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What really caused the missile explosion in Poland

What really caused the missile explosion in Poland

Anne Applebaum writes: The precise chain of events doesn’t matter. Whether the missile that landed in the Polish border village of Przewodów yesterday was, as President Joe Biden, Polish President Andrzej Duda, and other NATO officials have suggested, the result of a Ukrainian antimissile defense barrage, or whether it was, as some initially suspected, a Russian targeting mistake makes no difference. The real cause of this explosion and the deaths of two people is the Russian invasion of Ukraine, an…

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NATO says missile that hit Poland was likely Ukraine air defense

NATO says missile that hit Poland was likely Ukraine air defense

The Wall Street Journal reports: Top NATO officials said a missile that crashed in Poland and killed two people was likely a Russian-made weapon fired by a Ukrainian air-defense system, and that there was no evidence it was directed there intentionally. “Ukraine defended itself, which is obvious and understandable, by firing missiles whose task was to knock down Russian missiles,” Polish President Andrzej Duda said Wednesday. “The Russian side is to blame for this tragic event.” Russia unleashed one of…

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90% of U.S. counties have experienced a climate disaster in the last decade, report finds

90% of U.S. counties have experienced a climate disaster in the last decade, report finds

Grist reports: Ninety percent of all counties in the United States have experienced a weather disaster over the past decade, and these climate-fueled events have caused more than $740 billion in damages, according to a new report from the climate adaptation group Rebuild by Design. The “Atlas of Disaster,” a first-of-its-kind study published on Wednesday, analyzes a decade of federal disaster spending to reveal which parts of the country have been hit hardest by climate change, and which are most…

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Poland explosion unlikely to spark escalation – but risks of NATO-Russia clash are real

Poland explosion unlikely to spark escalation – but risks of NATO-Russia clash are real

Julian Borger writes: If it was a Russian missile that struck a Polish village on Tuesday, killing two people, it would be the first time a Russian weapon has ever come down on Nato territory. The Soviet Union and the US managed to get through the whole cold war without making such a mistake, because Washington and Moscow were well aware of the risks of going to war by accident or miscalculation. Vladimir Putin’s Russia is a far less predictable…

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Witnesses recount detentions, torture, disappearances in occupied Kherson

Witnesses recount detentions, torture, disappearances in occupied Kherson

The Washington Post reports: Few people paid attention to the drab concrete building, tucked away on a quiet residential street, that had long housed unruly youths behind a high wall and a spool of barbed wire. But after Russian soldiers swept into Kherson in early March, the anonymous building quickly became infamous. Black sedans with tinted windows and missing license plates arrived at all hours, disgorging Ukrainian detainees with bags over their heads. Screams began to escape the three-story structure,…

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Europe should shape the clean fuel market now

Europe should shape the clean fuel market now

By Benjamin Görlach and Michael Jakob, Knowable magazine, November 11, 2022 The war on Ukraine — a major exporter of natural gas — has wreaked havoc on energy markets in Europe. Faced with imminent energy shortages, governments have ramped up coal use and expanded import of liquified natural gas from other nations. The International Energy Agency estimates that coal use in Europe could increase by 7 percent in 2022, after a 14 percent jump in 2021. This is a problem….

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Should rich countries and fossil fuel companies pay for the climate losses and damages they have caused?

Should rich countries and fossil fuel companies pay for the climate losses and damages they have caused?

Isabelle Gerretsen writes: In August, Pakistan was devastated by catastrophic flooding. The unprecedented monsoon rains killed more than 1,500 people and left the inundated country with economic damages exceeding $30bn (£27bn). Within a month, a scientific study had concluded the high rainfall was “likely increased” by climate change. The link between greenhouse gas emissions and extreme weather events already happening today is now well established. Events such as Pakistan’s floods, Madagascar cyclones  and Somalia’s drought are becoming more intense and more frequent due to climate change. They have led to death and destruction…

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Murdoch urges Trump not to run in 2024, threatening to back a Democrat if he does

Murdoch urges Trump not to run in 2024, threatening to back a Democrat if he does

i News reports: Rupert Murdoch has told Donald Trump that he will not back any attempt by the former president to return to the White House and could even back a Democrat against him, sources close to the media mogul have told i. It is understood that News Corp and Fox News chairman Mr Murdoch has, in the past few days, made it clear to Mr Trump that the poor showing from the Republican candidates he backed during the US…

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The value of deliberate ignorance when there is too much to know

The value of deliberate ignorance when there is too much to know

Joshua Benton writes: Eyeballs. That’s what everyone on the internet seems to want — eyeballs. To be clear, it’s not actual eyeballs, in the aqueous humor sense, that they’re looking for. It’s getting your eyeballs pointed at whatever content they produce — their game, their app, their news story, whatever — and however many ad units they can squeeze into your field of view. Your attention is literally up for auction hundreds or thousands of times a day — your…

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What does water want?

What does water want?

Erica Gies writes: Walking across spongy tundra, among bonsai shrubs on fire with autumn colours, I came upon a river too wide to cross. Gazing up the valley from which it flowed, I saw that the obstacle blocking my path was just one strand of a broad, braided system spread languidly across a floodplain in Denali National Park in Alaska. I watched the McKinley River’s fluid columns shift apart, then twine together. Although at that time I knew little about…

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Are we really prisoners of geography?

Are we really prisoners of geography?

Daniel Immerwahr writes: Russia’s war in Ukraine has involved many surprises. The largest, however, is that it happened at all. Last year, Russia was at peace and enmeshed in a complex global economy. Would it really sever trade ties – and threaten nuclear war – just to expand its already vast territory? Despite the many warnings, including from Vladimir Putin himself, the invasion still came as a shock. But it wasn’t a shock to the journalist Tim Marshall. On the…

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Investigators see ego, not money, as Trump’s motive for taking and retaining classified papers

Investigators see ego, not money, as Trump’s motive for taking and retaining classified papers

The Washington Post reports: Federal agents and prosecutors have come to believe former president Donald Trump’s motive for allegedly taking and keeping classified documents was largely his ego and a desire to hold on to the materials as trophies or mementos, according to people familiar with the matter. As part of the investigation, federal authorities reviewed the classified documents that were recovered from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home and private club, looking to see if the types of information contained in them…

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Trump wanted IRS investigations of foes, top aide says

Trump wanted IRS investigations of foes, top aide says

The New York Times reports: While in office, President Donald J. Trump repeatedly told John F. Kelly, his second White House chief of staff, that he wanted a number of his perceived political enemies to be investigated by the Internal Revenue Service, Mr. Kelly said. Mr. Kelly, who was chief of staff from July 2017 through the end of 2018, said in response to questions from The New York Times that Mr. Trump’s demands were part of a broader pattern…

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Iran unleashes its wrath on its youth for joining protests

Iran unleashes its wrath on its youth for joining protests

The New York Times reports: One girl, a 14-year-old, was incarcerated in an adult prison alongside drug offenders. A 16-year-old boy had his nose broken in detention after a beating by security officers. A 13-year-old girl was physically attacked by plainclothes militia who raided her school. A brutal crackdown by the authorities in Iran trying to halt protests calling for social freedom and political change that have convulsed the country for the past two months has exacted a terrible toll…

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