighters in Ukraine grapple with Trump


By AFP
February 7, 2025


'You don't end the war by supporting a war,' said Ishman Martino

 - Copyright AFP Jack GUEZ

Barbara WOJAZER

Tracey, an American fighting in Ukraine, got angry at social media posts from his friends back home calling for Washington to cut its support to Kyiv.

US President Donald Trump has repeated money should be spent at home rather than abroad, part of his “America First” programme that has invigorated many, including Tracey’s friends.

“Being on the ground in Ukraine and seeing that angers me. It really pisses me off because it’s just irresponsible,” he told AFP, asking for his surname to be withheld.

“We have many issues in the US. The war in Ukraine is not the reason those things are happening,” he said, a message he hoped would be heard in his home state, the Republican-led South Carolina.

The United States has been Ukraine’s biggest military backer since Russia invaded in February 2022, and President Volodymyr Zelensky said it would have lost the war without that support.

But in the US, 67 percent of Republicans believe Washington is doing too much to assist Kyiv –- compared to 11 percent of Democrats and 35 percent of independents –- according to a December 2024 Gallup poll.

One of Trump’s first acts in power was to freeze international aid, with his allies hinting he should make support to Ukraine conditional on Kyiv entering peace talks.



– Small-town bubble –



Tracey once held such views.

He said podcasters like Lex Fridman had convinced him that Russia invaded out of self-defence, and he believed the Kremlin’s narrative that Kyiv was threatening Moscow by moving closer to the West.

That rationale crumbled in January when Tracey watched “20 Days in Mariupol”, a documentary about Russia’s ruthless siege on the southern Ukrainian city.

“Seeing women and children suffer and just hearing those screams. It sticks with you. And that is stronger than any narrative,” he said.

The next day he got a bus to Ukraine from Poland, where he was travelling, and joined the International Legion of Ukraine’s Defense Intelligence, a unit for foreigners.

Tracey did not vote in 2024 but he understood why people were drawn to Republican messages.

“These are people I love, people I grew up with. They are small-town people that grew up in villages like the ones we’re fighting in down here,” he told AFP.

“I understand that if I was inside that bubble, I would believe it as well.”



– ‘Hit home’ –



Trump supporter Ishman Martino, a former firefighter trained as a US army machine gunner, has been in the Ukrainian military for the last six months.

He once supported Joe Biden’s policy of “feeding Ukraine with artillery shells, cannons and mortars and guns and money.”

But now the 26-year-old — sporting a tattoo of a Ukrainian trident on his neck and one of an Uncle Sam skeleton on his bicep — said he backed Trump’s approach.

“You don’t end the war by supporting a war. Believe it or not, Trump is antiwar,” he told AFP in an interview in the southern city of Zaporizhzhia.

“He said that other countries need to start picking up their slack with taking care of Ukraine, which is very true,” he added.

Martino enlisted after he saw Russian missiles rip through a children’s hospital in Kyiv, where he had travelled to try to repatriate the body of a friend killed fighting for Ukraine.

The patients reminded Martino of his little brother, who suffered from cancer as a child.

“It hit home, seeing the kids come out, still hooked up to an IV, getting chemo. That’s when I was like — alright I’m here to fight,” he said.



– ‘Country comes first’ –



As he was fighting, hurricane Helene destroyed Martino’s hometown.

He shared local anger at Biden’s government, which was accused of abandoning the area, and felt guilty for failing to help, which motivated him to fight harder.

“Better send me to the trenches… so that I can feel decent about myself for not being at home,” he said, describing his thoughts at the time.

Martino is now preparing to return to the US after hearing that his little brother has once again been diagnosed with cancer.

“My family does come first. In all honesty my country comes first too. But I did my time honourably,” he said.

He was confident about Ukraine’s future, despite Trump’s threats.

“Ukrainian people are very smart. I truly do believe that they will figure it out, even if we stopped aid now.”

Tracey, on the other hand, does not think the US will cut support to Ukraine and plans to return to the front as soon as he heals from wounds he suffered in a drone attack.

“I’ve spilt blood in that black Donbas soil. Brothers have died on that soil,” he said.

“Even though we’re not Ukrainian by blood, we feel Ukrainian.”

‘Existential threat’: What next for the ICC after US sanctions?


