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The environmental costs of war in Ukraine

The environmental costs of war in Ukraine

Genevieve Kotarska and Lauren Young write: The Russian attack on a Ukrainian nuclear power plant at the beginning of March 2022 led to fears of a nuclear disaster worse than Chernobyl. Fortunately, the fire at the Zaporizhzhia plant was contained with no damage to essential equipment or change in radiation levels. However, the incident alerted the international community to the many threats the conflict poses to environmental security. The conflict in Ukraine is resulting in a devastating loss of human…

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Heavy weaponry pours into Ukraine as commanders become more desperate

Heavy weaponry pours into Ukraine as commanders become more desperate

Politico reports: Western countries are rushing heavy weaponry to Ukraine as the war enters what promises to be a deadly, and potentially protracted, new phase. Those deliveries are coming amid increasingly desperate pleas from Ukrainian battlefield commanders as they endure withering Russian artillery and rocket fire that could last weeks or months. Over the past two weeks, the Biden administration began shipping out $1.2 billion worth of howitzers, around 200,000 artillery rounds, armored vehicles, counter-battery radars and experimental new armed…

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Judge holds Trump in contempt over documents in New York attorney general’s inquiry

Judge holds Trump in contempt over documents in New York attorney general’s inquiry

The New York Times reports: A New York judge on Monday held Donald J. Trump in contempt of court for failing to turn over documents to the state’s attorney general, an extraordinary rebuke of the former president. The judge, Arthur F. Engoron, ordered Mr. Trump to comply with a subpoena seeking records and assessed a fine of $10,000 per day until he satisfied the court’s requirements. In essence, the judge concluded that Mr. Trump had failed to cooperate with the…

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Loss is victory for far-right in French presidential election

Loss is victory for far-right in French presidential election

The Associated Press reports: The far-right has gone mainstream in France. That’s the headline from the landmark showing by Marine Le Pen in the French presidential election. The fierce nationalist didn’t win Sunday. But she edged another step closer — snatching a victory of sorts from her defeat to reelected President Emmanuel Macron. With 41.5% of the vote, unprecedented for her, Le Pen’s anti-foreigner, anti-system politics of disgruntlement are now more entrenched than ever in the psyche, thinking and political…

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New evidence shows cancer is not as heritable as once thought

New evidence shows cancer is not as heritable as once thought

University of Alberta: While cancer is a genetic disease, the genetic component is just one piece of the puzzle — and researchers need to consider environmental and metabolic factors as well, according to a research review by a leading expert at the University of Alberta. Nearly all the theories about the causes of cancer that have emerged over the past several centuries can be sorted into three larger groups, said David Wishart, professor in the departments of biological sciences and…

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How London became the world’s laundromat for dirty money

How London became the world’s laundromat for dirty money

  Russian oligarchs and companies have been investing in London for two decades, encouraged by British politicians of all stripes, but critics say the ‘London laundromat’ cleans dirty money from Russia and across the globe. The FT examines why it took Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to put the issue in the spotlight and whether new sanctions and measures to tackle the problem go far enough. Read more at Financial Times

Arming Ukraine is the path to peace

Arming Ukraine is the path to peace

Nicholas Grossman writes: As the United States and other NATO countries send Ukraine weapons to fight Russian invaders, some left-wing critics have denounced the effort as warmongering escalation. For example, linguist professor and activist Noam Chomsky described American policy as “praising ourselves for heroism” while “fighting Russia to the last Ukrainian.” I fault no one for lamenting the destruction and hoping for peace, but that assessment misunderstands this war and America’s role in it. The decision of when to stop…

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I’ve dealt with Putin before: I know what it will take to defeat this brutal despot

I’ve dealt with Putin before: I know what it will take to defeat this brutal despot

Viktor Yushchenko writes: Maksym Kurochkin is a playwright. For almost three years, he and 20 other Ukrainian playwrights had been planning to build a new theatre in the heart of Old Kyiv. The group found a magnificent old structure that they were busy renovating in order to open the Playwrights’ theatre on 12 March. On 24 February, Maksym and his colleagues awoke to the horrific sound of bombs. 12 March came and went. Instead of planning a grand opening for…

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How former chancellor, Gerhard Schröder, earned millions as Putin’s man in Germany

How former chancellor, Gerhard Schröder, earned millions as Putin’s man in Germany

The New York Times reports: On the evening of Dec. 9, 2005, 17 days after Gerhard Schröder left office as chancellor of Germany, he got a call on his cellphone. It was his friend President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia. Mr. Putin was pressing Mr. Schröder to accept an offer to lead the shareholder committee of Nord Stream, the Russian-controlled company in charge of building the first undersea gas pipeline directly connecting Russia and Germany. “Are you afraid to work…

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Back in the USSR: Lenin statues and Soviet flags reappear in Russian-controlled cities

Back in the USSR: Lenin statues and Soviet flags reappear in Russian-controlled cities

The Observer reports: Last week a familiar figure returned to the main square of the seaside town of Henichesk. Dressed in a three-piece suit, and sporting his familiar goatee and moustache, Vladimir Lenin was back on his pedestal. A statue of the Bolshevik leader had been erected outside the town’s main council building. Flying from the roof were the Russian and Soviet flags. All in time for Lenin’s 152nd birthday on Friday. Henichesk, however, is not in Russia. It is…

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Changes at CNN and New York Times signal less advocacy, more journalism

Changes at CNN and New York Times signal less advocacy, more journalism

The Guardian reports: The highest echelons of the US media were once again in the spotlight this week, after CNN this week abandoned a newly launched streaming service and the New York Times appointed a prominent Bostonian to lead it. CNN+ will shut down on 30 April, about a month after it was launched with a $300m investment. The new owner of the network, Warner Bros Discovery – itself the product of a $43bn merger between AT&T and the Discovery…

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How trance states forged human society through transcendence

How trance states forged human society through transcendence

Mark Vernon writes: A change has come over the public discussion of religion in recent years. In the decade of the New Atheists, religion was the root of all evil. Nowadays, however, it tends to be thought of as a good, even necessary, part of society. In his recent book Dominion: The Making of the Western Mind (2019), the agnostic historian Tom Holland argues that Christianity underpins our civilisation; and the atheist philosopher John Gray has repeatedly stressed that atheism…

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In a creative play on three different languages, Ukrainians identify an enemy: ‘ruscism’

In a creative play on three different languages, Ukrainians identify an enemy: ‘ruscism’

Timothy Snyder writes: The City Council of Mariupol, Ukraine, was trying to make a point about mass death. Their city had been hit hardest by the Russian invasion, and thousands of corpses lay amid the rubble after weeks of urban warfare. After the revelation of Russian atrocities in Bucha and other cities in northern Ukraine, the elected representatives of the port city wished to remind the world that the scale of killing in the south was still higher. In dry…

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Russian general reveals a secret plan to invade another country and seize Ukraine’s entire coastline

Russian general reveals a secret plan to invade another country and seize Ukraine’s entire coastline

The Daily Beast reports: As Russian troops tighten their grip on the strategic port town of Mariupol, their strategy is finally becoming clear. Russian military commander Rustam Minnekaev now says the second phase of President Vladimir Putin’s “special operation” is focused on establishing a “land corridor” from the Donbas all the way to Moldova, which would cut off the rest of Ukraine from the sea. “One of the tasks of the Russian army is to establish full control over the…

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