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Month: December 2018

Risks of ‘domino effect’ of ecological tipping points greater than thought, study says

Risks of ‘domino effect’ of ecological tipping points greater than thought, study says

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The Guardian reports: Policymakers have severely underestimated the risks of ecological tipping points, according to a study that shows 45% of all potential environmental collapses are interrelated and could amplify one another. The authors said their paper, published in the journal Science, highlights how overstressed and overlapping natural systems are combining to throw up a growing number of unwelcome surprises. “The risks are greater than assumed because the interactions are more dynamic,” said Juan Rocha of the Stockholm Resilience Centre….

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Trump is more closely aligned to Putin than his own defense secretary

Trump is more closely aligned to Putin than his own defense secretary

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The Atlantic reports: Secretary of Defense James Mattis is resigning over conflicts with President Donald Trump concerning American policy overseas—the highest-profile official to quit the administration over disagreements of principle with the president. In a resignation letter, Mattis laid out a series of differences with Trump, who he said deserved to have a secretary of defense who was aligned with him. Mattis cited the importance of international alliances and partnerships, constraining Russia, and maintaining an American military presence overseas. By…

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Trump’s surprise withdrawal from Syria betrays allies and bolsters rivals

Trump’s surprise withdrawal from Syria betrays allies and bolsters rivals

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BuzzFeed reports: The US is set to shut a special forces base in Syria that has been the subject of repeated Russian complaints — and that some US officials have cast as a key part of US efforts not just to defeat ISIS but to counter Iranian influence in the country. Muhannad al-Talla, a rebel commander at al-Tanf, a US base near the Syrian border with Jordan, told BuzzFeed News that the base would see the withdrawal of the US…

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Putin welcomes U.S. withdrawal from Syria as ‘correct’

Putin welcomes U.S. withdrawal from Syria as ‘correct’

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The New York Times reports: President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia on Thursday hailed the decision by President Trump to withdraw United States forces from Syria, calling it “correct” because the American troops were not needed. Mr. Putin’s praise came a day after Mr. Trump said he was ordering the withdrawal because the United States military had achieved its goal of defeating the Islamic State militant group in Syria. Given the unfinished business on the ground in Syria, however, the…

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Putin tells Theresa May to ‘fulfil will of people’ on Brexit

Putin tells Theresa May to ‘fulfil will of people’ on Brexit

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The Guardian reports: Vladimir Putin has said the UK should not hold a second referendum on Brexit, insisting Theresa May must “fulfil the will of the people”. Offering public support that the embattled British prime minister may rather do without, Putin said he “understood” May’s position in “fighting for this Brexit”. “The referendum was held,” the Russian president said from Moscow during a press conference shown on national television. “What can she do? She has to fulfil the will of…

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Ethics official said Whitaker should recuse from the Mueller probe, but his advisers told him not to, officials say

Ethics official said Whitaker should recuse from the Mueller probe, but his advisers told him not to, officials say

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The Washington Post reports: A senior Justice Department ethics official concluded acting attorney general Matthew G. Whitaker should recuse from overseeing special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s probe examining President Trump, but advisers to Whitaker recommended the opposite and he has no plans to step aside, people familiar with the matter said. Earlier Thursday, a different official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said ethics officials had advised Whitaker need not step aside, only to retract that description of…

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Facebook workers are the only ones who can hold Facebook accountable

Facebook workers are the only ones who can hold Facebook accountable

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Siva Vaidhyanathan writes: Earlier this week, the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee released reports examining the extent to which Russian-linked actors hijacked Facebook and its subsidiary Instagram to deepen rifts in the American electorate. Then, on Tuesday, the New York Times published a long, investigative piece showing that Facebook had lied about stopping its notorious data-sharing practices that offered sensitive user information to companies that agreed to work with Facebook. This followed a week in which Facebook admitted a “bug” had…

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This epic fight in parliament could lead to a new, better democracy in Britain

This epic fight in parliament could lead to a new, better democracy in Britain

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Martin Kettle writes: Revolutions do not always take place violently in public squares, in the streets around the bourses or in front of the palaces. Sometimes they take place quietly, slowly, unobserved and indoors. Sometimes they even happen without the revolutionaries themselves quite understanding what they are doing that is so transformative. It may seem hard to believe, and there is undoubtedly a seasonal element of hope exceeding expectation in saying this, but something of this kind may be happening…

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Has ISIS been defeated in Syria, as Trump claims?

Has ISIS been defeated in Syria, as Trump claims?

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The New York Times reports: President Trump has ordered a rapid withdrawal of all 2,000 United States ground troops from Syria within 30 days, declaring the four-year American-led war against the Islamic State as largely won, officials said Wednesday. “We have defeated ISIS in Syria, my only reason for being there during the Trump Presidency,” the president said in a Twitter post on Wednesday morning. He offered no details on his plans for the military mission, nor a larger strategy,…

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As Facebook appeared to raise a privacy wall, it secretly carved an opening for tech giants

As Facebook appeared to raise a privacy wall, it secretly carved an opening for tech giants

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The New York Times reports: For years, Facebook gave some of the world’s largest technology companies more intrusive access to users’ personal data than it has disclosed, effectively exempting those business partners from its usual privacy rules, according to internal records and interviews. The special arrangements are detailed in hundreds of pages of Facebook documents obtained by The New York Times. The records, generated in 2017 by the company’s internal system for tracking partnerships, provide the most complete picture yet…

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Trump’s hostility towards immigrants is making Americans become increasingly immigrant-friendly

Trump’s hostility towards immigrants is making Americans become increasingly immigrant-friendly

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Francis Wilkinson writes: President Donald Trump may ultimately be a unifying force on one of the most divisive issues in U.S. politics: immigration. That’s not Trump’s intent, of course. Having launched his presidential campaign in 2015 with a demagogic assault on immigrants, Trump has been a reliable fount of calumny ever since. His policies, from brutalizing children at the border — a 7-year-old girl died in U.S. custody last week — to terminating Temporary Protected Status for refugees, appear designed…

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Note to Michael Flynn: Federal court is not Twitter

Note to Michael Flynn: Federal court is not Twitter

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Ken White writes: Former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn on Tuesday got an unpleasant lesson on the difference between politically effective arguments and legally astute ones. Backed by an array of well-wishers including President Trump, and buoyed by widespread conservative arguments that the FBI had violated his rights, Flynn walked into a federal courtroom in Washington hoping for the probationary sentence that Special Counsel Robert Mueller had recommended. Instead he was threatened with jail by a furious United States District…

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U.S. added to list of most dangerous countries for journalists for first time

U.S. added to list of most dangerous countries for journalists for first time

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Reuters reports: The murder of the Saudi columnist Jamal Khashoggi — in a year when more than half of all journalists who were killed around the world were targeted deliberately — reflects a hatred of the media in many areas of society, a free-press advocacy group said Tuesday. At least 63 professional journalists were killed doing their jobs in 2018, a 15 percent increase over last year, said the group, Reporters Without Borders. The number of deaths rises to 80…

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The discovery of vast populations of subsurface microbial beings is shaking up what we think we know about life

The discovery of vast populations of subsurface microbial beings is shaking up what we think we know about life

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JoAnna Klein writes: At the surface, boiling water kills off most life. But Geogemma barossii is a living thing from another world, deep within our very own. Boiling water — 212 degrees Fahrenheit — would be practically freezing for this creature, which thrives at temperatures around 250 degrees Fahrenheit. No other organism on the planet is known to be able to live at such extreme heat. But it’s just one of many mysterious microbes living in a massive subterranean habitat…

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