By AFP
February 7, 2025


ICC prosecutor Karim Khan has several US citizens in his top team - Copyright AFP Raul ARBOLEDA

Richard CARTER, Charlotte VAN OUWERKERK

US President Donald Trump’s decision to slap sanctions on the International Criminal Court, set up to rule on humanity’s worst crimes, sent shock waves around the world.

Experts tell AFP the sanctions announced by Trump, angered by the ICC investigation into alleged Israeli war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza, will have a wide-reaching impact on the court.



– What impact will the sanctions have? –



Neither the United States nor Israel are among the 125 members of the ICC but sanctions could still have a crippling impact on the court’s operations.

The measures include a travel ban to the US for ICC officials, complicating their work. Financial institutions may decline to work with the court, fearing US reprisals.

The sanctions could impact the court’s technical and IT operations, including evidence gathering. There are fears victims of alleged atrocities may hesitate to come forward.

“Companies and organisations might just stop doing business with the ICC because it’s too much of a risk,” said James Patrick Sexton, PhD Researcher at the TMC Asser Instituut and University of Amsterdam.

“Big suppliers such as Microsoft might just proactively pull out,” added Sexton, who is working on a thesis examining the interaction between sanctions and international criminal justice.

Thijs Bouwknegt of the NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies, said the sanctions constituted an “internal crisis” for the ICC.

Bouwknegt noted that current chief prosecutor Karim Khan has several US citizens in his top team — “they can no longer work together”.

He also noted reports that staff members have been paid in advance due to fears of banking difficulties.

“The ICC is an international organisation, so there is a lot of international banking,” he told AFP.



– What can the court do in response? –



“Nothing at all,” said Bouwknegt.

“You can come up with moral arguments that this goes against international law. But that would only have an effect on US partners, who are always very cautious in condemning the US.”

Sexton said the court would likely engage in a diplomatic drive to drum up support for the ICC and international justice generally.

Technically, the court’s founding statute allows the ICC to take action against anyone “retaliating against an official of the court” or “impeding, intimidating or corruptly influencing” an ICC member.

Legally, this means the ICC could hit back at Trump. While this is a possibility, Sexton noted “it wouldn’t exactly de-escalate the situation.”



– What are the consequences? –



Experts fear that weakening the ICC, which investigates war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide, and the crime of aggression, could give carte blanche to dictators worldwide.

The sanctions “seek to undermine and destroy what the international community has painstakingly constructed over decades, if not centuries,” said Agnes Callamard, Amnesty International’s Secretary General.

“Global rules that are applicable to everyone and aim to deliver justice for all.”

If the sanctions target the prosecutor, as is likely, it means that investigations into alleged crimes in hotspots such as Afghanistan, Ukraine, and Sudan would also be affected.

“Victims will be deprived of proceedings even in cases that the US is not unhappy with,” Sexton told AFP.

“This will undermine all investigations, not only the investigation into the situation in Palestine.”

He noted that the sanctions come at an already difficult time for the court.

The ICC has become embroiled in a row with Italy, which released a Libyan war crimes suspect wanted in The Hague after receiving what it described as a badly drafted warrant.

Several countries also voiced reservations about arresting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if he visited, undermining the court’s credibility.

“I think this is an existential threat for the ICC. It’s a real make-or-break moment,” said Sexton.



– Has this happened before? –



Yes. In 2020, Trump’s then Secretary of State Mike Pompeo hit Fatou Bensouda, the ICC prosecutor at the time, with sanctions over the court’s war crimes probe into US military personnel in Afghanistan.

Pompeo at the time referred to the ICC as a “kangaroo court”.

Trump’s successor Joe Biden revoked these sanctions a year later, with Washington pledging “engagement with all stakeholders in the ICC process”.

The US also has drastic means at its disposal that could theoretically involve an American invasion of the Netherlands.

In 2002, the US Congress passed the so-called “Hague Invasion Act” allowing the US president to authorise military force to free any US personnel held by the ICC.

PATRIARCHY IS RAPE

Third Al-Fayed brother accused of sexual abuse: BBC


By AFP
February 7, 2025


Copyright AFP Mladen ANTONOV

Three former employees at London’s Harrods store have accused another brother of its late boss Mohamed Al-Fayed of sexual assault, after hundreds of similar claims were made against the tycoon, the BBC reported Thursday.

They accuse Ali Fayed, the last surviving one of the three brothers, of assaulting them while they were working for the luxury department store in the 1990s.

