Quartz: Your tea addiction may actually be strengthening your bones

Tea consumption correlates to higher bone mineral density (BMD) in women, and especially premenopausal women, a new report accepted for publication in Critical Reviews in Food Science and Nutrition found. (BMD is a measure of calcium and other minerals in bones, and is a common measure of bone health, an indicator of osteoporosis, and a gauge for the risk of a bone fracture.)

The researchers reviewed epidemiological studies from all over the world, finding a correlation between tea consumption and higher BMD in postmenopausal women in Canada and England, as well as women in Taiwan, Iran, Japan, and Australia. The study in England, for example, found that the postmenopausal women consuming tea had approximately 5% higher BMD at all three bone sites measured than those who were not tea drinkers. It also found that there was no difference in BMD rates for those who consumed one to three cups versus four or more cups each day, and that adding milk to the tea did not change the correlation.

Men, however, often did not see the same results. In the Iranian study, which also included men, and a Greek study of older men, tea consumption was not associated with higher BMD.

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Quartz: A photographer captures the evolution of Le Corbusier’s Chandigarh

After the loss of Lahore to the newly-created Pakistan, India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, envisioned the new capital of post-Independence Punjab as a city that would mark the beginning of a new era for the country.

“Let this be a new town, symbolic of (the) freedom of India unfettered by the traditions of the past…an expression of the nation’s faith in the future,” he said.

A futuristic city, then, was to be built in Chandigarh, near the foothills of the Himalayas—240km north of New Delhi. The location was chosen for its good water supply, moderate climate, and pleasant views. On Dec. 19, 1950, after the tragic death of the Polish architect initially chosen for the project, the Swiss-French architect Charles-Édouard Jeanneret, better known as Le Corbusier, signed on to create the city’s masterplan.

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Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell: Is the European Union Worth It Or Should We End It?

The Intercept: Burmese Nobel Prize Winner Aung San Suu Kyi Has Turned Into an Apologist for Genocide Against Muslims

In February, a report by the United Nations documented how the Burmese army’s attacks on the Rohingya were “widespread as well as systematic” thus “indicating the very likely commission of crimes against humanity.” More than half of the 101 Rohingya women interviewed by UN investigators across the border in Bangladesh said they had suffered rape or other forms of sexual violence at the hands of security forces. “They beat and killed my husband with a knife,” one survivor recalled. “Five of them took off my clothes and raped me. My eight-month old son was crying of hunger when they were in my house because he wanted to breastfeed, so to silence him they killed him too with a knife.”

This is only the latest chapter in the anti-Rohingya saga. The Muslim residents of Rakhine have been subjected to violent attacks by the military since 2012 and were stripped of citizenship, and rendered stateless, as long ago as 1982. The 1-million odd Rohingya Muslims live in apartheid-like conditions: denied access to employment, education and healthcare, forced to obtain permission to marry and subjected to a discriminatory “two-child” policy. “About 10 percent are held in internment camps,” according to Patrick Winn, Asia correspondent for Public Radio International. “The rest are quarantined in militarized districts and forbidden to travel.” [...]

Yet hers is not merely a crime of omission, a refusal to denounce or condemn. Hers are much worse crimes of commission. She took a deliberate decision to try and discredit the Rohingya victims of rape. She went out of her way to accuse human rights groups and foreign journalists of exaggerations and fabrications. She demanded that the U.S. government stop using the name “Rohingya” — thereby perpetuating the pernicious myth that the Muslims of Rakhine are “Bengali” interlopers (rather than a Burmese community with a centuries-long presence inside Myanmar.) She also appointed a former army general to investigate the recent attacks on the Rohingya and he produced a report in January that, not surprisingly, whitewashed the well-documented crimes of his former colleagues in the Burmese military.

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Jacobin Magazine: France Rebels

Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s campaign for the French presidency has exploded in recent weeks — reaching third, within touching distance of the second round in some polls. In addition to sending jitters through the financial markets, the success has transformed the French election, offering a left alternative to the battle between the establishment and the far right. [...]

The main theme for this campaign is to change our constitution and to allow the French people to do it themselves through a process called the constituent assembly, which is a direct reference to the French Revolution. The idea is to abolish the current regime, which we call the “presidential monarchy.” We consider it an oligarchy and want instead to have a republic: for the people, by the people. [...]

In 2012, because we were talking about overthrowing the old regime and having a new one, we were considered to be introducing anxiety and instability. Today, French society has changed. The fear is there, the chaos is there. Violence between communities, violence between the police and the youth, terrorism, terror attacks committed by French people against other French people. I think the time is now ripe for what we’re saying — that we need a peaceful solution to these tensions. [...]

There are other big themes of the campaign — wealth redistribution and social justice — which are classic proposals in a situation of great inequality. Then you have climate change and protecting the only ecosystem which allows life for human beings. But before we address those issues, we need to gain the power to actually have an impact. That is the constituent assembly. [...]

So in the Sixth Republic will there be parties? Yes, there will be forms of organization based on political affinity, since there needs to be a confrontation of ideas. If there is no conflictuality, there is no democracy. But not the parties of the Fifth Republic, which are already in decline. They will die together with the Fifth Republic. No party today has a constitutional program, they are not made for that. They are organized to hold power within the Fifth Republic. There will be a new political terrain. The idea is not to recompose or repair the damaged parties of the Fifth Republic, but to allow new instruments to organize.