Greta Thunberg nominated for Nobel Peace Prize

Greta Thunberg nominated for Nobel Peace Prize

The Associated Press reports: Two lawmakers in Sweden have nominated Swedish teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg for the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize. Jens Holm and Hakan Svenneling, who are both members of Sweden’s Left Party, said Monday that Thunberg “has worked hard to make politicians open their eyes to the climate crisis” and “action for reducing our emissions and complying with the Paris Agreement is therefore also an act of making peace.” The 2015 landmark Paris climate deal asks both…

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I can never forget the Bosnian genocide. But others are trying to rewrite history

I can never forget the Bosnian genocide. But others are trying to rewrite history

Janine di Giovanni writes: I covered the war in Bosnia in the mid-1990s, and I know what I saw. I traveled to besieged Sarajevo and to ethnically cleansed regions in eastern and central Bosnia where I interviewed victims of rape camps and bombing campaigns, mothers whose children were killed building snowmen, and the relatives of the elderly who were shot by snipers chopping wood to keep warm in the deep Balkan chill. It left a painful scar that I can…

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With acquittal certain, Trump plots revenge on Bolton and impeachment enemies

With acquittal certain, Trump plots revenge on Bolton and impeachment enemies

Gabriel Sherman writes: With Senate Republicans on track to acquit Donald Trump on Wednesday, Washington is bracing for what an unshackled Trump does next. Republicans briefed on Trump’s thinking believe that the president is out for revenge against his adversaries. “It’s payback time,” a prominent Republican told me last week. “He has an enemies list that is growing by the day,” another source said. Names that came up in my conversations with Republicans included Adam Schiff, Jerry Nadler, Mitt Romney,…

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Organisation of Islamic Cooperation rejects Trump ‘peace plan’

Organisation of Islamic Cooperation rejects Trump ‘peace plan’

Al Jazeera reports: The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) has said it rejects US President Donald Trump ‘s recently unveiled Middle East plan. The 57-member body, which held a summit on Monday to discuss the plan in Saudi Arabia’s Jeddah, said in a statement that it “calls on all member states not to engage with this plan or to cooperate with the US administration in implementing it in any form”. Requested by the Palestinian leadership, the meeting of the body…

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Jacob Rees-Mogg says it could take 50 years to reap the benefits of Brexit

Jacob Rees-Mogg says it could take 50 years to reap the benefits of Brexit

HuffPost reports: A leading Brexiteer has suggested it could take 50 years to judge whether Brexit has been an economic success amid fears quitting the European Union will lead to a downturn. The influential Conservative MP Jacob Rees-Mogg, who chairs the European Research Group of backbench Tories, was pressed by Krishnan Guru-Murthy of Channel 4 News about whether he would quit if the “economy does take a hit next year” when Brexit happens. Rees-Mogg insisted the full impact will not…

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How trees find their form

How trees find their form

By Rachel Ehrenberg, January 31, 2020 There’s a place in West Virginia where trees grow upside-down. Branches sprout from their trunks in the ordinary fashion, but then they do an about-face, curving toward the soil. On a chilly December day, the confused trees’ bare branches bob and weave in the breeze like slender snakes straining to touch the ground. “It’s really kind of mind-boggling,” says plant molecular biologist Chris Dardick, waving toward the bizarro plum trees. “They’re completely messed up.”…

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Coronavirus spreads, and the world pays for China’s dictatorship

Coronavirus spreads, and the world pays for China’s dictatorship

Nicholas Kristof writes: China’s leaders sometimes seem 10 feet tall, presiding over a political and economic juggernaut that has founded universities at a rate of one a week and that recently used more cement in three years than the United States did in the entire 20th century. President Trump has hailed China’s president, Xi Jinping, as a “brilliant leader,” and Michael Bloomberg says Xi is “not a dictator.” But we’re now seeing the dangers of Xi’s authoritarian model, for China…

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How do bats live with so many viruses?

How do bats live with so many viruses?

James Gorman writes: If previous outbreaks of coronavirus are any indication, the Wuhan strain that is now spreading may eventually be traced back to bats. Dr. Peter Daszak, president of EcoHealth Alliance, who has been working in China for 15 years studying diseases that jump from animals to people, said, “We don’t know the source yet, but there’s pretty strong evidence that this is a bat origin coronavirus.” He said, “It’s probably going to be the Chinese horseshoe bat,” a…

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Fossil fuel greenwashing

Fossil fuel greenwashing

Climate Reality Project reports: It’s no secret that fossil fuel companies have cast doubt on climate science for decades. What’s more, it should be no surprise that they’ve spent billions lobbying against any serious regulation of their emissions. What might be less well known, however, is the extent of their greenwashing: the tactic oil, coal, and gas companies have increasingly turned to as public sentiment against their products has grown. What exactly is greenwashing, you may ask? It’s a form…

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Savaging Trump plan, Abbas says Palestinians cutting all ties with Israel and the U.S.

Savaging Trump plan, Abbas says Palestinians cutting all ties with Israel and the U.S.

The Times of Israel reports: Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said he was cutting all ties, including security coordination, with both Israel and the US on Saturday, in a lengthy speech delivered at an Arab League meeting in Egypt’s capital denouncing the new White House plan for ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. “We’ve informed the Israeli side…that there will be no relations at all with them and the United States, including security ties,” Abbas declared. The PA leader said he’d stated…

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The next big privacy hurdle? Teaching AI to forget

The next big privacy hurdle? Teaching AI to forget

Darren Shou writes: When the European Union enacted the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) a year ago, one of the most revolutionary aspects of the regulation was the “right to be forgotten”—an often-hyped and debated right, sometimes perceived as empowering individuals to request the erasure of their information on the internet, most commonly from search engines or social networks. Since then, the issue of digital privacy has rarely been far from the spotlight. There is widespread debate in governments, boardrooms,…

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Brexit isn’t ‘done’

Brexit isn’t ‘done’

In an editorial, The Guardian says: Brexit is not over. The separation has been agreed. But not the terms. We are now in transition for a further 11 months to an unknown destination. In practice, everyday life today will be the same as before. The country will not plunge into the abyss, a fact that will be shamelessly misrepresented over the coming weeks by Brexit supporters. For the rest of this year, EU rules and obligations still apply. But it…

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Trump extends travel ban to 6 countries — but is OK with selling arms to those same places

Trump extends travel ban to 6 countries — but is OK with selling arms to those same places

A. Trevor Thrall and Jordan Cohen write: The Trump administration announced Friday that it is adding six new countries to the existing travel ban, joining the seven already on the list. The ban means that citizens living in these nations cannot get visas to travel to the United States without getting a special waiver, dramatically reducing the number of people from these countries visiting the United States. The administration’s rationale for the ban is that conditions in those countries, especially…

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Justice Department acknowledges 24 emails reveal Trump’s thinking on Ukraine

Justice Department acknowledges 24 emails reveal Trump’s thinking on Ukraine

The Washington Post reports: Hours after the Senate voted against seeking new evidence in the impeachment case against President Trump, the administration acknowledged the existence of two dozen emails that could reveal the president’s thinking about withholding military aid to Ukraine. In a midnight court filing, the Department of Justice explained why it shouldn’t have to unredact copies of more than 100 emails written by officials at the Office of Management and Budget and the Defense Department about the hold…

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