More than 400 women have come forward with accusations of sexual assault, including rape, against the Egyptian former Harrods and Fulham Football Club owner Mohamed Al-Fayed in the wake of a BBC documentary released in September.

In November, three women accused another brother, the late Salah Fayed, of assaulting them during the period when he jointly owned the department store with Mohamed.

The same week, the New York Times published the claims of a victim accusing Mohamed’s younger brother, Ali, of knowing about the “trafficking” of women.

Now, three former employees say they were assaulted by Ali Fayed in London, Scotland, Switzerland and the US when the department store was owned by the brothers and where Ali was a director, according to the BBC.

One woman, known as Amy, said she “endured” abuse by Mohamed Al-Fayed during three years as his personal assistant, and was also “groped” by Ali at a Fayed family chalet in Switzerland.

She told the BBC she wanted an “explanation” from Ali Fayed, 81, the only surviving brother after Salah died in 2010 and Mohamed in 2023.

– ‘Other individuals’ 

A former Harrods interior designer, named only as Frances, said she was serially abused by Mohamed Al-Fayed before being “molested” by his younger brother in a private apartment in central London and then at his family home in the US state of Connecticut.

Laura, the third alleged victim, was subjected to a “serious sexual assault” by Ali Fayed, according to the BBC.

A spokesperson for Ali Fayed told the BBC he denied all accusations.

Justice for Harrods Survivors, which represents hundreds of women alleging abuse by Mohamed Al-Fayed, said it was representing all three women in this case.

“It was clear from the very first days of our work on this case that other individuals beyond Mohamed Al Fayed were alleged to have been involved in the abuse of women and the concealment of their experiences,” Justice for Harrods Survivors said in a statement.

“We applaud the bravery of the women who have spoken out on their allegations against Ali Fayed and reiterate our commitment to securing justice and accountability for all survivors.”

According to the New York Times, a former Harrods employee alleging abuse by Mohamed Al-Fayed says Ali may have “unique and critical evidence” of “a more than two-decade long trafficking scheme”.

London’s Metropolitan police has opened a new investigation into sexual assault claims against Mohamed Al-Fayed, which has identified at least 90 victims.

UK to quicken rollout of mini-nuclear reactors

Labour presents “as fact things which are merely optimistic conjecture on small nuclear reactor cost, speed of delivery and safety, which is courageous — or stupid — given that not a single one has been built”, Greenpeace

By AFP
February 6, 2025


Copyright AFP Richard A. Brooks

Britain’s Labour government on Thursday said changes to planning laws will speed up the country’s rollout of mini-nuclear reactors aimed at providing cheaper and cleaner energy.

“Reforms to planning rules will clear a path for smaller, safer, and easier to build nuclear reactors — known as Small Modular Reactors (SMR) — to be built for the first time ever in the UK,” a statement said.

“This will create thousands of new highly skilled jobs while delivering clean, secure and more affordable energy for working people.”

The government led by Prime Minister Keir Starmer noted that China is constructing 29 reactors and the European Union has 12 at planning stage.

“My government was elected to deliver change,” said Starmer, whose party came to power in July following 14 years of Conservative rule.

“I’ll take the radical decisions needed to wrestle Britain from its status quo slumber, to turbocharge our plan for change.”

The current plans restrict nuclear development to just eight UK sites.

Greenpeace voiced scepticism at the changes, while urging the government to focus on renewable energy which includes wind and solar.

Labour presents “as fact things which are merely optimistic conjecture on small nuclear reactor cost, speed of delivery and safety, which is courageous — or stupid — given that not a single one has been built”, Greenpeace policy director Doug Parr said in a statement.

While scrapping the limit on site numbers, the government on Thursday stressed there will “continue to be robust criteria for nuclear reactor locations, including restrictions near densely populated areas and military activity”, adding it would take into account environmental impacts.

Labour believes easing regulations across various sectors will help to grow a stagnant UK economy. It argues that for the nuclear industry it should help to speed up net zero carbon emissions and improve energy security.

“The British people have been left vulnerable to global energy markets for too long — and the only way out is to build our way to a new era of clean electricity,” Energy Secretary Ed Miliband said in the joint statement.

Britain has five nuclear power plants in operation of which four will have their lifetime extended according to an announcement in December by their French operator EDF, as the UK aims to fully decarbonise its energy grid by 2030.

