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Month: August 2018

Despite tensions, Russia seeks U.S. help to rebuild Syria

Despite tensions, Russia seeks U.S. help to rebuild Syria

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Reuters reports: Russia has used a closely guarded communications channel with America’s top general to propose the two former Cold War foes cooperate to rebuild Syria and repatriate refugees to the war-torn country, according to a U.S. government memo. A boy walks along a damaged street at the city of Douma in Damascus, Syria, April 16, 2018. REUTERS/Omar Sanadiki The proposal was sent in a July 19 letter by Valery Gerasimov, the chief of the Russian military’s General Staff, to…

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How deep is the decline of the West?

How deep is the decline of the West?

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John Gray writes: In the last chapter of his autobiography The World of Yesterday: Memories of a European (1942), Stefan Zweig lamented a lost world of freedom: Before 1914, the earth had belonged to all. People went where they wished and stayed as long as they pleased. There were no permits, no visas, and it always gives me pleasure to astonish the young by telling them that before 1914 I travelled to India and to America without passport and without…

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Why Facebook will never change its business model

Why Facebook will never change its business model

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Following Mark Zuckerberg’s Congressional testimony in March, Len Sherman wrote: Other companies can only dream of running a company with essentially: No cost of goods sold (individual users and companies provide content for free) No marketing costs (user word-of-mouth and viral network effects spur continuous growth) No selling costs (most advertisements are purchased through a self-service, automated ad placement platform) If you were in charge of such a money-making machine, would you be eager to change this business model? But…

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Osama bin Laden’s mother speaks for the first time

Osama bin Laden’s mother speaks for the first time

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Martin Chulov reports: In the corner couch of a spacious room, a woman wearing a brightly patterned robe sits expectantly. The red hijab that covers her hair is reflected in a glass-fronted cabinet; inside, a framed photograph of her firstborn son takes pride of place between family heirlooms and valuables. A smiling, bearded figure wearing a military jacket, he features in photographs around the room: propped against the wall at her feet, resting on a mantlepiece. A supper of Saudi…

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The marvel of LED lighting is now a global blight to health

The marvel of LED lighting is now a global blight to health

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By Richard G ‘Bugs’ Stevens, Aeon Light pollution is often characterised as a soft issue in environmentalism. This perception needs to change. Light at night constitutes a massive assault on the ecology of the planet, including us. It also has indirect impacts because, while 20 per cent of electricity is used for lighting worldwide, at least 30 per cent of that light is wasted. Wasted light serves no purpose at all, and excessive lighting is too often used beyond what…

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What Russia understands about Trump

What Russia understands about Trump

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Michael Weiss writes: In March 1986, Yuri Dubinin arrived in New York to assume his post as the Soviet ambassador to the United Nations. Dubinin’s daughter, Natalia, was already a diplomat serving at the Soviet mission, and she picked her father up at the airport and drove him into a city to which he’d never before been. (He wouldn’t stay long—within weeks of his arrival, Dubinin was reposted as Soviet ambassador to the United States and relocated to Washington, D.C.)…

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Trump administration unveils its plan to relax car pollution rules

Trump administration unveils its plan to relax car pollution rules

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The New York Times reports: The Trump administration on Thursday put forth its long-awaited proposal to freeze antipollution and fuel-efficiency standards for cars, significantly weakening one of President Barack Obama’s signature policies to combat global warming. The proposed new rules would also challenge the right of states, California in particular, to set their own, more stringent tailpipe pollution standards. That would set the stage for a legal clash that could ultimately split the nation’s auto market in two. The administration’s…

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U.S. talks with the Taliban could be a breakthrough in the Afghan war

U.S. talks with the Taliban could be a breakthrough in the Afghan war

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The Washington Post reports: A first possible breakthrough in the 17-year Afghan conflict came in June, when a brief cease-fire during a Muslim holiday produced a spontaneous celebration by Afghan troops, civilians and Taliban fighters. The nationwide yearning for peace became palpable. Now, in a development that could build on that extraordinary moment, a senior American diplomat and Taliban insurgent officials have reportedly held talks for the first time, meeting in the Persian Gulf state of Qatar and agreeing to…

