Kit Harington used his inability to wink to address rumors about the upcoming “Game of Thrones” Season 8.

Harington, who plays Jon Snow in HBO’s epic fantasy drama, agreed to “wink for yes” and “blink for no” as “The Tonight Show” host Jimmy Fallon quizzed him Thursday on possible spoilers for what happens in the final season.

But viewers were left none the wiser, as Harington pulled off his trademark wink-blink over and over, no matter what the question.

Check out the clip above.

AHMEDABAD — Actor Vivek Oberoi, who is playing the role of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in a yet-to-be-released biopic, is among the 40 star campaigners for the ruling BJP in Gujarat.

Other actors on the star campaigner list include Union minister Smriti Irani as well as Hema Malini and Paresh Rawal, both sitting Lok Sabha MPs, the latter opting out this time.

The obvious names on the list, submitted to the Election Commission by the BJP, are PM Modi and BJP national president Amit Shah, who is fighting the 2019 Lok Sabha polls from Gandhinagar.

The Omang Kumar-directed biopic, titled PM Narendra Modi, is facing legal hurdles with the opposition Congress complaining to the Election Commission about the timing of its release against the backdrop of the April-May Lok Sabha polls.

The Congress, as well as other opposition parties, have claimed that the film is less a biopic and more a hagiography and will give undue mileage and advantage to the BJP in the general elections.

A Congress leader has also filed a public interest litigation against the release of the film in the Supreme Court, hearing of which is scheduled for Monday.

Party sources on Friday said Oberoi will campaign in various constituencies in the state though a detailed schedule is yet to be drawn up.

The star campaigner list also includes former MP Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan and former Rajasthan CM Vasundhara Raje Scindia.

All 26 seats in the state, currently held by the BJP, will go to polls on 23 April.

Robbie Grewal’s RAW - Romeo, Akbar, Walter, an espionage drama, starring John Abraham is a painfully slow, wildly incompetent film which gets progressively silly. 

Set in 1979, in months leading up to the liberation of Bangladesh, RAW chronicles the story of Romeo, the son of a celebrated army man, who works in a bank, but is recruited by RAW chief Srikant Rai (Jackie Shroff) for an ‘undercover’ assignment.

Romeo’s assignment? To infiltrate the operations of a Pakistani arms dealer, who works closely with the ISI. Right from the onset, things often easily pan out for Abraham’s Romeo, who operates under the alias of Akbar Malik. None of the obstacles feel actually threatening and unlike Meghna Gulzar’s Raazi, which had a similar premise, the tension never peaks and the payoffs are usually underwhelming.

In a film about a spy working for a national agency, the techniques used by the characters - such as hiding messages in cigarette rolls and fruit peels - feel juvenile, unintelligent, and moreover, easy. A peek behind-the-scenes of RAW should inspire raw intrigue and wild curiosity, but thanks to an unimpressive ensemble and lacklustre writing, none of that impact is achieved.

The most interesting bit about RAW is how it deals with the religious identity of its protagonist - an Indian Muslim. Grewal consciously foregrounds his religious identity, which, given the current nationalistic climate in India, is a strong choice of characterisation.

As Muslims in India get increasingly attacked and cornered to prove their ‘patriotism,’ to have a Muslim character as an Indian intelligence spy working in Pakistan, aids in registering a dissenting point of view. 

One of the characters in the film expresses concern about a ‘Muslim working in a Muslim state’ is promptly shut down by Shroff’s Srikant Rai.

However, despite an interesting premise, RAW is led down by poor direction which is best illustrated in the way the romantic track between Abraham and Mouni Roy is handle - undercooked and unnecessary. 

The film also has some laughably tacky CGI, especially the scene where Abraham and another character drop bombs on an enemy target.

Among the cast, Sikander Kher and Anil Geroge stand out as Colonel Khan and Isaq Afridi, especially Kher who is very convincing as a skeptical military man. John Abraham is awful. He overplays the act of being unreadable to the point that he appears like a guy reading lines of a teleprompter. His body language is convincing but of course it can’t compensate for the lack of depth in his performance. 

Mouni Roy, who plays a diplomat/intelligence agent, is completely one-note in a role that doesn’t offer her much to do other than make frantic calls and look tensed. Roy’s idea of appearing tense is to widen her eyes and make a face which looks like she wants to yell at you for something that could be her fault. Jackie Shroff 

There’s really not much to enjoy in RAW. With tighter editing and fast-paced screenplay, the film could’ve turned interesting but by the end, it joins an ever-growing list of yet-another espionage thriller that uses manipulative techniques to foster the idea of nation-loving. 

After years in the making, Sir David Attenborough’s new series, Our Planet, has finally dropped on Netflix. 

As the title suggests, the eight-episode series focusses on human impact on the globe, its eco-systems and the other species we share it with. 

To mark its release, here are 14 jaw-dropping facts about the making of the show and the environments it features, compiled with a little help from series producer, Keith Scholey, and camerawoman Sophie Darlington....  

1. The series producers first thought up their plan for the programme six years ago

Keith told HuffPost UK that he and fellow executive producer Alastair Fothergill first decided to make another global natural history show back in 2013.

“We thought, ‘This time, it’s got to be relevant to our time and have the story of what’s happening to the natural world’,” he explained.

They then took the idea to Netflix in 2014.

2. There’s a stunning glacier shot which was all filmed in one 20-minute period

We’re not going to spoil what it is, but the action was all captured on the last day of filming, after a team of six had sat watching the ice for around three weeks.

3. The ratio of minutes shot to ones that make it on screen is “between 500 and 1,000 to one”

Yes, really. For every 1,000 minutes shot, Keith estimates we see just one. This is because camera crews often have to film for hours while waiting for one specific event to take place (which was the case with the glacier scene).

Keith said: “When you’re waiting for that moment, you have to film a lot of build up. Then when it does happen, you record lots and lots of film.”

4. Sometimes they come back with nothing useful 

One filming trip resulted in zero footage. Watch the behind-the-scenes programme, which accompanies the main series, to find out what happened. 

5. More than 600 people worked on the series

This includes everyone from Keith and Alastair overseeing the series to researchers, runners, camera people and logistics managers.

6. They filmed in 50 countries

In doing so, they managed to capture a number of things on camera that have never been seen before.

7. The score takes roughly four weeks

Steven Price is in charge of writing the music that accompanies the show. He’s previously scored numerous other films by Keith and Alastair’s production company, Silverback, as well as films including Oscar-winner Gravity.

8. Over 70% of Borneo has been deforested

Our Planet reveals numerous shocking facts about the human impact on the natural world, and Keith admits this is one of the ones which stunned him the most.

9. Sir David Attenborough isn’t the show’s only famous narrator

Our Planet features 10 local narrators in other languages, including Spanish-language narrators Penélope Cruz for Spain and Salma Hayek for Latin America.

10. One scene features 500,000 birds

Sophie Darlington filmed the Sandhill Cranes in Nebraska, as 80% of the world’s population of the birds arrived on a 75-mile stretch of river.

“It’s properly one of the best things I’ve ever seen,” she said. “Hundreds of thousands of these birds, the noise and spectacle was just breathtaking and absolutely beautiful.”

