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Category: Politics

What Iran’s drones in Ukraine mean for the future of war

What Iran’s drones in Ukraine mean for the future of war

Michael Knights and Alex Almeida write: In the 1930s, future adversaries in the Second World War — Nazi Germany and its Italian allies, and the Soviet Union under Josef Stalin — fought a proxy war. The Spanish Civil War was a testbed for many of the technologies and tactics used in the subsequent world war, particularly aerial bombing of civilian and military targets. Today, the conflict in Ukraine is being used by the Islamic Republic of Iran for the same…

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Iran’s protest movement has been years in the making

Iran’s protest movement has been years in the making

Ali Hashem writes: [I]n the span of less than half a century, many Iranians have undergone a seismic shift in attitudes – moving from a tendency toward Islamism under secular rule to a yearning for secularization under theocracy. This shift illustrates what the renowned Iranian scholar Homa Katouzian has dubbed Iran’s “short-term society.” Katouzian likens Iranian society to buildings whose owners prefer to demolish and reconstruct them from scratch, rather than renovate and make them more appropriate to the times….

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Trump called for a protest but no one showed up

Trump called for a protest but no one showed up

The Washington Post reports: As voters cast ballots largely without incident on Tuesday afternoon, former president Donald Trump took to social media to declare that a minor, already rectified problem with absentee balloting in Detroit was “REALLY BAD.” “Protest, protest, protest,” he wrote just before 2:30 p.m. Unlike in 2020, when similar cries from the then-president drew thousands of supporters into the streets — including to a tabulating facility in Detroit and later to the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6,…

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Trump team pushes to delay 2024 launch as DeSantis star rises in GOP

Trump team pushes to delay 2024 launch as DeSantis star rises in GOP

The Washington Post reports: Former president Donald Trump’s standing as the dominant figure in the Republican Party was challenged Tuesday night by a string of election results that even some of his advisers viewed as wounding to his political future. Trump is taking blame from Republicans for disappointing performances by many of the candidates he backed, at the same time that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis won a landslide reelection, instantly elevating his profile as a serious 2024 presidential contender. In…

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The Republican elite makes its move against Trump

The Republican elite makes its move against Trump

Jonathan Chait writes: Earlier this year, I wrote a profile of Ron DeSantis, a figure who seemed to point the way toward the party’s post-Trump future. That future, it seemed to me, could arrive much sooner than many people forecast at the time. “If you completely dismiss the possibility that DeSantis could pry the Republican base away from a president to whom it has formed a cultlike attachment,” I argued, “you may not be considering the potential effect of two…

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How moderates won the midterms

How moderates won the midterms

Yascha Mounk writes: Who will control Congress after yesterday’s midterm elections remains unclear, but two things are certain: Moderation can pay big electoral dividends, and Donald Trump has become a liability for the Republican Party. Yes, plenty of extremist candidates just won office. According to The New York Times, more than 200 Republican candidates who denied the results of the 2020 election or flirted with doing so secured victories on Tuesday. In many states, too few voters are queasy enough…

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With Lula back, can Brazil turn the tide on Amazon destruction?

With Lula back, can Brazil turn the tide on Amazon destruction?

Jonathan Watts writes: The month before Brazil’s October 30 presidential election was the most brutal of Jair Bolsonaro’s term as president. Landowners rushed to illegally clear forest while they could rely on the impunity that had been a characteristic of the Bolsonaro era. From my home in Altamira, I could see flames on the other side of the Xingu River from a blaze large enough to generate its own lightning. Most other days in September and October, my asthmatic lungs…

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Lawyers press international court to investigate a ‘network’ committing crimes against humanity in Brazil’s Amazon

Lawyers press international court to investigate a ‘network’ committing crimes against humanity in Brazil’s Amazon

Inside Climate News reports: Even as environmentalists cheer the ouster of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro as a turning point for the Amazon rainforest, new information filed Wednesday with the International Criminal Court suggest that the battle to protect the region and its inhabitants is far from over. In the filing, human rights and environmental lawyers acting on behalf of rural land users are requesting an investigation into a colossal “network” of politicians, business officials, industry lobbyists and criminal gangs for…

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Russia’s heavy casualties in Ukraine spark outcry and rare official response

