Mira Kamdar

Plan for ICE detention center in Merrimack has been scrapped, governor says After two months of speculation, protests and public debate, the Department of Homeland Security is moving on from plans for an immigrant detention facility in Merrimack, WMUR was first to report on T...

Looks like Republican NIMBY-ism is our best defense against the United States of ICE. 🤷‍♂️

a year is a long time in politics

Gaza's local authorities massively underreported deaths, says international research team The first independent field study on Gaza to not involve local authorities, published in The Lancet Global Health on Wednesday, concludes that the number of violent deaths linked to the conflict has b...

"Due to the prevailing chaos there, difficulties in recovering and identifying bodies from the rubble, and a lack of official death declarations when entire families were killed, a substantial share of deaths went unrecorded by the local administration." www.lemonde.fr/en/internati...

Municipales à Marseille: "Mes valeurs sont le mérite, le travail, la famille, la patrie", déclare Martine Vassal, candidate LR VIDÉO - À moins d’un mois du premier tour des élections municipales, BFMTV organise dans la cité phocéenne son premier débat avec les quatre candidats marseillais qui peuvent se qualifier pour le 2nd ...

Travail, famille, patrie….
Ils elles ne se gênent même plus
C est totalement dingue

www.bfmtv.com/politique/el...

There is no reason to believe Trump's foreign policy is designed to benefit America or Americans
www.foreignaffairs.com/united-state...

A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall* We're (literally) drowning under endless, cold rains in France, but what is raining down now is nothing compared to what is to come.

"Après nous, le déluge.
One might be forgiven for thinking ... that France can’t get Trump and Viktor Orbán’s friends in the French far right in power fast enough. The rightward lurch of the country under Emmanuel Macron is accelerating." mirakamdar.substack.com/p/a-hard-rai...

Giant banner of Donald Trump hung at Justice Department headquarters | CNN Politics A large banner of Donald Trump was hung outside of the Justice Department headquarters in Washington, DC, Thursday, emphasizing the White House’s control over the nation’s top law enforcement branch t...

We are a nation of laws, not of men. This banner symbolizes a disgusting betrayal of our values.
www.cnn.com/2026/02/19/p...

I've been saying it a lot, but these deaths line up with what happened in early concentration camps during other regimes: Deaths from poor conditions, disease, or abuse. These deaths are not accidental. They are the direct result of a camp system that is designed to harm those being imprisoned.

US funding for global internet freedom ‘effectively gutted’ Programme that funds groups building tech to evade oppressive government controls under serious threat

Censorship regimes are getting worse worldwide.

“It’s a massive blow. The need is bigger and other funding is also gone. Organisations that provide these tools are being overwhelmed,” said the digital rights expert. “It’s not sustainable.” www.theguardian.com/world/2026/f...

We are governed by a coalition of Huck Finn’s dad, the insane race war rant from Gatsby, and Ahab’s mad quest for vengeance.

Major European allies decline to join first meeting of Trump’s Board of Peace Dozens of world leaders head to Washington for what White House says will largely be a fundraiser on Thursday

“The White House has indicated that the summit for his new ad hoc council at the renamed Donald J Trump Institute of Peace will heavily function as a fundraising round,” www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

German drone maker Stark faces political backlash over Peter Thiel links Defence minister calls for clarification of US tech billionaire’s role in start-up set to win Bundeswehr contract

“I don’t want to rely on shareholders that want to end our European democracies,” Sebastian Schäfer, the Green party’s defence specialist on the budget committee said. giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/...

Palestinian paramedic from Gaza dies in Israeli custody Hatem Ismail Rayyan, 59, was taken from Kamal Adwan Hospital in December 2024

Palestinian paramedic from Gaza dies in Israeli custody - https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/palestinian-paramedic-gaza-dies-israeli-custody

No one can. But what to do?!

Rubio skips Ukraine meeting with European leaders in Munich US secretary of state cancels attendance at last minute in move that EU official calls ‘insane’

“People have such a hard time here believing that the country that played this role in liberating Europe and built the Marshall Plan and alliances is turning its back. And doing it by accommodating Russia.” www.ft.com/content/fdd6...

