All posts tagged: fought

Mean Girls in History, Women Who Fought Tooth and Claw

Mean Girls in History, Women Who Fought Tooth and Claw

Published by Jenni Sidey

Boys are naughty, girls are nice. Boys are tough, girls are soft. Boys are snips and snails and puppy dog tails; girls are everything nice. So go the tropes. And the labs back them up. Women are a little more agreeable, altruistic, empathetic, compassionate, and prosocial than men. The curves overlap, but neuroimages, physiological measurements, experimental tasks, and self-reports suggest that girls tend to be nicer than boys. History suggests otherwise. Not all girls are sugar and spice. Some have access to scramasaxes. Some hoard poison boxes. Some hire mercenary armies. Consider Livia. On the 30th of October, in 39 BC, the first Roman emperor, the man-who-would-be-called Augustus, divorced his wife. On the same day, his only daughter, Julia, was born. She became well-read and quick-witted, well-connected and well-liked; she was empathetic and kind. But she partied hard. There were rumors about orgies in the middle of the city. There were stories about late nights in the forum, where she made herself available to the most eligible men in Rome. There was gossip about Julius …

Sudan war ‘being fought on women’s bodies’: Survivors detail sexual assault | Sudan war News

Sudan war ‘being fought on women’s bodies’: Survivors detail sexual assault | Sudan war News

Published by Sam Flores

In a new report, Doctors Without Borders says sexual violence is the ‘defining feature’ of the conflict in Sudan. Hanaan was 18 years old when she was raped by members of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a paramilitary group accused of committing widespread “war crimes” during nearly three years of fighting against Sudan’s army. She was walking alongside a female friend to her makeshift home in an encampment for displaced people in South Darfur, when four men on motorbikes stopped them and asked where they were going. Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of list “Two took each girl, and they raped us,” she told Doctors Without Borders, an international medical NGO known by its French initials MSF. “I feel uncomfortable in my body, heavy. I don’t feel pain, apart from in my back – because they beat me, they beat me with their guns on my back,” she said. Hanaan – not her real name – shared her testimony as part of a report released by MSF on Tuesday, which details the widespread use …

Doon Mackichan: ‘If I hadn’t fought that battle, you would have seen me naked on an ITV drama’

Doon Mackichan: ‘If I hadn’t fought that battle, you would have seen me naked on an ITV drama’

Published by Daniella Wilson

Get the latest entertainment news, reviews and star-studded interviews with our Independent Culture email Get the latest entertainment news with our free Culture newsletter Get the latest entertainment news with our free Culture newsletter I’m very bad in interviews,” admits Doon Mackichan, about halfway through our interview. She means TV interviews. Hopefully. Mackichan has been in a slew of the most notable British comedies of the past 30 years – sitcoms such as I’m Alan Partridge, Two Doors Down, or Toast of London, as well as films like The Borrowers and Happy New Year, Colin Burstead – but you’ll barely ever see her interviewed on a chat show. “I find them excruciating,” she growls. “I find that the pressure is people always want me to be funny. But I might want to talk about militant politics!” It becomes clear, pretty quickly, that Mackichan is categorically not bad at interviews. She’s open, expansive, funny, and righteously, outspokenly feminist. (It helps, of course, that this is a very un-TV environment: we’re in a cosy and unhostile meeting …

Sarah Ferguson’s childhood home in the idyllic village she fought to protect after feeling ‘heartbroken’

Sarah Ferguson’s childhood home in the idyllic village she fought to protect after feeling ‘heartbroken’

Published by Daniella Wilson

The former Duchess of York is lying low after moving out of Royal Lodge in Windsor amid the ongoing scandal involving her ex-husband, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor. She reportedly checked in at the world-renowned £13,000-a-day Paracelsus Recovery Clinic in Zurich, Switzerland earlier this year and is now planning a comeback to the UK. While we await her next move, we thought we’d take a dive into her past, looking at the home she grew up in pre-royal life. Sarah’s childhood after the age of 10 was spent at Dummer Down Farm, in Basingstoke, Hampshire. An unearthed photo reveals it is a red-brick property with double chimneys, Georgian windows and a small lawn at the front. The white door features a small porch and climbing plants add to the aesthetically pleasing nature of this abode. © Tim Graham Photo Library via GetDummer Down Farm, Hampshire, the childhood home of Sarah Ferguson Sarah’s father, Ronald Ferguson, remained living at the property until he died in 2003. Now, according to her website, the estate is run by her half-brother Andrew. …

