Browsed by
Author: From elsewhere

How Putin works to weaken faith in the rule of law and our justice system

How Putin works to weaken faith in the rule of law and our justice system

Comments 0 Comment

Suzanne Spaulding and Harvey Rishikof write: In the summer of 2016, a Facebook group called “Secure Borders” began fanning the flames of rumors that a young girl had been raped at knifepoint by Syrian refugees in Twin Falls, Idaho. The group accused government officials, including the prosecutor and judge in the case, of conspiring to protect the immigrant community by covering-up the true nature of the crime. Secure Borders attempted to organize a rally, demanding, among other things, that “[a]ll…

Read More Read More

Only a fool takes Putin at his word in Syria

Only a fool takes Putin at his word in Syria

Comments 0 Comment

Nic Robertson writes: Trusting Russia to keep its word in Syria is rather like believing in good faith that its intelligence agents only visited the UK to see Salisbury Cathedral. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s new peace plan — forged with his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan — to protect the three million civilians crowded in camps in Idlib is staggeringly hard to take at face value for a multitude of reasons — not least, because of Putin’s history of denying…

Read More Read More

New revelations about the Sabra and Shatila massacre

New revelations about the Sabra and Shatila massacre

Comments 0 Comment

Seth Anziska writes: Historians try not to audibly gasp in the reading rooms of official archives, but there are times when the written record retains a capacity to shock. In 2012, while working at the Israel State Archives in Jerusalem, I came across highly classified material from Israel’s 1982 War in Lebanon that had just been opened to researchers. This access was in line with the thirty-year rule of declassification governing the release of documents in Israel. Sifting through Foreign…

Read More Read More

South Africa’s Blombos cave is home to the earliest drawing by a human

South Africa’s Blombos cave is home to the earliest drawing by a human

Comments 0 Comment

The drawing found on silcrete stone in Blombos Cave. Craig Foster By Christopher Henshilwood, University of Bergen and Karen Loise van Niekerk, University of Bergen Scientists working in Blombos Cave in South Africa’s southern Cape region have made a discovery that changes our understanding of when our human ancestors started expressing themselves through drawings. They’ve found a 73 000-year-old cross-hatched drawing on a silcrete (stone) flake. It was made with an ochre crayon. The Conversation Africa asked Professor Christopher Henshilwood,…

Read More Read More

Leaked files expose WikiLeaks’ inner workings

Leaked files expose WikiLeaks’ inner workings

Comments 0 Comment

The Associated Press reports: Julian Assange had just pulled off one of the biggest scoops in journalistic history, splaying the innards of American diplomacy across the web. But technology firms were cutting ties to his WikiLeaks website, cable news pundits were calling for his head and a Swedish sex crime case was threatening to put him behind bars. Caught in a vise, the silver-haired Australian wrote to the Russian Consulate in London. “I, Julian Assange, hereby grant full authority to…

Read More Read More

#MeToo in the monastery: A Chinese abbot’s fall stirs questions on Buddhism’s path

#MeToo in the monastery: A Chinese abbot’s fall stirs questions on Buddhism’s path

Comments 0 Comment

The New York Times reports: Over the past two decades, religion in China has boomed, and no faith has benefited more than Buddhism. The number of temples has tripled, monks and abbots have become well-known public figures, and China has used the faith to build ties around the world, sending out nuns and monks on good-will missions. The person most closely associated with this revival is the Venerable Xuecheng, a charismatic monk who was fast-tracked for success. He became abbot…

Read More Read More

Utility companies are at odds with public demand for 100% renewable energy

Utility companies are at odds with public demand for 100% renewable energy

Comments 0 Comment

Vox reports: Renewable energy is hot. It has incredible momentum, not only in terms of deployment and costs but in terms of public opinion and cultural cachet. To put it simply: Everyone loves renewable energy. It’s cleaner, it’s high-tech, it’s new jobs, it’s the future. And so more and more big energy customers are demanding the full meal deal: 100 percent renewable energy. The Sierra Club notes that so far in the US, more than 80 cities, five counties, and…

Read More Read More

Kavanaugh’s accuser has proved she isn’t lying and now she’s sacrificed her right to privacy

Kavanaugh’s accuser has proved she isn’t lying and now she’s sacrificed her right to privacy

