MikeCrang

Why is China set to approve a new law promoting 'ethnic unity'? A law that could threaten the rights of minority groups is a sign of the direction Xi is taking China.

#China’s new “ethnic unity” law, to be passed this week, will accelerate the attempted forced assimilation of the country’s ethnic minorities into the dominant Han culture, according to academics and human rights groups. A piece by me:
CLICK LINK TO READ

www.bbc.com/news/article...

A brown penguin chick of some kind. It looks very much like a man in a suit. It is bedraggled and miserable

Made it to Friday but at what cost

If anyone is friends with any Georgian air traffic controllers, buy them a nice bottle of wine. As guardians of pretty much the only narrow gap still available between Europe and Asia that avoids both Iran, the Gulf, Ukraine and Russia, they are under some substantial pressure.

A Day in the Life of an Ensh*ttificator YouTube video by Forbrukerrådet - Norwegian Consumer Council

"Make people dependent enough, and then make it shitty"

Still giggling at this hilarious video from the Norwegian Consumer Council "A Day in the Life of an Ensh*ttificator" which seems a perfect embodiment of Silicon Valley and tech generally these days

www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4Up...

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Poster with a photo of a Red Rebel against a bright yellow background. The poster has the words: REBELLION! "It is through disobedience that progress has been made, through disobedience and through rebellion" Oscar Wilde, 1891 Exhibition 1 June to 31 August 2026 Newcastle City Library 33 New Bridge Street West Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 8AX

The Rebellion! exhibition opens in June at Newcastle City Library and will be there for three months. It is an exploration of protest as an essential part of our cultural identity in the face of draconian anti-protest legislation.

This #MapMonday we have even #MoreMaps for you! 🗺️✨

We've georeferenced the 1,329 first edition Six-inch maps of England and Wales we added in November. Now you can use a special toggle button in our viewers to compare these maps side-by-side.

Explore the new tool > maps.nls.uk/additions/#194

Typical plumber, always lets you down when they get offered a bigger job

Russian media rhetoric toward Kazakhstan intensifies as famine history and sovereignty debates test regional ties amid Moscow’s shifting foreign policy doctrine https://ow.ly/Kvrj50YmzFL #Kazakhstan #Russia #CentralAsia #Geopolitics #History #FamineHistory

We can read an advance copy of their manifesto, written a mere 300 years before the election
www.gutenberg.org/files/1080/1...

A Mulching Proposal | Extended Abstracts of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

found an excuse to include one of my favourite papers of all time in my lecture on algorithmic discrimination: Keyes et al (2019): A Mulching Proposal: Analysing and Improving an Algorithmic System for Turning the Elderly into High-Nutrient Slurry. dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/...

🌎 World Water Day 2026: Water and Gender 💧

How does gender shape water access, governance, cooperation and sustainability worldwide?

Join us online on Monday 23rd March 2026 for this special event hosted by @ihrr.bsky.social & @geogdurham.bsky.social at @durham.ac.uk. 🧵👇

@un-water.bsky.social

bsky.app/profile/mlob...

One for you @diegothegeographer.bsky.social

man in bright coloured clothed perfoming dance

man with red hair performing dance

Out now, with free access till 11 April, reflecting many conversations with Feifei Hua and Xianyang Hu on how the 摇火车 ['shake the train'] square dance phenomena took off from one district in Xi'an and what it says about dentity, self-expression and place n contemporary China

tinyurl.com/4v8tucb5

China–Kyrgyzstan–Uzbekistan Railway: What It Means for Central Asia - The Times Of Central Asia The China–Kyrgyzstan–Uzbekistan railway (CKU railway), also known as the Kashgar–Andijan railway line, is more than an infrastructure project. It represents a

"Once completed, the China–Kyrgyzstan–Uzbekistan railway will, at the very least, enhance regional connectivity.

But how important is the project for Kyrgyzstan, through which, according to recent reporting, 304 km of the line will pass?"

My latest @timesca.com 🔽

timesca.com/china-kyrgyz...

When you put it like this, a $75 million bribe to Melania and gutting the Washington Post seems like a small price to pay.

We're recruiting 2 PhD candidates in human geography here in Uppsala, one position focused on urban/housing issues and one in political ecology.

Please spread the word/repost etc. Being a PhD student in Sweden is a good gig.

Iran Worried U.S. Might Be Building 8,500th Nuclear Weapon

Iran Worried U.S. Might Be Building 8,500th Nuclear Weapon https://theonion.com/iran-worried-u-s-might-be-building-8-500th-nuclear-wea-1819573283/

Save the date! Join interdisciplinary researchers, artists and practitioners for this event, addressing the multifaceted dimensions of extraction through our past and present culture and visual media. More details 👇 @adambridgen.bsky.social @durham.ac.uk

Sophie Calle’s Catalogue Raisonné of the Unfinished | The Brooklyn Rail This is a compendium of the most private parts of the artist’s practice—the unfinished and abandoned projects that have languished in notebooks, memories, and email drafts—presented with unsentimental...

The book is a "compendium of... the unfinished + abandoned projects that have languished in notebooks, memories + email drafts—presented with unsentimental retrospection. It’s perhaps fitting that the only formal catalogue raisonné of Calle’s work documents this negative space..."

China's Xinhua news agency has just published this editorial cartoon in response to Trump's rejection of climate policies.

It is pretty clear that China views this as a HUGE geopolitical fumble by the US leaving the field clear for China's to win the global race to clean-tech hegemony

Cyberfraud representing an estimated two-thirds of Laos’s GDP really underscores that deviant globalization IS “development.” www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

Opinion | You’re Paying 90% of Trump’s Tariffs So the New York Federal Reserve says in the latest look at import prices.

Trump’s tariffs are hurting Americans, according to research from the US Federal Reserve: nearly 90 percent of the tariffs’ economic burden fell on U.S. firms and consumers.

This WSJ article is free to read...

www.wsj.com/opinion/dona...

Happy birthday to one of my favourite haters, Charles Darwin

Hands Off Nature – Defend Europe’s Forests, Rivers & Wildlife Stop the dismantling of European environmental protections. Stand up for forests, wildlife, clean air, and safe water - our nature depends on it.

Check out this quick petition to defend Europe's environmental laws against pressure from polluters. 1 minute to sign. Would really help if you shared it too! #HandsOffNature
handsoffnature.eu?utm=.share.b...

Kyrgyzstan faces possible EU trade restrictions over alleged sanctions circumvention even as Bishkek seeks dialogue to avoid becoming the first Central Asian state targeted https://ow.ly/S6RN50Y9rHb #Kyrgyzstan #EU #Sanctions #CentralAsia #Trade #Geopolitics

Data Centers Are Driving a US Gas Boom Gas projects in the US pipeline explicitly linked to data centers increased by almost 25 times over the past two years, according to new research from Global Energy Monitor.

i was actually shocked to see the numbers on new research from Global Energy Monitor on new gas projects in the US: nearly 100 gigawatts of power—enough to power tens of millions of homes—are currently in development explicitly to power data centers. At the end of 2023 that number was 4 gigawatts

Unbent, Unbowed, Unbroken: The Art of Saule Suleimenova - The Times Of Central Asia “I’m a very emotional person,” says artist Saule Suleimenova with a bright, open laugh from her home studio in Almaty. Widely recognized as one of the most

Fascinating peace on critical art of Saule Suleimenova @ Times of Central Asia. She is among the era-defining artist. timesca.com/unbent-unbow...