11. And another has 100,000 walruses

This features in the Frozen Worlds episode, as the team headed to Russia.

12. Around 20 metres is the perfect distance for a long lens camera

“That’s not particularly close and you can still be pretty quiet,” Sophie explains.

13. There are just 550 Amur tigers left in the world

Growing concern for the environment is front and centre of the series and this fact means their success in capturing one on film is even more incredible.

14. The series is available to watch in 190 countries

Part of the attraction of working with Netflix, Keith says, was the ability to have a huge global release.

Our Planet is available to watch now on Netflix.

New Delhi — A day after HuffPost India published a detailed investigative report about the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) President Amit Shah’s personal election unit, the Association of Billion Minds (ABM), opposition party leaders spoke out against the shadowy outfit.

The BJP has not responded to HuffPost India’s emails.

HuffPost India’s investigation revealed how ABM operates a network of Facebook pages, social media accounts, and websites that serve as disguised mouthpieces for the BJP, but carry no visible indication of their affiliation to the ruling party. Some of these websites have been used to propagate false and divisive information.

In interviews, the Congress party’s Research Department Chief and Parliamentarian Rajeev Gowda sought “fast track legal action” against the fake news promoted by the ABM and the ruling party, Communist Party of India (Marxist) General Secretary Sitaram Yechury urged the intervention of the Election Commission to “curb” ABM which, he said, is “working to defeat our democracy”.

Parliamentary party leader in the Rajya Sabha of the Trinamool Congress, Derek O’ Brien, accused the BJP and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh of “attempting to use” social networks to “spread divisive propaganda and condition minds.”

Detailed remarks from the opposition leaders given in separate interviews to HuffPost India follow:

1) Rajeev Gowda, Rajya Sabha MP and Head of the Congress Party’s Research Department:

What The Expose Reveals About The Politics Of The BJP:

I am disgusted at the brazen manipulation of public opinion and the utilisation of an organisation of bright young people to nefarious ends. When I read that this is the group that created fake news — for example about Shehla Rashid — it disgusts me that people like these continue to thrive in the BJP ecosystem.

If you recall, Mr. Amit Shah once, in a public meeting, said we can create any fake news and make it go viral. That is something to be punished. Not something to be celebrated. And I am disgusted beyond belief that this is what Indian political discourse and the methods and tactics of parties have been reduced to by Mr. Modi and Mr. Amit Shah.

It shows you that they want to win by hook or crook. And this is not new for the BJP. They are capable of engineering communal tension and reaping their harvest. That is the story of evolution of the BJP right from 1990.

It is just that it is sad that people of India who vote with great hope and faith are subjected to these kinds of people. And they are not able to see through that. And your expose tells the story that this is what’s actually going on. And it tells you how bright minds can be bought, induced and turned into cogs in a fake news machine of lie creation.

Why Fast Track Legal Action Is Needed Against Fake News Promoted By the BJP 

I think fake news must be identified and the perpetrators punished. People have died because of fake news. When you have an atmosphere of impunity, when you allow people to go out there and lynch anyone you want because of what they eat or supposedly eat, because of their choices of various kinds in a free country. And the moral leader of this country refuses to condemn an act of that sort until it is too late and weak.

That is why that atmosphere of impunity is there. That is why I say fake news should be punished. There needs to be a fast track legal way of dealing with it.

Why He Supports Political Consultancies

Political consultancy is a profession that needs to grow. There is no problem there. What they do is they tell busy and harried politicians— for example we have created something called the Data Analytics Department. In the Congress Party. We don’t have enough in house strength historically to understand all the nuances of data as they come in to figure out where to target, what to do etc so there is a lot of scope to bring in people who know messaging; data analytics; psephology.

Because we are also busy with other policy and politics related activities so consultants can play a role. We used a designer to help us with a manifesto. We can work on the text and the proposals. But the design and presentation also makes a difference in terms of how easy it is to read, how unputdownable it becomes. There is nothing wrong with political consultants.

On charges of the Congress party also spreading fake news on some occasions:

Mr. Rahul Gandhi, our President, has told us to stick to the truth. You know life is so much easier when you stick to the truth. You don’t have to keep cooking up stuff.

2) Sitaram Yechury, General secretary, Communist Party of India (Marxist)

According to this detailed investigation into the Association of Billion Minds (ABM), it is a secretive, paid operation, formed stealthily, serving the BJP illegally. The ruling party must answer.

Why The ABM Makes A Mockery Of Indian Democracy:

As per your report, it has been active, especially after 2015, spending massive amounts of funds, playing with minds with fake news pushes and other tricks. BJP has never declared this parallel structure, which makes a mockery of our democracy.

Urging The Intervention Of The Election Commission:

It is serious how much BJP has tried to corrode the system and subvert Indian democracy through this ABM. We urge the Election Commission to act to curb this organisation working to defeat our democracy.

Corporate Funding of Election Must Be Banned, State Support In Kind Introduced

This is why we want proper and comprehensive electoral reforms starting with a ban on the opaque dark system of bringing in black money to polls - Electoral bonds. Corporate funding must be banned and there must be state support in kind for Elections.

Money and such illegality cannot be allowed to hijack our democracy.

3) Derek O Brien, Parliamentary Party Leader, Rajya Sabha, Trinamool Congress

There is so much good and positivity about the social network; so much knowledge to be gained and enjoyment to be had. Sadly, the BJP-RSS are attempting to use it to spread their divisive propaganda and condition minds. We are glad that the media has taken this issue up today. The Trinamool Congress was the first party to call out these pages and sites. Our party has raised this issue more than once in the highest forum of the nation, the parliament.

President Donald Trump’s lawyers are pushing back against the idea of releasing his tax returns.

In a letter to the U.S. Treasury Department on Friday, a team of the president’s lawyers argued that requests for the release of his tax information “are not consistent with governing law.”

“We are confident that this misguided attempt to politicize the administration of the tax laws will not succeed,” they wrote in the letter, which was signed by William Consovoy, Trump’s personal attorney.

Friday’s letter suggests the president will fight hard to keep his tax information private. In the letter, Consovoy argues that Congress is attempting to violate Trump’s First Amendment rights.

“The First Amendment prohibits the government ― including Congress ― from harassing political opponents and retaliating against disfavored speech,” Consovoy wrote.

House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal (D-Mass.) on Wednesday asked the IRS for six years of Trump’s personal and business tax information. 

The letter from Trump’s lawyers does not represent the official response to Democrats’ request. According to the law governing tax return disclosure, it’s up to the Treasury secretary to hand over any returns requested by the chairs of congressional committees that oversee taxes.

Few experts think the law gives Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin any leeway to turn down Neal’s request for the president’s personal and business returns.

The Treasury Department has not responded to repeated requests for comment and has not indicated what it plans to do. Last month, Mnuchin declined to tell HuffPost whether he would comply with the law by handing over the requested documents.

If Mnuchin refuses to comply, Democrats have said they will either subpoena the documents or sue in federal court, which would likely lead to an unprecedented court battle. No previous Treasury secretary has refused to comply with the law, which was used most recently by congressional Republicans in 2014.

Neal gave the IRS, which is a bureau within Treasury, until April 10 to respond.

On Thursday, Trump dodged a question from reporters about whether he would tell the IRS to ignore Congress’ request. The IRS hasn’t yet responded.

