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Assad loyalists are turning on Syria’s government as living standards deteriorate

Assad loyalists are turning on Syria’s government as living standards deteriorate

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The Washington Post reports: Syrians who remained loyal to President Bashar al-Assad throughout the past eight years of war are increasingly expressing discontent with his government as living standards in the country continue to deteriorate even as the conflict winds down. Conditions are dire for most of the 19 million Syrians living across the ravaged country, including in the roughly one-third that remains outside government control. Whole towns and villages have been depopulated and destroyed, and an estimated 89 percent…

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The Mueller investigation promised a way to avoid thinking of Trump as an American development

The Mueller investigation promised a way to avoid thinking of Trump as an American development

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Masha Gessen writes: Donald Trump has not single-handedly destroyed the American public sphere. It had been in decline for a while, with the horse-race culture of its political campaigns, the anti-intellectual posture of many of its politicians, and its media’s obsession with entertainment. But Trump has forced the deterioration to new lows. This is true of Trumpism in general: its elements—corruption, xenophobia, isolationism, disdain for the media, denigration of the government, and lack of transparency—are not new phenomena but are,…

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Barr goes beyond Mueller in clearing Trump on obstruction, drawing scrutiny

Barr goes beyond Mueller in clearing Trump on obstruction, drawing scrutiny

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The New York Times reports: Over the 22 months of their inquiry, Robert S. Mueller III’s investigators examined countless documents and interviewed dozens of witnesses, including some of the highest-ranking lawyers and aides in the White House, to determine whether President Trump obstructed justice. But in the end, the special counsel reached no conclusion — instead producing a report that merely marshaled evidence on both sides. Then, Attorney General William P. Barr, a political appointee whom Mr. Trump installed less…

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Mueller report has Moscow in ecstasy, opening the way for more Putin plots

Mueller report has Moscow in ecstasy, opening the way for more Putin plots

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Julia Davis writes: When news broke that Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation “did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities,” Russian officials and the state media reacted with fiendish delight. Senator Alexei Pushkov, a senior deputy in Russia’s upper-house Federation Council, described the Mueller report as “a mountain that birthed a dead mouse.” Citing Fox News, Russian state news agency TASS reported that the findings represent a…

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Have MPs gained the upper hand in the Brexit battle?

Have MPs gained the upper hand in the Brexit battle?

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Peter Walker writes: MPs have voted to give themselves considerably more control of the Brexit process, starting more or less immediately. They passed by a comfortable 329 to 302 margin an amendment led by the Conservative former minister Sir Oliver Letwin which sets aside Commons business on Wednesday for a series of so-called indicative votes on finding a consensus Brexit solution. Is this a big deal? Potentially. Amid an ever-greater sense of drift and gridlock in Theresa May’s government, MPs…

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Global coal use up by third as greenhouse gas emissions rise

Global coal use up by third as greenhouse gas emissions rise

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The Guardian reports: Greenhouse gas emissions from energy production rose strongly again last year, according to new data from the International Energy Agency, with a young fleet of coal-fired power plants in Asia accounting for a large proportion of the increase. Energy demand grew at its fastest pace this decade, with a 2.3% increase globally driving rises in fossil fuel consumption. Coal use in power stations was up by nearly a third, and together gas and coal were responsible for…

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Why Israel is quietly cosying up to Gulf monarchies

Why Israel is quietly cosying up to Gulf monarchies

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Ian Black writes: In mid-February 2019, Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, flew to Warsaw for a highly unusual conference. Under the auspices of the US vice-president, Mike Pence, he met the foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and two other Gulf states that have no diplomatic relations with Israel. The main item on the agenda was containing Iran. No Palestinians were present. Most of the existing links between Israel and the Gulf have been kept secret…

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How the brain links gestures, perception and meaning

How the brain links gestures, perception and meaning

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Raleigh McElvery writes: The tendency to supplement communication with motion is universal, though the nuances of delivery vary slightly. In Papua New Guinea, for instance, people point with their noses and heads, while in Laos they sometimes use their lips. In Ghana, left-handed pointing can be taboo, while in Greece or Turkey forming a ring with your index finger and thumb to indicate everything is A-OK could get you in trouble. Despite their variety, gestures can be loosely defined as…

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The attorney general’s letter on the Mueller report will do little to bridge the partisan divide

The attorney general’s letter on the Mueller report will do little to bridge the partisan divide

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The New York Times reports: The investigation led by Robert S. Mueller III found that neither President Trump nor any of his aides conspired or coordinated with the Russian government’s 2016 election interference, according to a summary of the special counsel’s findings made public on Sunday by Attorney General William P. Barr. The summary also said that the special counsel’s team lacked sufficient evidence to establish that President Trump illegally obstructed justice, but added that Mr. Mueller’s team stopped short…

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It’s Mueller time but don’t forget: Trump has damaged our democracy

It’s Mueller time but don’t forget: Trump has damaged our democracy

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Robert Reich writes: As George Washington’s biographer, Douglas Southall Freeman, explained, the first president believed he had been entrusted with something of immense intrinsic worth, and that his duty was to uphold it for its own sake and over the long term. He led by moral example. Few of our subsequent presidents have come close to the example Washington set, but none to date has been as far from that standard as Trump. In the 2016 presidential campaign, when accused…

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Britain lost a war it declared on itself

Britain lost a war it declared on itself

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Nick Cohen writes: The hundreds of thousands marching were patriots. Not patriots of the flag-waving, chest-beating type, but patriots determined to stop their fellow citizens suffering and a humiliated Britain being torn apart. “Traitors”, “saboteurs”, “citizens of nowhere”, “Remoaners”… The right has deployed the language of civil war for three years. The insults carried with them the threat that dissenters would be treated as enemies within, but also the promise and the hope that, left to its own devices, Brexit…

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Now emblazoned on billboards — quotes pro-Brexit politicians would rather forget

Now emblazoned on billboards — quotes pro-Brexit politicians would rather forget

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Belfast Telegraph reports: Billboard depicting “damning” political quotes have been placed in locations across Northern Ireland by anti-Brexit campaign group Led By Donkeys. The group was formed by four friends in England to highlight what they see as the double standards of politicians on Brexit. The “guerrilla advertising” campaign is designed to embarrass pro-Brexit politicians by using past claims and predictions. In January they erected the first featuring ex-Prime Minister David Cameron’s May 2015 tweet in which he promised “stability…

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Oil and gas majors have spent $1 billion undermining climate action since 2015, report says

Oil and gas majors have spent $1 billion undermining climate action since 2015, report says

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National Observer reports: In the three years since world leaders signed the Paris Agreement on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, the world’s five largest oil and gas companies have spent more than $1 billion on misleading branding and lobbying related to climate change, according to a new report. While the oil majors — ExxonMobil, Royal Dutch Shell, Chevron, BP and Total — have publicly supported carbon pricing and other efforts to mitigate climate change, they have also lobbied against effective policy,…

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New Zealand’s prime minister has rewritten the script for how a nation grieves after a terrorist attack

New Zealand’s prime minister has rewritten the script for how a nation grieves after a terrorist attack

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Masha Gessen writes: Jacinda Ardern, the Prime Minister of New Zealand, has staged a revolution. In the wake of a shooting that killed fifty people, in two mosques, in the city of Christchurch last Friday, Ardern has quietly upended every expectation about the way Western states and their leaders respond to terrorist attacks. Ardern has resisted war rhetoric. Since the modern era of terrorism began, on September 11, 2001, world leaders have responded to terror by promising vengeance and waged…

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