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I’m a liberal feminist lawyer. Here’s why Democrats should support Judge Kavanaugh

I’m a liberal feminist lawyer. Here’s why Democrats should support Judge Kavanaugh

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Lisa Blatt writes: Sometimes a superstar is just a superstar. That is the case with Judge Brett Kavanaugh, who had long been considered the most qualified nominee for the Supreme Court if Republicans secured the White House. The Senate should confirm him. I have argued 35 cases before the Supreme Court, more than any other woman. I worked in the Solicitor General’s Office for 13 years during the Clinton, Bush and Obama administrations. Because I am a liberal Democrat and…

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As the bizarre QAnon group emerges, Trump rallies go from nasty to dangerous

As the bizarre QAnon group emerges, Trump rallies go from nasty to dangerous

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Margaret Sullivan writes: Hostility toward the media at Donald Trump’s rallies is nothing new. It infected the presidential campaign and has marred every raucous gathering of supporters since the election. But on Tuesday night in Tampa, the extreme aggression dropped the basement floor another level. This was a new low. And a scary one at that. “I’m very worried that the hostility whipped up by Trump and some in conservative media will result in someone getting hurt,” CNN’s much-maligned reporter…

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Why political ambiguity appeals to the masses

Why political ambiguity appeals to the masses

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By Michael Youngblood On a December day in 1996, close to 30,000 excited villagers gathered before a dais in an open field in the backwater town of Akola, in India’s Maharashtra state. They came from near and far to fight for change, as promised by the Shetkari Sanghatana movement. As their leader spoke, they pumped their fists in the air and shouted their support for his key demand of the day: to lift the government-imposed ceiling on the commodity price…

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Disinformation campaign duped group of retired intelligence officials and helped Trump deny Russian links

Disinformation campaign duped group of retired intelligence officials and helped Trump deny Russian links

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Duncan Campbell reports: A British IT manager and former hacker from Darlington ran a disinformation campaign that duped former US intelligence agents and provided Donald Trump with manufactured “evidence” to deny that Russia interfered with the US election A British IT manager and former hacker launched and ran an international disinformation campaign that has provided US President Donald Trump with fake evidence and false arguments to deny that Russia interfered to help him win the election. The campaign is being…

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The defamation case against Alex Jones

The defamation case against Alex Jones

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The New York Times reports: In the five years since Noah Pozner was killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., death threats and online harassment have forced his parents, Veronique De La Rosa and Leonard Pozner, to relocate seven times. They now live in a high-security community hundreds of miles from where their 6-year-old is buried. “I would love to go see my son’s grave and I don’t get to do that, but we made the right decision,”…

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Mexican president-elect vows to end use of fracking

Mexican president-elect vows to end use of fracking

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The Associated Press reports: Mexico’s president-elect said Tuesday that he will end fracking, the oil and gas extraction method that has just begun to take root in areas of the country’s north. Asked about the potential risks of fracking at a news conference, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said, “We will no longer use that method to extract petroleum.” Mexico has a huge potential shale formation in the Burgos basin, similar to the Texas Eagle Ford fields. But while a few…

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Scientists aren’t impressed with New York Times’ new feature story on climate change

Scientists aren’t impressed with New York Times’ new feature story on climate change

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Joe Romm writes: The New York Times Magazine is hyping a massive new story claiming that the period from 1979 to 1989 was “The decade we almost stopped climate change.” But the just-released, roughly 30,000 word article by Nathaniel Rich is already being widely criticized by leading scientists, historians, and climate experts. As physicist Ben Franta, who studies the history of climate politics, put it, “Rich’s exoneration of fossil fuel producers as well as the Republican party seem based on…

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