“They’ll speak to my lawyers and they’ll speak to the attorney general,” Trump said Thursday.

Read the full letter, obtained by NBC, below:

Language has been amended to clarify the nature of Friday’s letter.

The two-hour drive from New Delhi to the home of minibus driver Karam Rahman*, in the state of Haryana, is relatively smooth. But the 45-year old’s journey out of poverty has been anything but.

Working for hire ferrying local passengers, Karam makes about Rs 7,500 a month, or Rs 12,000 when his eldest son pitches in. But his household expenses total about Rs 20,000, due to the ill health of his wife. His plan to fix this shortfall involves opening a “kirana” — a local convenience store — in his village, as the nearest other shop is about a kilometre away, but he’s twice been turned down for a loan.

“At one point, I tried buying a vehicle since I have a driving license. But they make you run around for that too. Officials want a guarantor who owns a vehicle, and despite fulfilling whatever criteria they want, there will always be some middleman who wants a commission.”

“Each time I applied for a loan, the [local bank] officials would create some hindrance or the other, saying things like the budget hasn’t been passed yet,” he says. “If I had been a defaulter I understand the apprehension — let the officials be strict. But why did I not get the loan when I have a clean chit [record]? I had no previous debts or loans pending.”

Karam’s experience is representative of those who fall through the cracks of the the government’s measures to promote “financial inclusion” —  the ability to access financial services, no matter your wealth, gender or social status. The Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana (PMJDY), more simply known as Jan Dhan, was launched in 2014. It allows anyone above the age of ten to open a basic, no-frills bank account without any charge.

Today, 98 percent of Indian households are said to have a bank account. “The next step is that every individual should have one,” says Dhiraj Nayyar, who at the time of writing was head of economics, finance and commerce at the National Institute for Transforming India or Niti Aayog — a policy think-tank headed by prime minister Narendra Modi. According to Nayyar, India’s main challenges to financial inclusion are the fact that “banks are not physically present in several areas” and “people are not always aware of the government’s schemes”.

But a key problem is that in 117 “aspirational districts” identified by the government for improvement, no additional money to fix these problems has been allocated. Instead of extra funds, Nayyar says that there should be “better convergence of existing schemes and more efficiency”.

In 2010, before the Jan Dhan programme came along, Karam was hopeful when his bank told him it might be possible to get a loan from another branch. “Then they asked for a guarantor,” he says. “When I arranged a local headmaster to be one, they wanted one more. It was clear they were delaying the process. Finally I got disheartened and gave up.”

Five hundred kilometres away, in the bordering state of Uttar Pradesh, Jumia Mansoori has been fighting her own battle for financial independence.“There is no store to cater to women’s needs in our village, the nearest one is 15 kilometres away,” explains the 24-year-old, who lives with her husband, Sabir (27), and their three daughters (aged 9, 5, 3).

Currently together they earn approximately Rs 10,000 per month from odd jobs in workshops that make car parts. “I wanted to open a ‘ladies essentials’ [women’s hygiene and toiletries] shop and required a loan for it. It would have earned over Rs 500 a day, enough to feed my family.”

So she and her husband went to the local branch of the state bank. The officials told them to first get a series of documents in order — an Aadhaar number, an ID card, a witness, and a signed agreement to pay back the loan. “Getting all that cost us Rs 200 at the administrative office,” says Jumia. “A bank official then saw our file and said it was ‘severely lacking’ and we should now get land ownership papers. We didn’t have those so he said talk to the man sitting outside and get your file ‘improved’.”

The man sitting outside was a village tout, who refused to give his name but demanded a 20 percent commission to get the loan passed. “In a Rs 200,000 loan amount, Rs 40,000 was a big sum for us.” This experience is common — in a 2018 study, Transparency International reported that about 56 percent of Indians surveyed admitted paying a bribe.

“We went back to the manager and relayed what the man said”, says Jumia. “The manager retorted that it ‘costs’ that much and tried to send us back to him. I asked him why should I talk to a middle-man when you’re there. That’s when he got upset and tore up my file saying, it’s my wish who I decide to give the loan to and who I don’t wish to.”

The Jan Dhan accounts are just the first step in financial inclusion, and the problems experienced by people like Karam and Jumia show that the next will be difficult. “In the current financial inclusion system, people can at best hold a no-frills bank account,” says development economist Jayati Ghosh, who teaches at the Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi. “The problem is not holding an account, it’s getting the loans.”

Her solution for the issue of banks refusing to lend to low-income groups is simply to reduce the financial risk to the lenders. “It’s a time and labour intensive job for them to give loans to poor people. Subsidise them so the poor can get access while the government compensates the banks,” she suggests.

“I had to file the complaints in my name, because the village folk would’ve frowned upon her for ‘politicking, being a woman’.”

This approach, Ghosh says, would also help reach the final two percent of Indians who lack a bank account. She notes the example of India’s National Rural Employment Guarantee Act of 2005, where wages were transferred directly into a bank account. “It encouraged more bank accounts,” she says. “Get people to access banking in a similar way. For the poor it’s costly, they lose a day’s wage if the bank is far away. The business of loans is a nightmare.”

To resolve the problem of the village tout, Jumia enlisted the help of Nasir Ali, state coordinator and activist at Misaal, a national network of community-based organisations.

“We visited the bank at least 20 times in 6–7 months but each time they had some excuse to shoo us off,” she says. “Some even said ‘Go work for a company, you don’t deserve to open a shop.’”

Ali made a complaint twice, but says that bank officials got the case covered up by claiming the report was fraudulent. “I had to file the complaints in my name”, he explains, “because the village folk would’ve frowned upon her for ‘politicking, being a woman’.”

Ali filed the grievance on Jansunwai, a platform — both a mobile app and website — started by the Uttar Pradesh government in 2016 to register citizens’ grievances and suggestions. As of 10 October 2018, the site had received more than nine million complaints, with only a little under 600,000 unresolved.

Ghosh says that banks struggle to loan money to the poor and less literate, like Jumia and Karam. The officials are overworked and the system is far from friendly. Fixing this would involve turning the Jan Dhan account into a real one, she argues. “Compensate the banks. Small enterprises and agriculture should get a share of the credit. Recognise that for banks to do due diligence is a tedious process, so bring in cross subsidies.”

Ghosh says she’d like to see the financial inclusion campaign, once focused on villages, then on households, to drill down even further to the level of individuals. “The idea of a Jan Dhan account is inherently a good one and recognises the first step in financial inclusion,” she says. “Cover every individual adult, not just households, which is crucial for gender relations. Do quotas in the simplest ways, give as many loans to women. All these take time and cost money, but the process of financial inclusion is gradual.”

She adds: “When we not are being creative, and thinking differently for different groups in this country, the talk about financial inclusion feels like propaganda.”

Today, Karam and Jumia lead their lives as before — him working as a hired driver and her in odd jobs with her husband — still struggling to raise income to meet rising expenses. Jumia did not get her complaint addressed by Jansunwai. Karam hasn’t been able to get a loan elsewhere — he gave up after his initial few tries.

