In this week’s issue
- Investigation reveals hidden anti-abortion influences shaping AI’s answers to women seeking advice on unplanned pregnancies
- We uncover how mothers and babies in Afghanistan are paying the ultimate price of Trump’s USAID cuts
- In Morocco, the 2030 World Cup is already fuelling Gen Z’s anger over deep inequality
- Israel’s war on Gaza shows no sign of ending as Netanyahu prioritises political survival over peace
- Why Andy Burnham’s "transformative" new cabinet looks dangerously likely to repeat the very failures that just brought down his predecessor.
- How India’s youth-led ‘Cockroach Protests’ and a hunger strike signal the end of Modi’s grip on the public imagination.
- Veteran broadcaster Nihal Arthanayake's blistering inside account of a BBC powered by fear, tokenism, and "cosplaying at diversity."
We live in the age of the AI adviser. Millions now turn to ChatGPT and Gemini for help with everything from holiday planning, CV writing, or even just checking cooking instructions.
But what if the question is not mundane – but deeply personal? What happens when you turn to AI for guidance on a sensitive health decision, at a moment when you are scared and alone?
That’s the question Carlotta Dutto set out to answer in this week’s lead story. Along with a team of fellow investigative journalists, Carlotta created three fictional personas to ask four leading AI chatbots for advice on an unexpected pregnancy.
Is it a coincidence that all four systems – all run by US tech giants – promoted information from an anti-abortion counselling service? Carlotta’s findings raise uncomfortable questions about who chooses what these chatbots decide to present as trustworthy.
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Staying on the issue of reproductive rights, we’re also publishing an important report on Afghanistan’s deadly maternity care crisis. A team of Afghan journalists, forced to work under pseudonyms for their safety, looked at how an already fragile healthcare system has been pushed to the brink by Donald Trump’s cutting of USAID and Taliban restrictions on women’s education and employment.
The reporters spoke to desperately stretched healthcare workers and families mourning women who died from preventable complications during pregnancy and childbirth to learn more about a crisis unfolding far from global headlines.
The World Cup has only just finished – with a loss for Argentina, much to the disappointment of our Americas editor, Diana Cariboni, who watched the game from a bar in Buenos Aires. But in Morocco, co-host of the 2030 tournament, young Moroccans are already questioning whether the billions spent on stadiums and infrastructure would be better directed towards healthcare, education and jobs.
Speaking of youth uprisings, openDemocracy Editor-in-Chief Aman Sethi spent much of this week interviewing the young people driving India’s striking cockroach protests and learnt that “hope is a muscle”.
Thank you as always for reading us and supporting our journalism. We need to hit 500 new regular donors by the end of the year, so if you aren’t yet a donor do consider becoming one.
Have a great weekend,
Indra Warnes
Carlotta Dotto
Azada Azada*
Sophia Thomas
Ethan Shone
Aman Sethi
The Depolarization Project
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OUR BRAND NEW PODCAST!
At 23, Ghanaian trans woman Awo Dufie is outed, homeless, and facing a prophecy that says she will die at 30 — because she is queer.
This threat is reinforced by Ghana's CURRENT social climate and a looming anti-LGBT bill. Determined to break free from the prophecy, Awo embarks on a risky journey to find an 83-year-old queer elder who didn't just survive decades of hatred and colonial laws — she built a rich life.
Can Awo too live long and live free?
THIS IS THE FIRST EPISODE OF OPENDEMOCRACY'S NEW NARRATIVE NON-FICTION AUDIO SERIES, "HOW TO FIND QUEER ELDERS", an alternative history of queerness on the continent at a time when over 13 African countries (including Ghana) are passing increasingly harsh anti-LGBTQI laws. It is a touchstone for queer people around the world to know that there is hope and they are not alone. The first episode is published in collaboration with Radio Workshop.
Reader Comments
"Don't forget, in Scotland, we are having nationwide council elections in 2027.What happens in Westminster affects us. We could see that from the Holyrood elections.
We lost to the Nationalists but worse we both lost votes to Reform. Much of it was because of the daft idea of cutting the Older Person's Winter Fuel Allowance for many pensioners. I was never a fan of Keir Starmer and I think I was proved right.
I have reservations about Andy Burnham but I am willing to give him a chance. He really is our last chance of saving the Labour Party from oblivion. If we keep losing power throughout the country, be that in regional assemblies councils etc, the snowball effect will continue.
So while all the international things are important we need to build our strength at home so we have the people of the UK behind us. Spending taxes on war while our people feel that the services, they get, are being cut will be a hard sell."
Alf via email
This week in history
Nationalisation of the Suez Canal, Egypt • 26 July 1956
On 26 July 1956, Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser announced the nationalisation of the Suez Canal Company, seizing the vital economic waterway back from British and French corporate control. To the formerly colonised world, it was an exciting assertion of national sovereignty and dignity. In a desperate attempt to maintain their decaying empires, Britain, France, and Israel launched a secret, coordinated military invasion of Egypt to topple Nasser.
The scheme ended in humiliation for the imperial powers, who were forced to withdraw under fierce Egyptian resistance and intense global pressure. Nasser emerged as the undisputed hero of Arab nationalism and the Global South, proving that the old European colonial masters could be successfully defied on the world stage.
This week's article piece is a deeply nuanced appraisal of President Gamal Abdel Nasser. Capturing his undeniable heroism to the millions who saw him as the embodiment of anti-imperialist defiance, while taking into balance the domestic reality of the cruel police state he built that ultimately crushed working-class and democratic dissent in Egypt.
Tarek Osman
