Month: September 2023

‘It is not possible to organise in Iran’: jailed activist warns of totalitarianism after Mahsa Amini protests

Majid Tavakoli says protesters should have had more help from abroad but the west doesn’t understand what Iran has become The majority of Iranians wish for a “normal life and for a government similar to the governments based on the liberal democratic system”, one of Iran’s most prominent political activists has said, as he prepares… Read More ‘It is not possible to organise in Iran’: jailed activist warns of totalitarianism after Mahsa Amini protests

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Ocean views and authors lost: a literary tour of Ireland’s wild west coast

Vic O’Sullivan Go to the Aran Islands. Live there as if you were one of the people themselves; express a life that has never found expression,” was, according to the poet WB Yeats, how he persuaded the playwright John Millington Synge to discover his muse – the desolate beauty of the Aran archipelago. Whatever was the… Read More Ocean views and authors lost: a literary tour of Ireland’s wild west coast

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Libya’s floods are result of climate crisis meeting a failed state

Patrick Wintour When the climate crisis meets a failed state, the outcome is the kind of disaster that Libya is witnessing in Derna. Any city would have struggled with the extraordinary level of precipitation that Storm Daniel visited upon Libya’s northern coast. In its earlier, milder form, the storm caused severe damage in Greece before it crossed the Mediterranean.… Read More Libya’s floods are result of climate crisis meeting a failed state

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World Bank spent billions of dollars backing fossil fuels in 2022, study finds

The World Bank poured billions of dollars into fossil fuels around the world last year despite repeated promises to refocus on shifting to a low-carbon economy, research has suggested. The money went through a special form of funding known as trade finance, which is used to facilitate global transactions. Urgewald, a campaign group that tracks global fossil… Read More World Bank spent billions of dollars backing fossil fuels in 2022, study finds

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Iranian women know which battles to fight. They’ve been doing it for decades

Mahnaz Afkhami On September 16, 2022, Mahsa Amini, a young Kurdish Iranian woman, died while she was in the custody of Iran’s morality police for the “crime” of inadequate veiling. This event spearheaded an uprising that soon captured global attention and gained support, from grassroots activists to world leaders. As we have come to expect, the Iranian regime reacted to the uprising… Read More Iranian women know which battles to fight. They’ve been doing it for decades

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Amazon deforestation continues to plummet

By TIK ROOT August was another month of relatively good news for the Amazon rainforest: The rate of deforestation has continued to decline significantly. Earlier this week, Marina Silva, Brazil’s environment minister, announced a 66.1 percent decrease in Amazon deforestation compared to last August. That amounted to a loss of about 217 square miles, according to… Read More Amazon deforestation continues to plummet

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The world can solve this migration crisis. A more humane approach is the answer

Clive Myrie Are the world’s richer nations normalising the deaths of migrants in the Mediterranean? That’s the fear of the UN’s International Organization for Migration (IOM), the body established in 1951 “out of the chaos and displacement of western Europe after the second world war”. Eleven million people were uprooted and the IOM’s job was to help… Read More The world can solve this migration crisis. A more humane approach is the answer

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Patrick Lawrence: American Exceptionalism and Its Consequences. Or, 9/11 revisited

Since 2001 Americans have nursed a profound doubt, a subliminal, never-spoken-of suspicion that they actually have no claim to exceptionalism. This is something new in the American story. As I have mentioned among you previously, those two attacks on American soil brought Americans face to face with the realities that they are as vulnerable to… Read More Patrick Lawrence: American Exceptionalism and Its Consequences. Or, 9/11 revisited

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