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What does Sinn Fein’s victory mean for Northern Ireland’s future?

What does Sinn Fein’s victory mean for Northern Ireland’s future?

Jonathan Powell writes: Twenty four years ago, after the signing of the Good Friday Agreement, the Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble told me that he expected Northern Irish politics to become less sectarian and more normal with traditional left and right parties replacing the old Green and Orange parties. That has not happened yet, but this week’s elections in Northern Ireland might just mark the beginning of the normalisation of politics in the province. Sinn Fein’s victory, gaining the most…

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Lowly mushrooms may be key to ecosystem survival in a warming world

Lowly mushrooms may be key to ecosystem survival in a warming world

Elizabeth Pennisi writes: The red, orange, and spotted mushrooms that sprout up after it rains are doing more than adding color to the landscape. The fungi that produce them could be keeping the natural world productive and stable, according to a new study. Indeed, they may be critical to the health of Earth’s ecosystems, says Matthias Rillig, a soil ecologist at the Free University Berlin who was not involved with the work. There are 70,000 known kinds of fungi. These…

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Why your white matter matters

Why your white matter matters

The brain’s neural network, which includes both gray and white matter. Pasieka/Science Photo Library via Getty Images By Christopher Filley, University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus Who has not contemplated how a memory is formed, a sentence generated, a sunset appreciated, a creative act performed or a heinous crime committed? The human brain is a three-pound organ that remains largely an enigma. But most people have heard of the brain’s gray matter, which is needed for cognitive functions such as…

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If Fox News’ owner was Russian, there would be no hesitation in applying sanctions

If Fox News’ owner was Russian, there would be no hesitation in applying sanctions

Nick Cohen writes: If the west could find the courage, it would order an immediate freeze of Rupert Murdoch’s assets. His Fox News presenters and Russia’s propagandists are so intermeshed that separating the two is as impossible as unbaking a cake. On Russian state news, as on Fox, bawling ideologues scream threats then whine about their victimhood as they incite anger and self-pity in equal measures. Its arguments range from the appropriation of anti-fascism by Greater Russian imperialists – the…

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Ukraine lays out peace-talk demands as the West braces for escalation

Ukraine lays out peace-talk demands as the West braces for escalation

The Washington Post reports: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky outlined his conditions Friday for entering peace talks with Russia, demanding a restoration of preinvasion borders, the return of more than 5 million refugees, membership in the European Union and accountability from Russian military leaders before Kyiv would consider laying down its arms. Zelensky’s slate of requirements, which he listed during an online forum organized by Chatham House, are in direct conflict with the military objectives Russian leaders have articulated as they…

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Forced transfer: Putin sends Mariupol survivors to remote corners of Russia

Forced transfer: Putin sends Mariupol survivors to remote corners of Russia

i reports: Thousands of Ukrainians have been sent to remote camps up to 5,500 miles from their homes as Vladimir Putin’s officials follow Kremlin orders to disperse them across Russia, i can reveal. They include survivors from the besieged port city of Mariupol, where civilians remain trapped at the Azovstal steel plant as Russian forces make a final push to subdue to city’s last defenders. An investigation by i analysing Russian local news reports has identified 66 camps in a…

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‘Enforced childbirth is slavery’: Margaret Atwood on the right to abortion

‘Enforced childbirth is slavery’: Margaret Atwood on the right to abortion

Margaret Atwood writes: Nobody likes abortion, even when safe and legal. It’s not what any woman would choose for a happy time on Saturday night. But nobody likes women bleeding to death on the bathroom floor from illegal abortions either. What to do? Perhaps a different way of approaching the question would be to ask: What kind of country do you want to live in? One in which every individual is free to make decisions concerning his or her health…

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TikTok’s real power isn’t over our data. It’s over what users watch and create

TikTok’s real power isn’t over our data. It’s over what users watch and create

Ezra Klein writes: A few weeks ago, I gave a lecture at a Presbyterian college in South Carolina, and asked some of the students where they liked to get their news. Almost every one said TikTok. TikTok is owned by ByteDance, a Chinese company. And Chinese companies are vulnerable to the whims and the will of the Chinese government. There is no possible ambiguity on this point: The Chinese Communist Party spent much of the last year cracking down on…

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Latin America defies cultural theories based on East-West comparisons

Latin America defies cultural theories based on East-West comparisons

Sujata Gupta writes: When Igor de Almeida moved to Japan from Brazil nine years ago, the transition should have been relatively easy. Both Japan and Brazil are collectivist nations, where people tend to value the group’s needs over their own. And research shows that immigrants adapt more easily when the home and new country’s cultures match. But to de Almeida, a cultural psychologist now at Kyoto University, the countries’ cultural differences were striking. Japanese people prioritize formal relationships, such as…

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Why the father of neuroscience, toward the end of his career, preferred to study ants

Why the father of neuroscience, toward the end of his career, preferred to study ants

Benjamin Ehrlich writes: In 1914, when World War I broke out, Santiago Ramón y Cajal, the most influential neuroscientist in the world—the man who discovered brain cells, later termed neurons— published only one article, by far his lowest output ever. “The horrendous European war of 1914 was for my scientific activity a very rude blow,” Cajal recalled. “It altered my health, already somewhat disturbed, and it cooled, for the first time, my enthusiasm for investigation.” Cajal’s tertulia, or café social…

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Russia failed to see it has ‘nothing to offer’ Ukraine

Russia failed to see it has ‘nothing to offer’ Ukraine

The New York Times reports: The solicitation to commit treason came to Oleksandr Vilkul on the second day of the war, in a phone call from an old colleague. Mr. Vilkul, the scion of a powerful political family in southeastern Ukraine that was long seen as harboring pro-Russian views, took the call as Russian troops were advancing to within a few miles of his hometown, Kryvyi Rih. “He said, ‘Oleksandr Yurivich, you are looking at the map, you see the…

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An attack on Ukraine and climate change cooperation

An attack on Ukraine and climate change cooperation

Genevieve Kotarska and Lauren Young write: Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022, energy security has been a central feature of public discourse. As Russia is one of the world’s largest suppliers of oil and gas, the energy market has become a crucial factor as the humanitarian and environmental crisis unfolds. With many countries dependent on Russia for energy supplies, the international community is now in a position where its ability to respond forcefully to the invasion is…

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U.S. intel leaks seen as ‘stupid’ and ‘unnecessary’

U.S. intel leaks seen as ‘stupid’ and ‘unnecessary’

Politico reports: Yesterday, the talk of the town was breaking news of the U.S. providing intelligence to Ukraine to kill Russian generals. Now there’s another firestorm over reports on American-provided information helping Ukraine to sink Russia’s Moskva warship last month. Speculation abounded across the Washington, D.C., natsec and intel communities that the administration was intentionally rubbing salt in the Kremlin’s wound. Turns out none of this is a coordinated leak by President Joe Biden’s team: “Someone is eager to take…

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Sinn Féin assembly victory fuels debate on future of Ireland

Sinn Féin assembly victory fuels debate on future of Ireland

The Observer reports: Northern Ireland has slipped into political crisis after Sinn Féin’s triumph in the assembly election triggered calls for a referendum on a united Ireland and the Democratic Unionist party vowed to block the formation of a new power-sharing executive at Stormont. Jubilant Sinn Féin supporters celebrated across the region on Saturday when final vote counts confirmed a historic victory that turned the former IRA mouthpiece into the biggest party, with the right to nominate the first minister….

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