Touts continue to be commonplace, reaping the benefits of government schemes before their beneficiaries are able to. Financial inclusion has made great progress in the country — a decade ago, less than half of adults had bank accounts, the number now exceeds 85 percent. But on the ground, in Jumia’s district, Ali feels that all power is concentrated in the bank officials and it’s difficult for an ordinary person to even make a complaint and for it to be rectified.

“There should be effective redressal systems,” he says. “If the bank manager and tout exist together, then without paying commissions, ordinary folks will not get loans. Whatever schemes the government may bring forth for the community, these agents manage to ‘capture’ them first.”

*Name changed.

Identities of the World is a series about financial inclusion and identity, published by Storythings in partnership with Experian. Visit identitiesoftheworld.com for more.

TV anchor Lauren Sanchez, who is in a relationship with Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, filed for divorce the day after Bezos’ divorce was finalized.

Sanchez and talent agent Patrick Whitesell, her husband of 14 years, both filed divorce papers Friday. They’re seeking joint custody of their two kids.

The divorce of Bezos and wife MacKenzie Bezos was finalized Thursday.

The billionaire pair announced they were getting divorced in January, shortly before the National Enquirer reported that Jeff Bezos and Sanchez were having an affair.

He later accused the tabloid’s publisher of threatening to publish explicit photos of him unless he stopped investigating how the Enquirer obtained his private messages with Sanchez.

Sanchez has been a news anchor and sports reporter, and hosted Fox TV’s “So You Think You Can Dance.”

Katie Gorka, a Trump administration political appointee in the Department of Homeland Security, suggested in a July 2017 email that the agency, which had just canceled funding for a group dedicated to deradicalizing white supremacists, redirect its efforts to focus on the real threat: anti-fascists.

Gorka, a senior policy adviser at the DHS, made the suggestion in response to a request from then–Secretary of Homeland Security John Kelly, who was apparently unhappy about criticalmediacoverageof the agency’srevamped Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) program. Kelly wanted staffers to come up with examples of organizations “that counter-hate groups,” an aide wrote in an email, which HuffPost obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request. Gorka couldn’t think of any specific groups, she wrote in response. But “it would also be important to get the data on the actual threats right now,” she added, “because my understanding is that the far-left groups (Antifa, or anti-fascist) are currently on the rise.”

Her claim, which is not backed by any data, is the most obvious example of a trend that pervades a tranche of DHS emails obtained by HuffPost: Trump administration officials came into office with very specific — and mistaken — ideas about what violent extremism in the U.S. looked like, then went searching for evidence to back up those ideas.

The emails, which date from February to August 2017, show Gorka and other Trump administration officials working diligently to find reasons to strip government funding from two organizations selected as CVE grant recipients under the Obama administration: the Muslim Public Affairs Council, which was planning to use its $393,800 grant to expand mental health and counseling services in Muslim communities, and Life After Hate, which was going to use its $400,000 to help white supremacists leave the movement.

Gorka’s name may sound familiar because she is married to prominent vest wearer Sebastian Gorka, who is definitely not a Nazi. “Our pillow talk is the Islamic State and al-Qaeda,” he once said of their relationship. Although less recognizable than her husband, Katie Gorka has her own history of anti-Muslim fearmongering. As a Breitbart columnist, she warned of Muslim Brotherhood influence in U.S. politics and “sharia finance” in London. She took issue with the idea that Islam is a religion of peace. And she claimed that the Obama administration was “supporting Islamist groups abroad” and “allowing Islamists to dictate national security policy.”

After President Donald Trump’s inauguration, Kelly ordered a full review of the CVE program. At the time, Trump loyalists were pushing for the program to focus exclusively — instead of just primarily — on Muslims. In May, then–acting DHS General Counsel Joseph Maher laid out the legal standards for rescinding grant money.

Kelly “has broad discretion in making award decisions,” Maher explained in an email that was eventually sent to Gorka. If a group challenged the DHS in court, the secretary would have to prove that he was not acting “arbitrarily or capriciously,” the lawyer continued.

So DHS aides got to work finding reasons to justify revoking the grants for MPAC and Life After Hate. “We have enough material on Life After hate [sic] but are coming up short on MPAC,” Gorka wrote in an email to then–DHS official John Barsa, who tweets things like “Is Islam a Religion of Peace?” “I thought the Congressional letter might be helpful. Do you have an electronic copy you can send me?” The emails released through FOIA do not indicate which congressional letter she is referring to.

On June 1, Gorka and Barsa received a memo from a redacted sender with “recommended language” to justify revoking funding to the two groups. The memo claimed, without evidence,  that “MPAC, and individuals affiliated with the organization, have been publicly accused of sanitizing terrorism, being affiliated with groups that some claim have ties to terrorism, and making anti-Semitic statements.”  

“While DHS takes no position on the accuracy or merit of the public accusations against MPAC, the existence of those accusation does make MPAC a controversial applicant,” the memo continued.

The DHS declined to provide HuffPost with examples of the supposed controversy surrounding MPAC. The group’s president, Salam al-Marayati, has testified before Congress, advised the Los Angeles Police Department on its relations with the city’s Muslim community and served on a DHS advisory committee.

The claims in the DHS email are “just cut and paste from the Islamophobes like Robert Spencer and Daniel Pipes,” he said in an interview, referring to far-right conspiracy theorists who have accused him — and most other Muslims — of being terrorist sympathizers.

The June 1 memo went on to say that DHS would not work with Life After Hate because Christian Picciolini, one of the group’s co-founders, used profanity in a tweet critical of Trump. The memo appears to borrow extensively from Gorka’s research, summarized in a May 26 email to Barsa, Maher and a redacted recipient.

Picciolini, who is no longer affiliated withLife After Hate, declined to comment. He and Life After Hate are currently suing each other, primarily over a trademark dispute.

The DHS unveiled its revised list of grant recipients on June 23, 2017. The agency canceled grants for seven organizations, and five additional groups pulled out of the program voluntarily. The department reallocated much of the money initially intended for community-based nonprofits to law enforcement agencies.

Organizations that lost their funding didn’t receive much of an explanation. For small nonprofits such as Life After Hate, which didn’t have enough money to pay employees full salaries at the time, losing their government grants could have been a major blow to their work. But seven weeks after DHS canceled Life After Hate’s grant, neo-Nazis descended on Charlottesville, Virginia, casting a spotlight on the threat of far-right extremism. By the end of 2017, Life After Hate had raised about $1 million, said its executive director, Sammy Rangel.

When the DHS welcomed CVE grants recipients in late July, it mistakenly sent invitations for a webinar to groups whose funding had been revoked. “God I hate this program,” an official whose name was redacted wrote in an email to Gorka and Barsa on a thread about the webinar snafu.

“Don’t despair!” Gorka wrote back. “You can’t believe all the good things that are happening right now! Just think of the Wicked Witch of the East dissolving into a puddle, crying ‘I’m melting! I’m melting!’” she continued. “Trust me, it’s melting!”

The Trump administration is expected to end the CVE grant program, NBC reported last year.

The DHS declined to respond to a detailed list of questions. “The Department is committed to both preventing violent extremists and countering terrorism,” a DHS official who requested anonymity wrote in an email. “Following Secretary Kelly’s review, some previously announced grantees were determined to be more effective through partnership with local law enforcement and/or were capable of securing non-federal funding and thus did not receive additional funds at that time.”