EDF, which is building the new nuclear power plant Hinkley Point C in southwest England, decided last year to withdraw its interest to construct Britain’s SMRs.

Scientists’ conference kicks off global AI summit in Paris


By AFP
February 6, 2025


The EU's sweeping risk-based rules will cover all types of artificial intelligence - Copyright AFP JADE GAO

Mona GUICHARD and Tom BARFIELD

Global experts will debate threats from artificial intelligence (AI) at a gathering in Paris on Thursday and Friday, ahead of a summit of world leaders on the fast-moving technology.

Thousands are expected for the event aiming to find common ground on a technology that has upset many business sectors in less than two years — as well as to keep France and Europe on the map as credible contenders in the AI race.

Paris’ ambitions also stretch to stoking citizens’ interest in real-world uses of AI, taking stock of global governance of the technology and promoting ethical, accessible and frugal options.

Scientists including Yann LeCun, AI chief for Facebook owner Meta, will discuss its impact on fields including work, health and sustainability from Thursday at the prestigious Polytechnique engineering school.

The Frenchman, one of the fathers of the current wave of AI, and 20 other high-profile researchers dined with Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday, the French president’s Elysee Palace office said.

Saturday and Sunday will see talks on AI’s impact on culture before heads of state and government from around 100 countries and global tech industry leaders gather on Monday and Tuesday.

– DeepSeek invited –

High-profile attendees will include US Vice President JD Vance, Chinese Vice Premier Zhang Guoqing, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is co-hosting the summit as Macron seeks to involve the Global South in a technology battle that is for now largely playing out between the United States and China.

Macron, pictured here at a previous AI event in 2024, now hosts a summit on the technology in Paris – Copyright AFP Richard A. Brooks

Macron’s office said he would also host United Arab Emirates leader Mohamed Bin Zayed al Nahyan, widely known as “MBZ”, on Thursday to discuss “our two countries’ common ambition on AI”.

From the business side, X and Tesla chief Elon Musk has yet to confirm attendance — as has Liang Wengfeng, founder of Chinese startup DeepSeek, which shocked the world with its frugal, high-performance R1 model last week.

American figures such as OpenAI’s Sam Altman and Anthropic’s Dario Amodei, as well as Arthur Mensch of French AI developer Mistral, will all join the gathering.

In science, Meta’s LeCun will be flanked by the likes of Demis Hassabis, the Nobel chemistry prize-winning head of Google’s DeepMind AI research lab, and Berkeley machine learning researcher Michael Jordan.

Three more Nobel winners — computer scientist Geoffrey Hinton, journalist Maria Ressa and economist Joseph Stiglitz — will join a conference hosted by the International Association for Safe and Ethical AI (IASEI), created only last year.

– French AI efforts –

France hopes that the conference can reinforce its leading European position in AI, having already drawn several labs from leading AI firms to Paris, including Google, Meta and OpenAI.

The Polytechnique school has been singled out to host the scientific conference as a symbol of French excellence in the field.

“This summit has to be a moment to position Paris as the global capital of AI,” digital minister Clara Chappaz told AFP journalists.

After a month in which DeepSeek’s emergence shocked even Silicon Valley titans and the United States announced a $500-billion AI investment scheme, France and Europe have a lot to prove in the coming days.

Paris plans to announce major investments running into the billions, including for new data centres on its territory.

AI starts to help India’s struggling farms

By AFP
February 7, 2025


Much of India's vast agricultural economy remains deeply traditional, beset by problems made worse by extreme weather driven by climate change - Copyright AFP -

Aishwarya KUMAR

Each morning Indian farmer R Murali opens an app on his phone to check if his pomegranate trees need watering, fertiliser or are at risk from pests.

“It is a routine,” Murali, 51, told AFP at his farm in the southern state of Karnataka. “Like praying to God every day.”

Much of India’s vast agricultural economy — employing more than 45 percent of the workforce — remains deeply traditional, beset by problems made worse by extreme weather driven by climate change.

Murali is part of an increasing number of growers in the world’s most populous nation who have adopted artificial intelligence-powered tools, which he says helps him farm “more efficiently and effectively”.

“The app is the first thing I check as soon as I wake up,” said Murali, whose farm is planted with sensors providing constant updates on soil moisture, nutrient levels and farm-level weather forecasts.

He says the AI system developed by tech startup Fasal, which details when and how much water, fertiliser and pesticide is needed, has slashed costs by a fifth without reducing yields.

