Tag: current affairs – international

Jonathan Freedland: Trumpism is now in the American bloodstream / Rosanna Arquette: ‘I fear the world will fall into the hands of fascist dictators'

Tragically, to the world’s most powerful democracy and all those who, for better or worse, are tugged like the tides by its lunar pull, Trump still matters. He cannot yet be consigned to the past, because he is affecting the present and looms over the future. The clearest evidence is the expectation that he will… Read More Jonathan Freedland: Trumpism is now in the American bloodstream / Rosanna Arquette: ‘I fear the world will fall into the hands of fascist dictators'

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Andrew Bacevich: The defining lie at the heart of American foreign policy / Pratap Bhanu Mehta: US vs China is the new Cold War

“The thirty-year interregnum of U.S. global hegemony,” writes David Bromwich in the journal Raritan, “has been exposed as a fraud, a decoy, a cheat, [and] a sell.” Today, he continues, “the armies of the cheated are struggling to find the word for something that happened and happened wrong.” In fact, the armies of the cheated know exactly… Read More Andrew Bacevich: The defining lie at the heart of American foreign policy / Pratap Bhanu Mehta: US vs China is the new Cold War

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Our leaders look climate change in the eyes, and shrug / Siberian heatwave led to new methane emissions / Terrifying documentary on US wildfires

There is a certain sort of amusement to be had in watching the developed world deal with the insistent onslaught of climate change. Like many horror stories, this one features a main character full of futile determination to maintain a sense of normalcy even as the ominous signs of doom become ever more impossible to… Read More Our leaders look climate change in the eyes, and shrug / Siberian heatwave led to new methane emissions / Terrifying documentary on US wildfires

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More livestock, more carbon dioxide, less ice: the Climate Crisis is Worsening despite Politicians’ “Commitments”

Back in 2019, more than 11,000 scientists declared a global climate emergency. They established a comprehensive set of vital signs that impact or reflect the planet’s health, such as forest loss, fossil fuel subsidies, glacier thickness, ocean acidity and surface temperature.  In a new paper published today, we show how these vital signs have changed since the original publication, including… Read More More livestock, more carbon dioxide, less ice: the Climate Crisis is Worsening despite Politicians’ “Commitments”

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George Monbiot – Asymmetric force: Pegasus spyware is the latest tool autocrats are using to stay in power

Democracy depends on an equality of arms. If governments acquire political weapons unavailable to their opponents, they become harder to dislodge. They now possess so many that I begin to wonder how an efficient autocracy, once established, might ever again be overthrown. The Pegasus spyware, whose widespread use by governments the Guardian has helped reveal, is… Read More George Monbiot – Asymmetric force: Pegasus spyware is the latest tool autocrats are using to stay in power

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Tom Engelhardt: Biden's indirect admission highlights the steady decline of American empire

It was all so long ago, in a world seemingly without challengers. Do you even remember when we Americans lived on a planet with a recumbent Russia, a barely rising China, and no obvious foes except what later came to be known as an “axis of evil,” three countries then incapable of endangering this one?… Read More Tom Engelhardt: Biden's indirect admission highlights the steady decline of American empire

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Marie-Eve Loiselle & Ayelet Shachar: Borders, bodies and see-all technologies / Nasim Ahmed: Calls to hold Israel and NSO Group Accountable for hacking scandal, as UAE role bulks large

Use of high-tech surveillance is on the rise: in a moment when controlling the spread of COVID-19 is paramount, a global regime of technologically enabled exclusion has been bolstered. But what might be the long-term implications of accepting being tracked before we even move? ‘Draw me a border, if you please’. What image comes to mind?… Read More Marie-Eve Loiselle & Ayelet Shachar: Borders, bodies and see-all technologies / Nasim Ahmed: Calls to hold Israel and NSO Group Accountable for hacking scandal, as UAE role bulks large

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Bharat Bhushan: Has government compromised national security through Pegasus? / Spyware: the export of self-censorship / Saudi Government used Pegasus to murder journalist

Where is the central repository of the leaked information located, and who controls it?   While it is par for the course for governments in India to put political opponents, media persons and diplomats under surveillance, the recent use of Israeli-origin Pegasus software may be particularly egregious. Its plug-and-play spyware converts a mobile phone into a… Read More Bharat Bhushan: Has government compromised national security through Pegasus? / Spyware: the export of self-censorship / Saudi Government used Pegasus to murder journalist

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Michael Roberts: 1% own 45% of the world’s personal wealth while nearly 3bn people have little or none / Fouâd Oveisy: On the Authoritarian Turn of Global Capital

Just 56m or 1% of adults out of 5.3bn globally are millionaires in net wealth terms. And they own 45% of all global personal wealth. The other 99% own the rest and there are nearly 3bn people in the world that have little or no wealth at all (after debts are deducted). Every year I… Read More Michael Roberts: 1% own 45% of the world’s personal wealth while nearly 3bn people have little or none / Fouâd Oveisy: On the Authoritarian Turn of Global Capital

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