“Regarding Life After Hate, the Department, including Katie Gorka, has a productive relationship with the organization and has recently met and participated in events with its new leadership,” the official added.

The watchdog group Democracy Forward is suing the DHS for failing to comply with a FOIA request related to Gorka’s role at the agency.

It appears that Gorka was unsuccessful in her 2017 bid to get government funding to fight anti-fascists. But she’s not the only one at the DHS who hyped the threat of antifa. Months later, a DHS agent emailed intelligence centers requesting information about an antifa plot to overthrow the government after apparently falling for a satirical antifa supersoldier meme, according to emails obtained through a separate FOIA request by the transparency nonprofit Property of the People.

Although violent attacks by white supremacists are in the rise in the U.S., there is no similar trend with antifa, a loosely organized group of people known for exposing the identities of neo-Nazis, protesting white supremacist rallies and occasionally punching people like white supremacist Richard Spencer in the face.

Read the emails obtained through FOIA here:

Actor-politician Shatrughan Sinha joined the Congress on the foundation day of the BJP Saturday, saying he has quit the party as it has turned into a “one-man show and two-men army”.

Congress General Secretary K C Venugopal welcomed Sinha into the party fold and termed him the “best politician who was earlier with the wrong party”.

Joining the Congress, Sinha said its president Rahul Gandhi is a “tried, tested and successful dynamic leader, who is the face of the nation and its future”.

He hit out at the BJP leadership, alleging there’s no place left for dialogue in the BJP anymore and the party’s top brass “doesn’t value its own people and views opponents as their enemies”.

Party veterans are not being looked after in the BJP and are being sent to ‘Margdarshak Mandal’, he alleged. 

“In the BJP, democracy has slowly and surely turned into dictatorship. The party has become a one-man show and a two-men army,” Sinha alleged.

In an apparent reference to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, he said, “People have called your bluff and understood your hollow promises. You have been exposed.” 

The 72-year-old leader said whenever he tried to make a point, he was called a traitor.

“If speaking the truth is rebellion, then I am a rebel,” he added. 

He also said the country would have transformed if the money spent by the BJP’s on its publicity campaigns was spent on development.

Lauding the Congress’ proposed NYAY scheme, he said such a proposal has never been unveiled in the country. 

Sinha represents Bihar’s Patna Sahib seat in the Lok Sabha. He is all set to take on the BJP’s Ravi Shankar Prasad in the constituency. 

Congress spokesperson Randeep Surjewala, AICC in-charge for party’s Bihar unit Shaktisinh Gohil welcomed Sinha into the party.

BSP president Mayawati on Saturday said senior BJP leader L K Advani’s remarks in a blog post were a “reality check” on the functioning of the BJP government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

She was referring to Advani’s statement that the BJP never considered those who disagreed with it politically as “anti-national” or “enemies” but only as adversaries.

In a tweet, Mayawati said, “BJP patriarch L K Advani’s reality check admonition on the functioning of the BJP/Modi govt on the party’s foundation day is a serious no-confidence against them besides a fervent appeal to the people that this despotic/anti-people Modi Govt is unworthy of returning back to power (sic).” 

Advani’s remarks posted in a blog were construed by many political watchers as a veiled criticism of the party leadership which has often likened its rivals to enemy like Pakistan and accused them of abetting anti-national elements.

Pakistan has said that it will not accept the abrogation of Article 370 of the Indian Constitution in Kashmir, saying it would be a violation of UN resolutions.

The Article 370 is a “temporary provision” with respect to Jammu and Kashmir and restricts the applicability of various provisions of the Constitution by “curtailing” the power of Parliament to make laws on subjects which fall under the Union and Concurrent lists. 

Pakistan’s Foreign Office Spokesman Mohammad Faisal, while addressing the media in Islamabad on Friday, made the comments on the issue of abrogation of Article 370 in Kashmir, saying it will be in violation of the UN resolutions.

“The abrogation of Article 370 of Indian constitution is violation of UN resolutions. We will not accept it under any circumstances and the Kashmiris will also not accept it, he said.

Senior BJP leaders have repeatedly emphasised the party’s commitment to abrogate Article 370 from the state.

According to media reports, BJP President Amit Shah said it remains committal to remove the Article from the state but their lack of majority in Rajya Sabha is the reason why it has not been done so far.

Shah’s comments were met with some sharp criticism from political leaders in Jammu and Kashmir.

National Conference leader and former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Omar Abdullah said when the country got independence, a Constitution was created in which certain provisions were kept by which the state’s identity could be safeguarded.

“It included Article 370 and Article 35A. Unfortunately, some of our leaders made Article 370 hollow for their personal gains,” he said.

His father and National Conference President Farooq Abdullah had said that the relationship between New Delhi and the state will be over if Article 370 is repealed.

The BJP on Saturday accused the Congress of making multiple false promises in its election manifestos of 2004 and 2009 and said people are smart enough to not be misled by such promises this time.

“For us, manifesto is a very important document. The way Congress takes its manifesto, and the way it has been making false promises...this country’s people are smart enough to reject such false promises,” said Railway Minister Piyush Goyal at a press conference at the BJP office here.

“Through lying and by making false statements, this country’s people can not be misled,” he added.

Going into the detail, Goyal said, “Congress made big promises in all of its previous manifestos. In 2004 and in 2009, the Congress promised that it will provide direct income to farmers. After running the government for 10 years, they did not do anything about it.” 

Goyal said it was under the Modi government that a decision was taken to give Rs 6,000 to poor farmers. “It was implemented within 24 days, and currently, all poor farmers have started getting annual Rs 6,000 assistance,” he said, referring to the first installment of Rs 2,000 released by the government.

Goyal also accused the Congress of making the false promise of providing electricity to every home in the country in 2004 and again in 2009. “The then Congress president even said in 2004 that within 3-5 years, we will provide electricity to every home,” he said.

“When our government came, 18,452 villages were un-electrified... Within five years, we electrified all remaining villages. We have worked to provide electricity to every home,” he asserted.

“Congress had said (in its previous manifesto) that it will keep zero tolerance on terrorism. Today, the whole world has seen how the Congress’s hand is standing along with terrorism,” he added.

Goyal said when BJP government attacks terrorists forcefully, the Congress president, Rahul Gandhi, and other senior Congress leaders raise questions on it and “give support” to terrorists.

“The country that harbours terrorists, their TV channels show the speeches of them (Congress leaders), so that Indians and Indian armed forces can be weakened,” he said. He added, “How they went soft on terrorism, it can be seen in the way they removed the POTA law.” 

Alleging that the Congress wants to dilute laws that are used against terrorists, he added, “I think they do not want any strict action against terrorism. They did not like that we kept Kasab in jail and sent him to the gallows. I think they want terrorists like Kasab should be able to get bail.” 

For the economically weaker sections, Congress had promised in 2004 and 2009 that reservation would be given to them, Goyal said.

“Neither did they implement it, nor did they give it a thought. It was NDA government that fulfilled this promise by giving 10 per cent (quota) to the economically weaker sections,” he said.

Congress promised in its manifesto in 2004 and 2009 that it would give one-rank one-pension to everyone retired from the armed forces, Goyal said.