“What we have built is a technology that allows crops to talk to their farmers,” said Ananda Verma, a founder of Fasal, which serves around 12,000 farmers.

Verma, 35, who began developing the system in 2017 to understand soil moisture as a “do-it-yourself” project for his father’s farm, called it a tool “to make better decisions”.

– Costly –

But Fasal’s products cost between $57 and $287 to install.

That is a high price in a country where farmers’ average monthly income is $117, and where over 85 percent of farms are smaller than two hectares (five acres), according to government figures.

“We have the technology, but the availability of risk capital in India is limited,” said Verma.

New Delhi says it is determined to develop homegrown and low-cost AI, with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to co-host an AI summit in France opening on Monday.

Agriculture, which accounts for roughly 15 percent of India’s economy, is one area ripe for its application. Farms are in dire need of investment and modernisation.

Water shortages, floods and increasingly erratic weather, as well as debt, have taken a heavy toll in an industry that employs roughly two-thirds of India’s 1.4 billion population.

India is already home to over 450 agritech startups with the sector’s projected valuation at $24 billion, according to a 2023 report by the government NITI Aayog think tank.

But the report also warned that a lack of digital literacy often resulted in the poor adoption of agritech solutions.

– Buzzing –

Among those companies is Niqo Robotics, which has developed a system using AI cameras attached to focused chemical spraying machines.

Tractor-fitted sprays assess each plant to provide the ideal amount of chemicals, reducing input costs and limiting environmental damage, it says.

Niqo claims its users in Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh states have cut their outlay on chemicals by up to 90 percent.

At another startup, BeePrecise, Rishina Kuruvilla is part of team that has developed AI monitors measuring the health of beehives.

That includes moisture, temperature and even the sound of bees — a way to track the queen bee’s activities.

Kuruvilla said the tool helped beekeepers harvest honey that is “a little more organic and better for consumption”.

– State help –

But while AI tech is blossoming, takeup among farmers is slow because many cannot afford it.

Agricultural economist RS Deshpande, a visiting professor at Bengaluru’s Institute for Social and Economic Change, says the government must meet the cost.

Many farmers “are surviving” only because they eat what they grow, he said.

“Since they own a farm, they take the farm produce home,” he said. “If the government is ready, India is ready.”

Trump’s Gaza plan derails Saudi-Israel ties: analysts


By AFP
February 7, 2025


A billboard bearing a picture of US President Donald Trump and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is seen on a building in Ramat Gan, Israel 

- Copyright AFP Mladen ANTONOV

Sofiane Alsaar

US President Donald Trump’s plan to take over Gaza will imperil attempts to forge landmark ties between Saudi Arabia and Israel and fuel anti-American sentiment in the oil-rich kingdom, analysts said.

Trump’s proposal to redevelop Gaza and oust the more than two million Palestinians living in the territory prompted a global backlash and enraged the Arab world, making it difficult for the Saudis to consider normalisation.

“If this is going to be his policy, he shut the door on Saudi recognition of Israel,” James Dorsey, researcher at the Middle East Institute of the National University of Singapore, told AFP.

Recognition of Israel by Saudi Arabia, home to Islam’s holiest sites, is seen as a grand prize of Middle East diplomacy intended to calm chronic tensions in the region.

But Saudi Arabia, the world’s biggest oil exporter and the Middle East’s largest economy, now faces the spectre of instability on its borders if neighbouring Jordan and Egypt suddenly house large numbers of Gaza exiles.

At the same time, Riyadh must maintain cordial relations with Washington, its long-time security guarantor and bulwark against key regional player Iran.

“When it comes to security, Saudi Arabia has nowhere to go but to Washington,” Dorsey said. “There’s nobody else. It’s not China. They’re not willing and they’re not able.

“And post-Ukraine, do you want to rely on Russia?”



– Quick reaction –



The Saudis were engaged in tentative talks on normalisation via the United States until the outbreak of the Gaza war, when they paused the negotiations and hardened their position.

They reacted with unusual speed to Trump’s proposal, made during an appearance with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington.

About an hour after his comments, at around 4:00 am Saudi time, the foreign ministry posted a statement on X that “reaffirms its unequivocal rejection of… attempts to displace the Palestinian people from their land”.

In the same statement, the Saudis rejected Netanyahu’s comment that normalisation was “going to happen”, repeating their insistence there would be no ties without a Palestinian state.