Comments 0 Comment

The Washington Post reports: Earlier this summer, Christine Blasey Ford wrote a confidential letter to a senior Democratic lawmaker alleging that Supreme Court nominee Brett M. Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her more than three decades ago, when they were high school students in suburban Maryland. Since Wednesday, she has watched as that bare-bones version of her story became public without her name or her consent, drawing a blanket denial from Kavanaugh and roiling a nomination that just days ago seemed all…

Read More Read More

Hurricane Florence is a climate change triple threat

Hurricane Florence is a climate change triple threat

Comments 0 Comment

Michael Mann writes: Just a year ago we were dealing with an historically devastating Atlantic hurricane season. It was marked by the strongest hurricane – Irma – ever observed in the open Atlantic, the near total devastation of Puerto Rico by a similarly powerful category 5 monster Maria, and Hurricane Harvey – the worst flooding event in US history. At the time, I commented here and elsewhere about the role climate change had played in amplifying the destructive characteristics of…

Read More Read More

1 in 3 children in UK live in poverty, study finds

1 in 3 children in UK live in poverty, study finds

Comments 0 Comment

The Guardian reports: More than 14 million people, including 4.5 million children, are living below the breadline, with more than half trapped in poverty for years, according to a new measure aimed at providing the most sophisticated analysis yet of material disadvantage in the UK. The measure seeks to forge a fresh political consensus between left and right over how to define and track poverty, with the aim of encouraging better-targeted poverty interventions, and making it easier to hold politicians…

Read More Read More

Give Britain a new referendum on Brexit, says Mayor of London

Give Britain a new referendum on Brexit, says Mayor of London

Comments 0 Comment

The Observer reports: The mayor of London has issued a dramatic call for another referendum on EU membership, insisting that the people must be given the chance to reject a Brexit deal that will be bad for the economy, jobs and the NHS. Writing in the Observer, Sadiq Khan says that, with so little time left to negotiate, there are now only two possible outcomes: a bad deal for the UK or “no deal” at all, which will be even…

Read More Read More

Russia’s brazen lies mock the world. How best to fight for the truth?

Russia’s brazen lies mock the world. How best to fight for the truth?

Comments 0 Comment

"If you don't stop asking me if we are nearly there yet, I will turn this bus round; and none of you will get to see Salisbury cathedral. Do you hear me?" pic.twitter.com/Z1o2bZ4CVS — Walnut (@PaoloWalnuts) September 13, 2018 Jonathan Freedland writes: Comedy is now diplomacy by other means. A mighty nation has taken to conducting a grave international dispute by means of humour, expecting a similarly comic response in kind. How else are we to view the interview granted…

Read More Read More

Trump administration engages in ‘diplomatic malpractice’ by sabotaging Israeli-Palestinian reconciliation

Trump administration engages in ‘diplomatic malpractice’ by sabotaging Israeli-Palestinian reconciliation

Comments 0 Comment

The New York Times reports: As part of its policy to end all aid for Palestinian civilians, the United States is blocking millions of dollars to programs that build relationships between Israelis and Palestinians, according to current and former American officials briefed on the change. The move to prevent Palestinians — including, in many cases, children — from benefiting from the funds squeezes shut the last remaining channel of American aid to Palestinian civilians. The money had already been budgeted…

Read More Read More

Surprising hidden order unites prime numbers and crystal-like materials

Surprising hidden order unites prime numbers and crystal-like materials

Comments 0 Comment

Princeton University reports: The seemingly random digits known as prime numbers are not nearly as scattershot as previously thought. A new analysis by Princeton University researchers has uncovered patterns in primes that are similar to those found in the positions of atoms inside certain crystal-like materials. The researchers found a surprising similarity between the sequence of primes over long stretches of the number line and the pattern that results from shining X-rays on a material to reveal the inner arrangement…

Read More Read More

Republican lawmakers ignored scientists’ warnings on rising sea levels in North Carolina

Republican lawmakers ignored scientists’ warnings on rising sea levels in North Carolina

Comments 0 Comment

The Washington Post reports: The coastal and marine geologist once felt his state valued his work. North Carolina was a leader in coastal management, said Stanley Riggs, a distinguished professor of geology at East Carolina University. It heeded the advice of a “tremendous team of scientists” studying the origins and evolution of the Eastern Seaboard, of which the Tar Heel State has a particularly broad swath. As a result, lawmakers adopted policies in the 1970s and 1980s to safeguard the…

Read More Read More