“It was only in its last interim budget that the Congress said it will fulfil the promise. After 10 years, when it was time to vacate the central government, they allotted just Rs 500 crore for it. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, with utmost respect to the armed forces, implemented the one-rank one-pension scheme,” he said.

In 2004, Congress wrote in its manifesto it will root out corruption and generation of black money.

“It is funny that they themselves were indulged in multiple scams after that 2G scam, coalgate scam, AgustaWestland scam, Commonwealth scam. And they kept promising alongside that they will remove corruption. Under Modi government, we have removed corruption and blackmoney. We attacked it. Through law, we forced a lot of people to pay their loans,” he said.

Congress said in 2009 that it will improve the economy and from April 1, 2010, it would implement the GST.

“But they did not improve the economy, growth rate kept falling, inflation kept rising, interest rates kept rising, fiscal deficit at one point reached 6.5 per cent,” Goyal said.

“Congress promised in 2009 that within three years, we will provide internet broadband services within three years. But till 2014, they were able to take broadband to 59 villages only. We, in the NDA government, provided broadband services to 1.2 lakh villages,” the minister added.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Saturday said India is expected to become the third largest economy in the world by 2030 with GDP touching USD 10 trillion, helped by consumption and investment growth.

Currently, the size of the Indian economy is about USD 2.9 trillion, he said while addressing students of the Shri Ram College of Commerce here. 

“We keep oscillating between fifth and the sixth largest economy, depending on the dollar rate. As we look at the years ahead, we would be USD 5 trillion by 2024 and USD 10 trillion by 2030 or 2031. 

“That’s when we will be amongst first three - US, China and India and then of course, we would be in the rat race of the big three wanting to catch up with much mightier competitors. So the sheer size and opportunities is going to expand,” he said.

Talking about avenues of growth for the next 20 years, the finance minister listed infrastructure creation, rural expansion and gender parity, among others.

Jaitley, himself an alumnus of the college, said the 2011 Census showed that 21.9 per cent of India’s population lived below the poverty line (BPL) and with the present rate of growth, this might have further reduced to 17 per cent today.

It should shrink to 15 per cent by 2021 and further down to single digits by 2024-25, he said.

At the same time, the middle class population would increase to 44 per cent from 29 per cent in 2015, he said citing a study. 

“Therefore as you look ahead you would see poverty deplete, you will see an exponential growth of middle class and probably by 2030 almost half of India would be in that category (middle class),” he said.

“Going by the data, the size of India middle class would be four times the size of BPL when 2024 general elections takes place and therefore we have to see (whether) public discourse is still behind the curve or it takes the curve further,” he said. 

So, consumption will get a boost with rising number of middle class, he said, adding that infrastructure creation, both rural and urban, would also help accelerate the growth process.

He also said some sectors like infrastructure and railways need further fillip.

Senior BJP leader and former Union minister Kalraj Mishra Saturday said his party had not promised Rs 15 lakh in everybody’s bank account in the run up to the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, and accused the opposition parties of spreading “disinformation” over this issue to “mislead” people.

At a press conference here on the 39th foundation day of the BJP, he hit out at the Congress over its proposed minimum income guarantee scheme and the Rafale fighter jet issue claiming that the party was “in the habit of speaking lies”.

To a question on the 2014 poll promise of providing Rs 15 lakh, Mishra said “I want to clarify that we never made any Rs 15 lakh promise. In a public address (ahead of 2014 polls), our leader said that if black money stashed abroad comes back, an estimated Rs 15 lakh can be given per family. But this promise was never made in our party’s manifesto.” 

Prime Minister Narendra Modi never made any such promise, he asserted.

On Congress’ ‘Nyay’ (minimum income guarantee scheme), Mishra said, “They were in power for 10 years, why did they not think about the poor then? Moreover, they have not yet explained the process how they will give this amount. They made promises in 2004 and 2009, but failed to fulfil those. They are in the habit of speaking lies.” 

Asked about the Congress’ allegation on the Rafale issue, the BJP leader alleged that Rahul Gandhi and other Congress leaders were going by the theory that if a lie is repeated often and enough number of times, it would pass off as truth.

On Modi’s ‘Congress Mukt Bharat’ slogan, Mishra said the BJP never said it means to rid the country of the Congress party.

“It was to rid the nation of corruption and their policies and we were committed to end this,” he said.

Dubbing the Congress poll manifesto a “pack of lies”, he referred to the party’s pledge to scrap the British-era sedition law and review Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act (AFSPA) to claim that it was an “insult to the country’s people and its brave soldiers”.

Asserting that for the ruling BJP, the nation and nationalism was above all, he said the NDA government headed by Prime Minister Modi will give a strong reply to enemies who “look at our country with an evil eye”.

On the anti-terror air strikes in Pakistan’s Balakot, Mishra said, “While Pakistan asked for proof, it was unfortunate that some parties in our country too had raised doubts about these strikes.” 

He slammed PDP president Mehbooba Mufti for saying that the relation of Jammu and Kashmir with India will end if the terms and conditions of the state’s accession to the Union were changed.

Asked why the BJP-led NDA had not scrapped Article 370 till now, Mishra replied, “After taking the people of Kashmir into confidence, appropriate decision will be taken on Article 370. We want to take everyone along.” 

“The inclination of Kashmiris towards the BJP, towards Prime Minister Narendra Modi has increased. People in the Valley understand that some people for their political interests and separatist elements are trying to vitiate the atmosphere. We are trying to isolate those who are trying to prevent people of the Valley from joining the mainstream,” the NJP leader said. 

Mishra, who is BJP’s in-charge for Haryana affairs for Lok Sabha polls, said the party’s candidates for all the 10 parliamentary seats in the state would be made soon.

Can people recognise fake news? Do people agree that they can’t actually spot it, and will they appreciate this fact more if it is presented as a challenge? That’s the genesis of Litmus, a mobile game designed to teach people how to recognise fake news, rather than being taken in by it. It’s presently available for Android phones, with an iOS version in the works.

Fake news is an ongoing and enormous problem that people are now attempting to tackle through a number of different methods, from human fact-checkers (of questionable effectiveness) and AI and machine learning-based approaches too. But ultimately, we have to ask ourselves why people share fake news, and whether we’re capable of recognising it when we see it.

This was a question we decided to approach at Enthrall Labs, a startup born at IIM-Bangalore’s Incubator. Here, we create meaningful engagements through developing mobile applications, and we realised that the way for us to make a difference was through helping people recognise fake news.

There are enough of news websites and fact-checking websites which investigate news sources and bring the truth to the people. So our team built Litmus, which is a quiz game meant to be an eye opener to people that fake news exists widely; and to make us understand that we all fall prey to it.

Our team felt that building a gamified and analytics rich platform will be a perfect match to the cause of raising awareness. Litmus uses gamification and deep analytics to achieve its mission. It is intuitive, easy to onboard and use, inspired by Tinder, so as to appeal to wider demographics.

You are shown news snippets, and swipe right for real news, and you swipe the fakes to your left. That’s all there is to it — you know immediately whether you were right, or fooled by fake news. Litmus not only tells you whether your answer was right or not, but also provides you the source of the news to read more details if you wish to. Litmus uses many other gamification tools and also provides rich analytics.