Trump’s plan carries real risks for Riyadh, which is throwing everything at an ambitious post-oil economic makeover that relies on stability to attract business and tourism.

If Gazans are displaced to Egypt and Jordan, it “will weaken two countries essential to regional stability and particularly to Saudi security”, said Saudi researcher Aziz Alghashian.

“Trump’s plan, coupled with Netanyahu’s approach, poses major risks for Saudi Arabia.

“It highlights that they are not true partners for peace in Riyadh’s eyes — especially Netanyahu, who appears to want all the benefits without making concessions.”

– ‘Making normalisation harder’ –

Trump’s declarations “will further destabilise the region and fuel anti-American sentiment, particularly in Saudi Arabia”, said Anna Jacobs, of the International Crisis Group think tank.

“He is making Saudi-Israel normalisation harder, not easier.”

Andreas Krieg of King’s College London said Saudi Arabia would not agree meekly to normalisation if ordered by Washington.

Prior to the Gaza war, the Saudis were negotiating for security guarantees and help building a civilian nuclear programme in return for Israeli ties.

“They are not a US vassal state and so they’re not just taking a diktat from Trump,” said Andreas Krieg of King’s College London.

“And I think it will stand firm on their positions, willing to negotiate here and there. But the principal red lines remain.

“Nobody in Saudi Arabia has an interest in selling out Palestinian statehood. That is the last and the most important bargaining chip that the Saudis have in terms of authority and legitimacy in the Arab and Muslim world.”

But the question is how Saudi Arabia and its 39-year-old de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, will proceed.

“I don’t think that the Saudis will take any major steps now,” said Krieg.

“They obviously have their own levers that they can use for pressure on America, particularly in the energy sector. I don’t think the Saudis will want to use it at this point.”

‘Social Network’ star Eisenberg slams Zuckerberg as ‘obsessed with power’


By AFP
February 6, 2025


US actor, filmmaker and writer Jesse Eisenberg poses during a photo session in Paris - Copyright AFP JOEL SAGET

Adam PLOWRIGHT

Hollywood star Jesse Eisenberg, who played Mark Zuckerberg in 2010 hit “The Social Network”, told AFP the Facebook owner had evolved from having “a sense of righteousness” into “somebody obsessed with power”.

Eisenberg took a broadly sympathetic view of the Silicon Valley billionaire when playing him in the David Fincher-directed movie, which helped shape Facebook’s public image.

“As an actor, your job is to empathise with the character, not only empathise, but justify,” Eisenberg told AFP in an interview to promote his widely acclaimed new movie “A Real Pain”.

“I was thinking of the (Zuckerberg) character as somebody who was able to understand certain things so much quicker than other people, and who had a kind of sense of righteousness that was born out of his own brilliance,” he explained.

But 15 years later, with Zuckerberg shifting his political views to align with Donald Trump’s new administration and cutting fact-checking on the US platform, Eisenberg has revised his opinions.

“You kind of wonder like ‘oh, so this person didn’t evolve into a profile in courage’. This person evolved into somebody obsessed with avarice and power and so that’s kind of interesting for me as an actor who at one point thought about this person a lot,” the 41-year-old New Yorker added.

“The Social Network” brought Eisenberg worldwide fame and an Oscar nomination for best actor.

He is set to return to the Academy Awards on March 2 with “A Real Pain”, which he wrote, directed and acted in alongside “Succession” star Kieran Culkin.

The unlikely comedy about two Jewish cousins who go on a Holocaust tour in Poland picked up two Oscar nominations: Eisenberg for best original screenplay, and Culkin for best supporting actor.

– ‘The depths’ –

The film has won rave reviews since it was first shown at last year’s Sundance Film Festival and has been released widely in American and European cinemas over the last three months.

Many critics have noted the deft dialogue between Eisenberg and Culkin’s characters — David and Benji — with their humour and mental health struggles bringing new twists to two classic Hollywood formats, Holocaust and road movies.

For Eisenberg, the script and setting were intensely personal, returning to the land of his Polish grandparents who fled the Nazis and drawing on his experience of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and anxiety.

“David’s life is very similar to my life… the pills that David takes are the pills that I take to the point where the prop department asked me if they can borrow my pills,” he explained.

“But I’ve also been Benji. I’ve been to the depths that Benji has been to emotionally,” he added.

The core of the film reflects Eisenberg’s contemplation of existential guilt.