Russia’s heavy casualties in Ukraine spark outcry and rare official response

The Washington Post reports: Steep Russian casualties in key battles in eastern Ukraine have prompted an unusual public outcry — and sharp criticism of military commanders — by surviving soldiers and family members of recently conscripted fighters, who say their units were led to slaughter in poorly planned operations. The uproar over battlefield losses near Vuhledar in the Donetsk region prompted an official statement from the Russian Defense Ministry, which sought to play down the reportedly high death toll among…

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Ukraine’s Zelensky sets conditions for ‘genuine’ peace talks with Russia

Ukraine’s Zelensky sets conditions for ‘genuine’ peace talks with Russia

The Wall Street Journal reports: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he was open to negotiations with Russia if they are focused on safeguarding Ukraine’s territorial integrity, compensating Kyiv and bringing to justice perpetrators of war crimes. Speaking ahead of his address to a global climate summit in Egypt on Tuesday, Mr. Zelensky said late Monday: “Anyone who treats seriously the climate agenda should just as seriously treat the necessity of immediately stopping Russian aggression, resuming our territorial integrity and forcing…

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‘We were completely exposed’: Russian conscripts say hundreds killed in attack

‘We were completely exposed’: Russian conscripts say hundreds killed in attack

The Guardian reports: Hours after Aleksei Agafonov arrived in the Luhansk region on 1 November as part of a battalion of new conscripts, his unit were handed shovels and ordered to dig trenches throughout the night. Their digging, which they took turns to do because of the lack of available shovels, was abruptly interrupted in the early hours of the next day as Ukrainian artillery lit up the sky and shells started raining down on Agafonov and his unit. “A…

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The world is falling short of its climate goals. Four big emitters show why

The world is falling short of its climate goals. Four big emitters show why

The New York Times reports: Seven years after the Paris Agreement, in which leaders pledged to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in order to avoid the worst effects of climate change, the world is still not on track to meet those goals. New data published by Climate Action Tracker, an independent research group, ahead of this week’s United Nations climate summit reveals the gap. None of the world’s biggest emitters — China, the United States, the European Union and India —…

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Trump keeps musing about journalists being raped in prison — he’s not joking

Trump keeps musing about journalists being raped in prison — he’s not joking

Rolling Stone reports: Donald Trump ended his pre-midterm rally blitz in disgusting fashion, calling House Speaker Nancy Pelosi “an animal,” championing the death penalty, and giddily imagining the prison rape of the journalist who reported on the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. “The leaking from the Supreme Court is unbelievable,” the former president said Monday night at a rally in Ohio. “But you get the information very easily. You tell the reporter who is it … and…

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Meet the ‘Black Robe Regiment’ of extremist pastors spreading Christian nationalism

Meet the ‘Black Robe Regiment’ of extremist pastors spreading Christian nationalism

Vice News reports: Days before the midterm elections, Pastor David MacLellan was ready to preach far-right politics through Bible verses to his small congregation. MacLellan, a hulking man with a long, grizzled black beard, isn’t an ordinary pastor. He proudly identifies himself as a far-right, extremist pastor and a Christian nationalist, someone who believes American politics should reflect fundamentalist Christian values. And he’s part of a growing national religious political movement called the Black Robe Regiment, a modern-day group inspired…

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Climate change threatening ‘things Americans value most,’ U.S. report says

Climate change threatening ‘things Americans value most,’ U.S. report says

The Washington Post reports: Climate change is unleashing “far-reaching and worsening” calamities in every region of the United States, and the economic and human toll will only increase unless humans move faster to slow the planet’s warming, according to a sprawling new federal report released Monday. “The things Americans value most are at risk,” write the National Climate Assessment authors, who represent a broad range of federal agencies. “Many of the harmful impacts that people across the country are already…

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A technologically advanced society is choosing to destroy itself. It’s both fascinating and horrifying to watch

A technologically advanced society is choosing to destroy itself. It’s both fascinating and horrifying to watch

Landon Parenteau/Unsplash, CC BY By Christopher Wright, University of Sydney; Daniel Nyberg, University of Newcastle, and Vanessa Bowden, University of Newcastle As world leaders assemble for the United Nations climate change conference (COP27) in Egypt, it’s hard to be optimistic the talks will generate any radical departure from the inexorable rise in global carbon emissions over the past two centuries. After all, before last year’s Glasgow talks, experts warned the summit was the world’s last chance to limit global warming…

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