One of the things that came out through testing sessions was that being proven wrong was an “aha” moment for our beta testers. They immediately wanted to know what the real story was, and to dig into the details when they got a match wrong. In our initial tests, we would say if news is true or false, but that was it.

This wasn’t good enough for the testers, who wanted to know what the grounds were, by which we were saying this. So we then included a link to the source, so people could read the details of the fact check, and this made them satisfied.

The idea of Litmus was floating around for quite some time but the team actually started working on it a few months ago. Once we had the basic hypothesis in place—can people recognise fake news—it was time to put the idea through testing sessions.

Aside from initial testing with sample users, we also ran polls on social media platforms. The results were as we expected. People believe that they are good at recognising the truth, and it was a surprise to them that they could not identify fake news.

The results made us very clear in our head about who we are and what we don’t want to be. We did not want to build another news aggregation app nor did we want to create any fact-checking mechanism.

The foremost need was to raise awareness about fake news. People needed a helping hand to bring them closer to reality. The idea is that healthy scepticism is not bad, and we all need to pause for a while, verify the source of the information, and then form an opinion. We quickly started building around those ideas.

Our previous experience in building applications helped us seek out active user feedback and accordingly build gamification that brings excitement. Litmus is, by design, easy to use for even the least sophisticated smartphone user. There are no fancy graphics, or multiple paths of navigation, or visually busy screens, intentionally to avoid confusion.

The design is simple news cards, which users can swipe left or right. The idea of using cards was also tested with the beta users. Initially the app had select buttons, which were removed based on the user experience testing. The app uses Tinder-like analogy where you swipe right for right news and left for fake news. The app then tells you whether it’s a right match or not.

Our team manually picks up news items from fact checking sites and other news sources. The news is added in the set of ten cards, maintaining a balance of all kind of news. So far, we haven’t received any angry emails! We only select news where it’s clearly true or false, and we don’t pick any opinions or claims.

During our testing, we specifically made sure that no particular set of users find it difficult to navigate. We did not want to build extensive onboarding, the game has to be quick to learn and instinctive for users.

To our satisfaction, even the least sophisticated users could explore the game without any hand-holding. We made sure that we keep talking to these users, just asking them step-by-step, after each interaction they had with the app. That made us refine the user experience for the simplest and most easy to understand results.

Another very interesting data point during our testing was that many users played it along with their spouse or family member and competed with each other. This led to the idea of building a healthy scoring system in the app.

Litmus provides scoring for each correct swipe. The user progresses to higher levels as the scoreboard progresses. The scoring also provides the success of the user on various attributes. For example, we could use the score to say, how gullible is the user? Or how aware are they? These scores can be shared on social media or using personal links, which might help the game onboard new users, bring more awareness.

The team eventually aims to find some meaningful observations and perform rich analytics to better tackle the problem of fake news. This data might reveal the leading indicators of what makes people fall for fake news and what is the impact of things like images versus the text.

We aim to do our bit as active citizens of this country and use our expertise to fight a cause which needs attention. Fake news is a bane given to us by technology and we aim to use technology to fight the same. We believe that a well-informed citizen is the key to successful democracy and we are happy to do our bit to bring awareness.

Any cat owner knows the eternal struggle of getting their fur babies to respond to names. Sometimes you call them and they look up, ears forward, eyes alert. But other times, no matter what pitch you use or how loudly you say it, they don’t move a whisker.

You’d be forgiven for thinking that, actually, cats are a bit stupid. Maybe they just don’t have the capacity to recognise their own names?

But a new study suggests otherwise... oh how we’ve been fooled.

Much is known about the ability of dogs to communicate with humans, but researchers in Japan wanted to investigate how well domestic cats could differentiate between different human words.

Their experiment involved measuring whether cats reacted to their names when they were spoken among a string of other random nouns. The same test was then carried out with the words being spoken by a stranger, rather than by the cats’ owners.

Pets showed responses that would indicate recognition, such as pricking up their ears or moving their heads, although rarely showed any more excitement, such as moving their tails or making noise. Not surprising in the slightest. 

The experts said it was “reasonable” to believe cats would react to their own names as they might associate it with rewards, such as food or play, or with “punishments” like having a bath or going to the vets.

John Bradshaw, an expert on human-animal interactions from the University of Bristol, told The Times: “Cats are just as good as dogs at learning — they’re just not as keen to show their owners what they’ve learnt.”

Atsuko Saito, from Sophia University in Tokyo and the author of the report, said the study could be used to help improve cats’ quality of life in the future: “For example, perhaps we can get cats to learn that dangerous objects or places are referred to by specific utterances.”

The major thing to take away here: next time your cat doesn’t respond to its name, you’re 100% being ignored.

KHARTOUM — One Sudanese protester died as thousands of demonstrators marched in Khartoum Saturday, many reaching the army headquarters for the first time since the deadly protests against President Omar al-Bashir erupted in December.

Chanting “one army, one people,” the protesters rallied in the capital’s streets following a call by organisers to march on the compound, which also houses Bashir’s residence and the defence ministry.

Organisers said earlier this week that demonstrators would gather to demand the army either “take the side of the people or the dictator’s”.

The crowds chanted the movement’s catchcry “peace, justice, freedom”, onlookers said. 

“We still haven’t achieved our goal, but we have delivered our message to the army and that is: come join us,” protester Amir Omer told AFP.

“They were calling on Bashir to step down,” another witness added.

Fellow protester Adam Yagub, 40, said Bashir had “ruined the country’s economy so much that people are dying even due to shortage of medicines”.

Police said a protester had died in the capital’s twin city of Omdurman.

“There were illegal gatherings in Khartoum and other states,” police spokesman General Hashim Abdelrahim told the official SUNA news agency.

“Police have recorded the death of one person during disturbances in Omdurman.” A committee of doctors that helped organise the protests confirmed that the “martyr” was a medic. 

It means the death toll in protest-related violence since December has now risen to 32, according to officials.

Human Rights Watch has put the death toll at 51 including children and medics.

‘Historic moment’ 

Soon after reaching the army compound, organisers called on the protesters to stand firm outside its fortified walls.

“At this historic moment, we ask you to not leave the army headquarters and hold a sit-in in the nearby streets,” the organisers said in a statement.

Since the start of the protests, security agents and riot police have cracked down on demonstrators but the army has not intervened.

After a few hours, dozens of vehicles full of riot police converged near the compound and fired tear gas at protesters in a bid to disperse them, witnesses said, adding that some demonstrators threw rocks at the police officers.

Late on Saturday crowds of protesters remained outside the complex, some singing and dancing.

“We will not leave this place until Bashir steps down,” one protester said on condition of anonymity.

Witnesses said that many demonstrators who grew tired were being replaced by newcomers, including families.

In a separate demonstration Saturday, protesters reached the army office in the town of Madani southeast of the capital, witnesses told AFP by telephone.

“Today’s turnout has been impressive,” said a European diplomat on condition of anonymity.

Protests have rocked the east African country since December 19, with angry crowds accusing Bashir’s government of mismanaging the economy, leading to soaring food prices and regular shortages of fuel and foreign currency.

They first erupted after a government decision to triple the price of bread but quickly escalated into nationwide rallies against Bashir’s rule.