Flora Indica The lost stories and erased artists of the British botanical empire in India: An exhibition at The Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew through April 12, 2026.

"In a pre-photography age of scientific discovery and obsessive taxonomy, the intricate work of these Indian artists was crucial to the European project of identifying, knowing and, therefore, possessing the world." My latest for Substack. mirakamdar.substack.com/p/flora-indica

“There is a reason why Mandelson kept returning to government, despite sackings for his over-enthusiastic relationships with plutocrats. He was brought in to do the dirty work. The governments in which he served could loudly claim to be doing something, while subtly and simultaneously undoing it.”

After years spent documenting state terror, I know it when I see it. And I see it now in the US and Israel | Janine di Giovanni It’s chilling to watch as Trump and Netanyahu adopt the methods of regimes their countries once condemned, says war correspondent and author Janine di Giovanni

"ICE mirrors the same patterns of state terror I have documented for decades... . All of this is justified by the guardians of legality: the White House, the Knesset, the office of the prime minister." @janinedigi.bsky.social @theguardian.com www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

The Empire is Your Garden The Singh Twins at the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew. London.

mirakamdar.substack.com/p/the-empire... My latest for Mixed Borders on Substack: A review of the Singh Twins' exhibition Botanical Tales and the Seeds of Empire at the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew and a reflection on economic botany, imperialism, racism, art and more.

Propaganda in cinemas, newsrooms slashed: this is the US media under Trump and his tech barons | Nesrine Malik The president and his supporters joining forces to decide what audiences read and see seems straight from a fascism playbook, says Guardian columnist Nesrine Malik

"What people have witnessed with their eyes and ears is questioned by rolling commentary of lies and conjecture, given the imprimatur of truth through being shown or printed on credible platforms." @nesrinemalik.bsky.social @theguardian.com www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

So weird how this keeps happening.

www.haaretz.com/us-news/2026...

NATO’s Leader Is Totally Lost What does Mark Rutte think he’s doing?

"Appeasing Trump isn’t working. Rutte has gone to enormous lengths to appease and flatter Trump (at one point likening him to a benevolent “daddy”), and what did it get him?" foreignpolicy.com/2026/02/04/n...

The Empire is Your Garden The Singh Twins at the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew. London.

mirakamdar.substack.com/p/the-empire... My latest for Mixed Borders on Substack: A review of the Singh Twins' exhibition Botanical Tales and the Seeds of Empire at the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew and a reflection on economic botany, imperialism, racism, art and more.

Our founders, though deeply flawed, understood that democracy requires an informed citizenry and a government accountable to it people. That’s why the press is the only profession protected by the Constitution. It’s also why autocrats and oligarchs seek to control and destroy it.

Washington Post Lays Off More Than 300 Journalists

“The Washington Post’s ambitions will be sharply diminished, its talented and brave staff will be further depleted and the public will be denied the ground-level, fact-based reporting in our communities and around the world that is needed more than ever,” www.nytimes.com/2026/02/04/b...

"Nearby, a six-year-old wondered if the unicorn she saw marching earlier was ok. "

French magistrate reportedly summons two French-Israelis over ‘complicity in genocide’ Nili Kupfer-Naouri and Rachel Touitou said to be accused of trying to block delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza

"A French investigating magistrate has issued summonses to two French-Israeli nationals in relation to “complicity in genocide” over allegations they tried to block the delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza, French media have reported." www.theguardian.com/world/2026/f...

House Democrats must vote ‘no’ on DHS funding tomorrow. Our country is in the middle of a five alarm fire, and we must act like it.

While ICE agents are killing Americans in the street and using five year old children as bait, we should not give that agency another dime.

Loot Anglais via l'hindi via le sanscrit: le pillage, le butin; piller, spolier

mirakamdar.substack.com/p/loot "Loot fait partie de ces mots indiens qui ont laissé des traces indélébiles dans la langue anglaise. L’histoire de loot, et de sa navette entre le hindi et l’anglais permet aussi de mieux comprendre l’Histoire même." Disponible sur Mixed Borders sur Substack ci-dessus.