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The imprisoned Egyptian activist who never stopped campaigning for his country’s future

The imprisoned Egyptian activist who never stopped campaigning for his country’s future

Yasmine El Rashidi writes: In the summer of 2011, several months after the protest-led ouster of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, I participated in a program on Al Jazeera’s English-language channel called The Café. The setup was intended to mirror the atmosphere of street-side cafés in Egypt at the time, animated with the political debates and newfound openness that the revolution had brought about. Eight of us took part, representing various walks of life and different points along the political spectrum,…

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How Israel killed an Palestinian-American journalist, then spun her death

How Israel killed an Palestinian-American journalist, then spun her death

  After Israeli forces killed Shireen Abu Akleh’s, Israel started a “PR blitz” to manipulate mainstream media coverage of the shooting. Headlines changed in a matter of hours, as Israel first blamed Palestinians and then tried walked back the claim. But that was exactly what Israel wanted. Dena Takruri explores how the Western news media covers Israel’s wrongdoings, as well as her personal relationship to her Al Jazeera colleague Shireen Abu Akleh.

A movement that’s quietly reshaping democracy for the better

A movement that’s quietly reshaping democracy for the better

Claudia Chwalisz writes: Imagine you receive an invitation one day from your mayor, inviting you to serve as a member of your city’s newly established permanent Citizens’ Assembly. You will be one of 100 others like you — people who are not politicians or even necessarily party members. All of you were drawn by lot through a fair and random process called a civic lottery. Together, you are broadly representative of the community — a mix of bakers, doctors, students,…

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What is time?

What is time?

Annaka Harris writes: “I think the flow of time is not part of the fundamental structure of reality,” theoretical physicist Carlo Rovelli tells me. He is currently working on a theory of quantum gravity in which the variable of time plays no part. And throughout our conversation, I’m trying to get my mind around the idea that even though the universe is made up of “events,” as Carlo explains, a single interval between two events can have different values. There…

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How Putin drove Finland to seek NATO’s protection

How Putin drove Finland to seek NATO’s protection

The Wall Street Journal reports: When Russian President Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine, he sought to divide and weaken NATO. Nowhere has that strategy backfired more than in Finland. If the Nordic country joins the North Atlantic Treaty Organization alongside Sweden in coming weeks, as expected, Mr. Putin will get a highly militarized NATO member next door. Russia’s border with NATO will more than double at the stroke of a pen, with an additional 830 miles. Finland’s president and prime minister…

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War in Ukraine forces Sweden to confront the reality of Russian aggression

War in Ukraine forces Sweden to confront the reality of Russian aggression

The New York Times reports: The Gotland regiment of the Swedish Army was going through its paces, practicing how to use its Swedish-designed lightweight anti-tank missiles, the NLAWs, that are proving so effective in Ukraine. The regiment, which was resurrected in 2018 on this strategic island that helps control the air and naval space of the Baltic Sea, is in the process of rebuilding with the aim of expanding to 4,000 soldiers from the current 400 — still a far…

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An interview with Crimean Tatar leader and Soviet dissident Mustafa Dzhemilev

An interview with Crimean Tatar leader and Soviet dissident Mustafa Dzhemilev

Riada Asimovic Akyol writes: Crimean Tatars, the indigenous Muslims of Ukraine and the country’s largest ethnic minority, have joined the fight against Russia’s invasion. Tatars serve throughout Ukraine’s military ranks and as civilian volunteers offering humanitarian help. Tatars are Turkic-speaking Muslims who have lived in Crimea since the 13th century. Russian rulers have persecuted them for almost 300 years. One of the greatest tragedies in Tatar history was their genocidal expulsion from Crimea by Josef Stalin in 1944. About 200,000…

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Climate chaos certain if oil and gas mega-projects go ahead, warns IEA chief

Climate chaos certain if oil and gas mega-projects go ahead, warns IEA chief

The Guardian reports: The world’s leading energy economist has warned against investing in large new oil and gas developments, which would have little impact on the current energy crisis and soaring fuel prices but spell devastation to the planet. Fatih Birol, the executive director of the International Energy Agency (IEA), was responding to an investigation in the Guardian that revealed fossil fuel companies were planning huge “carbon bomb” projects that would drive climate catastrophe. He said countries must seek to…

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The race against radon

The race against radon

Chris Baraniuk writes: Deep in the frozen ground of the north, a radioactive hazard has lain trapped for millennia. But UK scientist Paul Glover realized some years back that it wouldn’t always be that way: One day it might get out. Glover had attended a conference where a speaker described the low permeability of permafrost — ground that remains frozen for at least two years or, in some cases, thousands. It is an icy shield, a thick blanket that locks…

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I thought I was writing fiction in The Handmaid’s Tale

I thought I was writing fiction in The Handmaid’s Tale

Margaret Atwood writes: In the early years of the 1980s, I was fooling around with a novel that explored a future in which the United States had become disunited. Part of it had turned into a theocratic dictatorship based on 17th-century New England Puritan religious tenets and jurisprudence. I set this novel in and around Harvard University—an institution that in the 1980s was renowned for its liberalism, but that had begun three centuries earlier chiefly as a training college for…

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How I started to see trees as smart

How I started to see trees as smart

Matthew Hutson writes: A couple of decades ago, on a backpacking trip in the Sierra Nevada, I was marching up a mountain solo under the influence of LSD. Halfway to the top, I took a break near a scrubby tree pushing up through the rocky soil. Gulping water and catching my breath, I admired both its beauty and its resilience. Its twisty, weathered branches had endured by wresting moisture and nutrients from seemingly unwelcoming terrain, solving a puzzle beyond my…

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Kremlin threatens retaliation after Finland leaders say it must join NATO

Kremlin threatens retaliation after Finland leaders say it must join NATO

The Guardian reports: Finland must apply to join Nato “without delay” in the wake of Russia’s attack on Ukraine, its president and prime minister have said, signalling a historic shift in the country’s security policy that drew a blunt warning of retaliation from the Kremlin. With neighbouring Sweden expected to follow suit, Sauli Niinistö, Finland’s president, and Sanna Marin, the prime minister, made the call in a joint statement, adding: “We hope that the national steps still needed to make…

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Sen. Rand Paul is still working for Vladimir Putin

Sen. Rand Paul is still working for Vladimir Putin

Senator John McCain (R-AZ) on Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) following the Senator’s objection to a bill advancing Montenegro’s bid to join NATO, March, 2017. The Wall Street Journal reports: The Democratic and Republican leaders of the Senate tried to fast track a nearly $40 billion U.S. aid package to help Ukraine in its fight against Russia, only to be blocked by Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R.,…

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With Russia failing to achieve a strategic breakthrough, a long and bloody battle for eastern Ukraine looms

With Russia failing to achieve a strategic breakthrough, a long and bloody battle for eastern Ukraine looms

The Wall Street Journal reports: Western weapons, including NATO-standard 155-mm howitzers supplied by the U.S. and its allies, have begun arriving on the battlefield in Donbas. Ukrainian officials say that will allow them to switch from defense to offense and seek to regain lost ground. “Our first task was to stop and destroy the enemy, but after that we have to liberate everything that they have taken from us. This will take time, at least the whole summer. It won’t…

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