Watchdogs say Russian church helped recruit young Kenyans who have fought in Ukraine

Watchdogs say Russian church helped recruit young Kenyans who have fought in Ukraine

Published by Sam Flores

NAIROBI, Kenya (RNS) — At a memorial ceremony in central Kenya in early February, a photograph perched on a chair, with roses placed neatly next to it and candles burning in memory of Charles Waithaka Wangari, a 31-year-old Kenyan who died in the Russian war in Ukraine in December. Waithaka, a rising soccer player, had traveled to Russia in October to work as a heavy machinery operator at a factory, but had been conscripted into the Russian army and deployed to the front lines soon after he arrived. He was killed by an explosion at the front line, barely two months after arriving in Russia. His family got word of his death on Christmas Day and was told that his remains could not be retrieved due to intense fighting.  “I plead with the government to bring back my son’s body, so that I can ​​properly bury him. I know if I ​​bury him, I will heal and find inner peace,” Bibiana Wangari, his mother​, told Religion News Service last week. “At the moment, I feel …

Thousands of Western nationals fought Israel’s war on Gaza: What to know | Explainer News

Thousands of Western nationals fought Israel’s war on Gaza: What to know | Explainer News

Published by Sam Flores

Thousands of Western nationals joined the Israeli military amid its genocidal war in Gaza, raising questions over international legal accountability for foreign nationals implicated in alleged war crimes against Palestinians. More than 50,000 soldiers in the Israeli military hold at least one other citizenship, with a majority of them holding US or European passports, information obtained by the Israeli NGO Hatzlacha through Israel’s Freedom of Information Law has revealed. Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of list Since October 7, 2023, Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza has killed at least 72,061 people in military actions that have been dubbed war crimes and crimes against humanity by rights groups. Rights organisations around the world have been trying to identify and prosecute foreign nationals, many of whom have posted videos of their abuse on social media, for their involvement in war crimes, particularly in Gaza. So, what does the first such data reveal about the Israeli military? And what could be the legal implications for dual-national soldiers? An Israeli soldier pushes a Palestinian man while military bulldozers …

What Iran’s Dead Loved and Fought For

What Iran’s Dead Loved and Fought For

Published by Sam Flores

On January 2, Raha Bahloulipour watched Sentimental Value, the latest film by the Norwegian auteur Joachim Trier, in her dorm room at the University of Tehran. It was the first film she viewed in 2026, and she liked it very much. I know this because Raha was, like myself, an avid user of the film-cataloging app Letterboxd. With its tag system and diary, she jotted down when, where, and in what context she watched movies and what she thought of them. She started her diary in August 2023 and logged a total of 795 films during her 888 days on the app. She gave Trier’s film a heart, indicating that it was a favorite. She also tagged it with “protests,” to note that she’d watched it as anti-regime demonstrations rocked her country. On January 8 and 9, the Iranian regime mowed down thousands of protesters all across the country. Raha was one of them, killed by a bullet that pierced her lungs. A 24-year-old student of Italian literature at the University of Tehran, Raha took …

If the War Against the Machines Is Fought Via Martial Arts, Humans Are Gonna Catch an Epic Beat Down

If the War Against the Machines Is Fought Via Martial Arts, Humans Are Gonna Catch an Epic Beat Down

Published by José Betancourt

If machines ever fight a war against humans, it’ll probably be fought with modern weapons of war — bullets, bombs, and perhaps plasma weapons a la “The Terminator” — in a conflict, the robots will presumably dominate against us sacks of flesh and blood. Heck, the AI could even just bioengineer a virus to wipe us out. And even if the battlefield were somehow constrained to kicks and fists, we’re increasingly sure that humankind would catch an epic beatdown as humanoid robots show ever-greater advances in dexterity and martial arts acumen. A new video shared by Chinese industry titan Unitree, for instance, shows off a new six-foot-tall H2 humanoid robot that’s capable of pulling off some seriously impressive moves. The lanky bot can be seen performing an impressive air kick while coming eerily close to the head of a human engineer standing nearby, destroying watermelons hung up above its head height with a mighty foot, and even sending two heavy punching bags spinning after delivering yet another powerful blow. Unitree’s $30,000, 180cm (nearly 6 ft …