“How is it possible that I have self-pity, or that I spend an hour every morning trying to get out of bed when my grandparents’ generation were two inches away from being slaughtered?” said Eisenberg, who applied for and gained Polish nationality after filming.

“How is it possible that all of us don’t wake up every morning and kiss the ground that we’re alive?”

– ‘Great timing’ –

Culkin was cast in the film despite not being Jewish, something Eisenberg said he was initially “hesitant” about.

“Once we relieved ourselves of that very specific consideration, he seemed like far and away the only person that could do the part,” he explained.

Culkin brought his “unusual energy” and “great sense of timing and intelligence” to filming, which also saw him repeatedly reject instructions from his co-lead and director, who was nominally in charge of the shoot.

“I was directing the movie, sure, but Kieran was leading the day. I would set up a shot, and Kieran would make fun of me and say that the shot was stupid,” said Eisenberg.

The married father-of-one says he sees himself carrying on in front of and behind the camera, with “A Real Pain” a follow up to 2022’s “When You Finish Saving the World”, which he also directed.

But nothing in the movie business compares to the satisfaction he felt doing volunteer work during the Covid pandemic, however.

“I was volunteering every day at this domestic violence shelter that was run by my mother-in-law. And I had never been happier in my life,” he said.

Variable outcomes: Contrasting patterns form US states over women’s health outcomes


By Dr. Tim Sandle
February 6, 2025

DIGITAL JOURNAL


Photo by Mikhail Nilov, Pexels

With over 168 million women in the U.S., and over one-third of them skipping necessary medical care because of the cost, the non-profit organization SmileHub has released new reports on the Best States for Women’s Health in 2025 and the Best Charities for Health & Wellness.

To highlight the best states for women’s health and the ones that need to improve the most, SmileHub compared each of the 50 states based on 18 key metrics.

The data set ranged from the maternal mortality rate to the quality of women’s hospitals to the affordability of a doctor’s visit. Three key health dimensions were deployed for the assessment: 1) Health & Living Standards, 2) Health Care Policies & Support Systems and 3) Safety Risk.

The top ten ‘Best States for Women’s Health’ were found to be:Massachusetts
Hawaii
Connecticut
New York
New Jersey
Maryland
California
Minnesota
Vermont
New Hampshire

In contrast, tipping to the other end of the scale, the top ten ‘States in Need of Improvement’ were established as:Georgia
Louisiana
West Virginia
Tennessee
Alabama
Texas
Mississippi
Nevada
Arkansas
Oklahoma

Delving beyond the headline rankings, the data revealed that Massachusetts has the lowest uninsured rate among women – 7.9 times lower than in Texas, which has the highest rate. Health insurance is important in the U.S. for increasing life chances.

One of the biggest poor health issues is smoking (cigarettes or vaping). Utah has the lowest female smoker rate – 4.3 times lower than in West Virginia, which has the highest rate

.

Two women sit on a bench looking at their phone in central Sydney. The Australian government says a new law aims to protect young people from the perils of social media – Copyright AFP/File DAVID GRAY

A very different measures is the maternal mortality rate (the number of women who die from pregnancy-related causes while pregnant or within 42 days of pregnancy termination). Here, California has the lowest maternal mortality rate – 4.4 times lower than in Alabama, which has the highest rate.

Radon risk: Why Virginians need to take stock


By Dr. Tim Sandle
February 6, 2025
DIGITAL JOURNAL

Image: — © GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/AFP David Ryder

The U.S. National Cancer Institute lists radon as the second-leading cause of lung cancer behind cigarette smoking. Patterns of radon risk vary across the U.S. Much of Southwest Virginia is at high risk for this colorless, odorless gas.

Radon is produced from the natural radioactive decay of uranium, which is found in all rocks and soils. Radon can also be found in water.

“We know enough about the risks and have affordable ways to test and mitigate radon that our efforts should be focused on raising awareness and preventing exposure,” Philip Agee, an assistant professor of building construction at Virginia Tech states.

Citing the U.S. National Institutes of Health estimate that 15,000 to 22,000 deaths in the country each year are radon-related, Agee has urged Virginias who have never had their home tested to be proactive.

“Consumers can buy short-term tests at hardware stores for about $15,” Agee remarks. “Long-term Internet-enabled monitoring solutions run between $100 to $200.”

