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EU sets course for U.S. clash with law blocking Iran sanctions

EU sets course for U.S. clash with law blocking Iran sanctions

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The Guardian reports: The EU has put itself on a collision course with the US over Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw from the nuclear deal with Iran, as major European firms started to pull out of the country to avoid being hit by sanctions. In an attempt to shield EU companies doing business with Iran, the European commission president, Jean-Claude Juncker, said he would turn to a plan last used to protect businesses working in Cuba before a US trade…

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Climate change on track to cause major insect wipeout, scientists warn

Climate change on track to cause major insect wipeout, scientists warn

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The Guardian reports: Global warming is on track to cause a major wipeout of insects, compounding already severe losses, according to a new analysis. Insects are vital to most ecosystems and a widespread collapse would cause extremely far-reaching disruption to life on Earth, the scientists warn. Their research shows that, even with all the carbon cuts already pledged by nations so far, climate change would make almost half of insect habitat unsuitable by the end of the century, with pollinators…

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Someone, somewhere, is making a banned CFCs that destroys the ozone layer, scientists suspect

Someone, somewhere, is making a banned CFCs that destroys the ozone layer, scientists suspect

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The Washington Post reports: Emissions of a banned, ozone-depleting chemical are on the rise, a group of scientists reported Wednesday, suggesting someone may be secretly manufacturing the pollutant in violation of an international accord. Emissions of CFC-11 have climbed 25 percent since 2012, despite the chemical being part of a group of ozone pollutants that were phased out under the 1987 Montreal Protocol. “I’ve been making these measurements for more than 30 years, and this is the most surprising thing…

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Farmers, tourists, and cattle threaten to wipe out some of the world’s last hunter-gatherers

Farmers, tourists, and cattle threaten to wipe out some of the world’s last hunter-gatherers

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Ann Gibbons writes: As we hike down a rocky slope, through thorny acacias that snag our clothes and past the emaciated carcass of a cow, we hear people singing. We are approaching a small camp of Hadza hunter-gatherers, and our Tanzanian guide thinks they must be celebrating something. But as we near a few huts made of branches and draped with mosquito netting, a slender woman in a worn T-shirt and sari totters toward us. “She is drunk,” says Killerai…

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Psychedelic medicine may become available sooner than you expect

Psychedelic medicine may become available sooner than you expect

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Michael Pollan writes: Just how soon might psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy be available aboveground, to the many people who stand to benefit from it? Before the F.D.A. approves a new medicine, the drug must survive testing for safety and efficacy in a three-stage sequence of trials, each of them involving a larger sample and more rigorous methods. When researchers recently brought to the F.D.A. the results of Phase 2 clinical trials of cancer patients who were given psilocybin and MDMA, they were…

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Islam in Eastern Europe

Islam in Eastern Europe

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Jacob Mikanowski writes: There has never been an Eastern Europe without Islam. Eastern Europe owes its existence to the intermingling of languages, of cultures, and, perhaps above all, of faiths. It is the meeting place of the Catholic West and the Orthodox East, of Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jewry, of militant Islam and crusading Christianity, of Byzantine mystics and Sufi saints. Once, this plurality would have been obvious. A visitor to Vilnius in the 17th century would have heard six languages…

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In rebuke of Trump, Tillerson says lies are a threat to democracy

In rebuke of Trump, Tillerson says lies are a threat to democracy

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The New York Times reports: In a veiled but powerful rebuke of President Trump, former Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson warned on Wednesday that American democracy is threatened by a “growing crisis in ethics and integrity.” “If our leaders seek to conceal the truth, or we as people become accepting of alternative realities that are no longer grounded in facts, then we as American citizens are on a pathway to relinquishing our freedom,” he said in a commencement address…

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North Korea stands by its past assessment of John Bolton

North Korea stands by its past assessment of John Bolton

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The Washington Post reports: Trump and his top aides, including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and national security adviser John Bolton, have repeatedly said that the United States wants the “complete verifiable irreversible denuclearization of North Korea” — a high standard that Pyongyang has previously balked at. Bolton, known for his sharply hawkish views, has said that North Korea must commit to a disarmament similar to “Libya 2004.” He was undersecretary of state for arms control in 2004, when Libyan…

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Glyphosate shown to disrupt microbiome ‘at safe levels’, study claims

Glyphosate shown to disrupt microbiome ‘at safe levels’, study claims

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The Guardian reports: A chemical found in the world’s most widely used weedkiller can have disrupting effects on sexual development, genes and beneficial gut bacteria at doses considered safe, according to a wide-ranging pilot study in rats. Glyphosate is the core ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide and levels found in the human bloodstream have spiked by more than a 1,000% in the last two decades. The substance was recently relicensed for a shortened five-year lease by the EU. But scientists…

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In Gaza, Palestinians feel abandoned to their fate by an indifferent world

In Gaza, Palestinians feel abandoned to their fate by an indifferent world

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Ian Black writes: Palestinians in the Gaza Strip are desperate. Not only because they are burying their dead while marking the anniversary of the Nakba (catastrophe) of 1948 that saw their grandparents flee or expelled from homes in what is now Israel, but also because their lives under blockade are intolerable, as is the sense that they have been abandoned to their fate by an indifferent world. Israel was their main enemy before and after the 1967 war. It unilaterally…

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Iraq’s shock election result may be turning point for Iran

Iraq’s shock election result may be turning point for Iran

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Simon Tisdall writes: The unexpectedly poor showing of Haider al-Abadi, Iraq’s prime minister, in parliamentary elections has dealt a blow to US influence in the country. It was a poor return for American backing for the Baghdad government’s drive to extirpate Islamic State and regain lost territory. But the bigger loser may be Iran, whose allies in Iraq’s Shia militias known as the Popular Mobilisation Forces were pushed into second place by Moqtada al-Sadr, the veteran nationalist. Put simply, Sadr…

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Iran, Saudi Arabia and modern hatreds

Iran, Saudi Arabia and modern hatreds

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Nader Hashemi and Danny Postel write: President Trump’s decision to withdraw the United States from the Iran nuclear agreement is likely to add fuel to the fires of sectarianism in the Middle East. From the cataclysmic wars in Syria and Yemen to the volatile assemblages of Iraq and Lebanon, Sunni-Shiite relations are at a breaking point. But the cause of this spike in tensions is recent, not ancient. It is rooted in politics, not piety. To stop it from aggravating,…

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Ecuador spent millions on spy operation for Julian Assange

Ecuador spent millions on spy operation for Julian Assange

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The Guardian reports: Ecuador bankrolled a multimillion-dollar spy operation to protect and support Julian Assange in its central London embassy, employing an international security company and undercover agents to monitor his visitors, embassy staff and even the British police, according to documents seen by the Guardian. Over more than five years, Ecuador put at least $5m (£3.7m) into a secret intelligence budget that protected the WikiLeaks founder while he had visits from Nigel Farage, members of European nationalist groups and…

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