On February 22, the veteran leader imposed a nationwide state of emergency to quell the protests after an initial crackdown failed to rein in the rallies.

Since emergency rule came into effect, the demonstrations have been largely confined to the capital and its twin city of Omdurman.

April 6 was chosen for the nationwide rallies as it marked the 1985 uprising that toppled the then regime of president Jaafar Nimeiri.

Analysts say the movement has emerged as the biggest challenge yet to Bashir’s three-decade rule. 

Bashir, wanted by the Hague-based International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes and genocide in conflict-wracked region of Darfur, swept to power in an Islamist-backd coup in 1989. 

The veteran leader has remained defiant, introducing tough measures that have seen protesters, opposition leaders, activists and journalists arrested. (AFP) 

An Argentinian sex toy company has designed a new condom that it says proves consent because it needs four hands – in other words, two people – to open it.

The brand, Tulipán, designed the packaging of the condom with a series of pressure points around the fours edges. Pressing all of the buttons simultaneously releases the lid of the box.

The brand say the unique design ensures both parties are equally involved in the decision to have sex because you can’t get to the contents without two sets of hands. It’s even branded the item with the phrase: ‘if it’s not a yes, it’s a no’. 

But it totally misses the point. 

Firstly, it’s unclear whether the whole thing is an awareness-raising campaign or a clever stunt – riding on a wave of post #MeToo interest in the conversation around consent. Does Tulipán actually intend to make money from this?

The United Nations estimates 70% of women worldwide experience some form of sexual violence with an intimate partner, so if this product is intended for market, it misses the mark. The prospect of not being able to put on a condom to have safe sex won’t be enough of a deterrent to stop many sexual predators.

And after watching the demonstration video a couple of times, it looks like a person can singlehandedly open the condom box anyway – as it’s not big enough to stop you using your thumb and forefinger on each corner. 

Not to mention if you were in a rush you could just rip into the cardboard – it’s not made of reinforced steel or anything.

But beyond these logistical problems, it also ignores all the nuances of consent – the fact that consent can be withdrawn at any time  (yes, even after she has helped you open the box). It’s like the problem of consent videos – an open condom box is not evidence that someone wasn’t raped. 

People could be coerced into opening the box – through verbal or physical threats. Or if they’re drunk and semi-conscious, they could find themselves opening the box being totally unaware it’s being used as an agreement. 

It also doesn’t help with cases of stealthing – where a condom is removed mid-way through sex without permission (which is illegal in the UK). Consent for one way of having sex isn’t consent for all iterations. 

It’s all a bit reminiscent of the £87 anti-rape knickers, with a combination lock and 130-decibel alarm, which went on sale in Germany in a bid to stop would-be rapists tearing your pants off without you giving over the passcode. 

Women don’t need your gimmicky products. If men can’t be trusted to behave unless they have physical barriers (boxes, padlocks) to keep them on the right side of the law, then the conversation around consent has really lost its way. 

As the implications of climate change become starker and the world faces up to a biodiversity crisis that threatens humanity’s existence, a group of campaigners from across the world are saying there is one clear way to get us out of this mess, but that governments are ignoring it. 

In an open letter published in the British newspaper The Guardian, the group tells governments that the best and cheapest way to avert a climate catastrophe is to heal nature by restoring and replanting degraded forests and by better conserving the natural world.

“Defending the living world and defending the climate are, in many cases, one and the same. This potential has so far been largely overlooked,” say the 23 signatories to the letter.

“We call on governments to support natural climate solutions with an urgent programme of research, funding and political commitment,” they added.

Vast amounts of carbon can be removed from the air and stored by restoring ecosystems razed by palm oil plantations, cattle ranching and timber and fish production, the letter says. The 23 signatories include the teenage school climate strike activist Greta Thunburg, authors Margaret Atwood, Naomi Klein and Philip Pullman, U.S. climate scientist Michael Mann, and environmental campaigner Bill McKibben.

“The world faces two existential crises, developing with terrifying speed: climate breakdown and ecological breakdown. Neither is being addressed with the urgency needed to prevent our life-support systems from spiralling into collapse,” say the signatories. 

They call for the defense, restoration and reestablishment of forests, peatlands, mangroves, salt marshes, natural seabeds and other crucial ecosystems, to remove and store large amounts of carbon from the air. The protection and restoration of these ecosystems can help minimize a sixth great extinction, they say.

The group says that nearly a third of the greenhouse gas reductions needed to hold temperatures to a 1.5 C (2.7 F) rise can be provided by the restoration of natural habitats. But natural solutions are calculated to have attracted just a small fraction of the funding so far committed, according to journalist and author George Monbiot, one of the signatories.

Technology alone cannot solve climate change, Monbiot wrote in The Guardian. Much of the technology proposed to capture carbon is expensive and could pose problems at scale. The cheapest and surest approach, he wrote, is to restore natural forests and allow native trees to repopulate deforested land.

Regenerating and conserving nature to address climate change is expected to be a central recommendation of next month’s landmark study of the state of the natural world, compiled by hundreds of scientists. The United Nations-backed report is expected to confirm that nature is in rapid decline in many regions, with ecosystems on the point of collapse.

Protecting and restoring natural forests is seen as vital. Trees suck carbon dioxide from the air and store it. Nearly one-quarter of all the emissions reductions pledged by countries in the 2015 Paris agreement could to come from tree planting and restoration. The U.N. has challenged countries to restore 865 million acres of farm and forest land by 2030 ― an area bigger than India. And countries are responding.

Initiative 20x20, an international effort, hopes to restore 49 million acres by 2020 in Latin America and the Caribbean. And the multicountry African Forest Landscape Restoration initiative intends to restore 247 million acres of degraded forests in Africa by 2030.

Pakistan has just planted 1 billion trees. China plans to create forests totaling the size of Ireland. And in Africa, Ethiopia, Niger, Mali are among countries that strongly back the reforestation of degraded land. 

But there’s a snag. A new paper in the scientific journal Nature suggests that 45% of the land area that nations have so far pledged to allocate for carbon drawdown is being used to for commercial plantations.

There’s a huge difference between restoring natural forests and planting trees for commercial use, for example the large-scale monoculture of oil palms to provide us with the palm oil so ubiquitous in snacks and cosmetics. The latter are less efficient at carbon storage, and in fact release carbon emissions by replacing peatland, as well as being detrimental to wildlife. 

These natural solutions also go beyond trees. They include the restoration of peatlands, salt marsh and seagrass. They also mean the protection and recovery of animals like rhinos in Africa, which act as a natural protection against devastating wildfires, and wolves in North America, which some studies suggest could protect forests by controlling populations of animals that feed on plants and trees.

Still, Monbiot cautions: “We don’t want natural climate solutions to be used as a substitute for the rapid and comprehensive decarbonization of our economies. The science tells us both are needed.”

“But,” he continues, “what this thrilling field of study shows is that protecting and rewilding the world’s living systems is not just an aesthetically pleasing thing to do. It is an essential survival strategy.”

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HuffPost’s “This New World” series is funded by Partners for a New Economy and the Kendeda Fund. All content is editorially independent, with no influence or input from the foundations. If you have an idea or tip for the editorial series, send an email to thisnewworld@huffpost.com