Radon is found in soil and enters homes via cracks in building foundations, basements, crawlspaces, and other indoor places where air leaks out. This lowers the air pressure indoors and allows the higher-pressure gas from the soil to infiltrate.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency maintains a map of radon risks for each county/city in the U.S. Unlike other states in the highest risk zones, Virginia does not require radon tests during real estate transactions.

“Homebuyers can have radon tests completed with the home inspection process for a fee,” Agee adds, estimating a cost of about $100 to $200 for a professional service.

Agee’s research has also found that weather can have an impact too. “Radon concentrations will increase in homes following heavy rainfall, and then concentrations decrease over 24 to 48 hours after the rain stops. ” Agee attributes this to more moisture in the soil, preventing radon from escaping to ambient conditions and instead finding a “path of least resistance” into buildings.

“We spend approximately 90 percent of our lives inside the built environment, so your indoor environment impacts your long-term health. If testing shows radon above acceptable levels, radon mitigation systems are used to reduce the risk of radon entering the home,” Agee concludes.

Judge pauses Musk plan for mass US govt cull


By AFP
February 6, 2025


Musk is aiming to cut over a trillion dollars in federal spending and pledged to push the legal limits of executive power to do so - Copyright AFP/File Jim WATSON
Daniel AVIS, Sebastian Smith

A judge paused a scheme masterminded by billionaire Elon Musk to slash the US government by encouraging federal workers to quit through a mass buyout by midnight Thursday.

The federal judge in Massachusetts ordered a temporary injunction on the deadline given by Musk for the country’s more than two million government employees to quit with eight months’ pay or risk being fired.

The deadline is now extended to Monday when US District Judge George O’Toole will hold a hearing on the merits of the case brought by labor unions, US media reported.

Musk, the world’s richest person and President Donald Trump’s biggest donor, is in charge of a free-ranging Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) that aims to radically downsize federal agencies.

According to White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, more than 40,000 staff have so far accepted the buyout deal — a relatively small number.

Unions representing some 800,000 civil servants and Democratic members of Congress are resisting the scheme and have challenged the legality of threats to fire civil servants.

But the campaign — fanned by anti-government-worker invective from Trump and his aides — has already severely disrupted the huge departments and agencies that for decades have run everything from education to national intelligence.

USAID, the government’s agency for distributing aid around the world, has been crippled, with foreign-based staff ordered home and the organization’s programs lambasted daily as wasteful by the White House and right-wing media.

Trump has also repeatedly said he wants to shut down the Department of Education. The inducements to resign have even been extended to the CIA.

In another sign of the scale of the intended cuts, an official with the agency that manages government property said the real estate portfolio, barring Department of Defense buildings, should be cut by “at least 50 percent.”

Leavitt defended the onslaught, telling reporters that federal workers should “accept the very generous offer.”

She said “competent” replacements would be found for those who “want to rip the American people off.”

Among the controversies swirling around the Musk plan is how much access the South African-born tycoon is getting to secret government data, including the Treasury’s entire payment system.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Bloomberg TV on Thursday that there was “a lot of misinformation” and that access to such data was only given to two Treasury employees who are working with Musk.

Bessent said those employees had “read-only” access, meaning they couldn’t change the data.

– ‘Chill’ or big ‘con’? –

Workers considering the buyout offer face considerable uncertainty, including over whether Trump has the legal right to make the offer and whether the conditions will be honored.

The plan was first announced in an email sent across most of the vast government and titled “Fork in the road” — the same as one Musk sent to all employees at Twitter when he bought the social media platform in 2022 and renamed it X.

Musk says the paid departures are a chance to “take the vacation you always wanted, or just watch movies and chill, while receiving your full government pay and benefits.”

Unions warn that without Congress signing off on the use of federally budgeted money, the agreements may be worthless.

“Federal employees shouldn’t be misled by slick talk from unelected billionaires and their lackeys,” Everett Kelley, president of the large American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE).

“This deferred resignation scheme is unfunded, unlawful and comes with no guarantees. We won’t stand by and let our members become the victims of this con.”

The Massachusetts lawsuit also casts doubt on assertions that workers would be free to look for other jobs during their deferment periods, citing ethics regulations.

An employee in the US Office of Personnel Management, where Musk has put his own staff in key positions, said the plan was to encourage resignations through “panic.”

“We’re trying to instill a panic so that people just walk out the door and leave government in a crippled state, which is partly their objective,” the employee told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.