A quarter of humanity faces looming water crises

A quarter of humanity faces looming water crises

The New York Times reports: Countries that are home to one-fourth of Earth’s population face an increasingly urgent risk: The prospect of running out of water. From India to Iran to Botswana, 17 countries around the world are currently under extremely high water stress, meaning they are using almost all the water they have, according to new World Resources Institute data published Tuesday. Many are arid countries to begin with; some are squandering what water they have. Several are relying…

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Taliban say differences resolved on U.S. troop withdrawal

Taliban say differences resolved on U.S. troop withdrawal

The Associated Press reports: The United States and the Taliban have resolved differences in peace talks over the withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan and guarantees from the insurgents that they will cut ties with other extremist groups, a Taliban official said Tuesday. The U.S. side did not immediately provide details about the latest round of talks held in Qatar, where the Taliban maintain a political office. But Zalmay Khalilzad, the American envoy who has been leading the talks since…

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In Hong Kong, it’s now a revolution

In Hong Kong, it’s now a revolution

Gordon G. Chang writes: Defying stern warnings from both the local government and Beijing, people in seven districts in Hong Kong—most notably teachers, airport workers, and civil servants—participated in a general strike Monday, shutting down portions of the territory. For instance, more than a hundred flights were cancelled. The strike followed weeks of sometimes violent protests in the territory, a semi-autonomous region of the People’s Republic of China. Youthful demonstrators over the weekend surrounded and attacked police stations, and enraged…

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America’s white nationalist disease won’t be remedied by counter-terrorism and condemnations

America’s white nationalist disease won’t be remedied by counter-terrorism and condemnations

In an editorial, the New York Times says: While its modern roots predate the Trump administration by many decades, white nationalism has attained a new mainstream legitimacy during Mr. Trump’s time in office. Discussions of Americans being “replaced” by immigrants, for instance, are a recurring feature on some programs on Fox News. Fox hosts Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham, for example, return to these themes frequently. Democrats, Ms. Ingraham told viewers last year, “want to replace you, the American voters,…

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How to understand the white power movement

How to understand the white power movement

Kathleen Belew writes: Like a number of recent mass shootings, the one in El Paso on Saturday came with a manifesto. While authorities are still working to verify that this document explicitly was indeed written by the attacker, the evidence seems clear: It was posted to 8Chan minutes before the attack, by someone with the same name. By manifesto, I mean a document laying out political and ideological reasons for the violence and connecting it to other acts of violence….

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I spent 25 years fighting jihadis. White supremacists aren’t so different

I spent 25 years fighting jihadis. White supremacists aren’t so different

Ali H. Soufan writes: When a young Muslim man, self-radicalized online, kills in the name of Islamist ideology, we have no trouble calling him a terrorist and connecting him with groups like ISIS. When a young white man, similarly self-radicalized, kills in the name of racist ideology — even when he publishes a manifesto to that effect — we tend to call him disturbed. We speak about him as a troubled loner, rather than a member of a wider network….

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The myth of anti-white discrimination

The myth of anti-white discrimination

Keith Payne writes: A friend complained to me recently that his son wasn’t getting into Ivy League colleges because it’s so hard for a middle-class white kid to be admitted, even with straight A’s. I asked if the advantages of being a middle-class white kid might be part of the reason his son had become a straight-A student in the first place. It got awkward. As our politics have fractured increasingly around race, there seems to be more and more…

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Neo Nazis boast: ‘We got Tulsi in the debates’

Neo Nazis boast: ‘We got Tulsi in the debates’

Jewish Insider reports: A neo-Nazi website took credit for Rep. Tulsi Gabbard’s (D-HI) qualification for the first two Democratic primary debates. The Daily Stormer, a notorious white supremacist and antisemitic website, proclaimed in April “we did it” — after the Hawaii congresswoman reached the 65,000 donor threshold needed to participate in the first two debates. Andrew Anglin, the website’s founder, wrote in April, “We got Tulsi in the debates.” He added: “I kind of didn’t really want to do the…

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Don’t call them Syria’s child casualties. This is the slaughter of the innocents

Don’t call them Syria’s child casualties. This is the slaughter of the innocents

Simon Tisdall writes: Murdered children are no longer news. International media coverage of the war in Afghanistan, where child deaths reached an all-time high last year, is sporadic at best. In Yemen it is estimated that at least 85,000 under-fives have died of starvation since 2015, a figure that numbs the mind. In Syria, especially, it is hard to keep count because children are being killed almost every day – and who is really counting? Harrowing images briefly capture public…

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Here’s how the hottest month in recorded history unfolded around the globe

Here’s how the hottest month in recorded history unfolded around the globe

The Washington Post reports: During the hottest month that humans have ever recorded, a local television station in the Netherlands aired nonstop images of wintry landscapes to help viewers momentarily forget the heat wave outside. Officials in Switzerland and elsewhere painted stretches of rail tracks white, hoping to keep them from buckling in the extreme heat. At the port of Antwerp, two alleged drug dealers called police for help after they got stuck inside a shipping container filled with cocaine…

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Rhetoric has consequences: The El Paso massacre was the inevitable byproduct of Trump’s anti-Latino invective

Rhetoric has consequences: The El Paso massacre was the inevitable byproduct of Trump’s anti-Latino invective

Richard Parker writes: Latinos arrived in Texas from Mexico in 1690, when it was all New Spain. My people settled the harsh brush country of south Texas, fought Comanches and Apaches and brought Christianity to America. My mother’s uncle, a Mexican citizen, fought in the Navy in World War II and perished. My Mexican grandfather came to Texas as an orphan, lived in Laredo and returned to Mexico. My Arkansan father, a soldier, met my mother in Monterrey and we…

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Clint Watts: We have a white nationalist terrorism problem in America

Clint Watts: We have a white nationalist terrorism problem in America

U.S. is seeing a shooting attack per day. Imagine what U.S. reaction would be if the shooters in #Gilroy #ElPaso #Dayton were connected al Qaeda or ISIS? Yet we let this continue as if it’s a series of isolated, unconnected incidents. — Clint Watts (@selectedwisdom) August 4, 2019   George is right. Killing random civilians to spread a political message is terrorism. FBI classifies it as domestic terrorism, but "white terrorism" is more precise. Many of the killers are lone-wolf…

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If you’ve been in power your whole life, equality looks like oppression

If you’ve been in power your whole life, equality looks like oppression

Wajahat Ali writes: As America becomes a majority-minority country, the nation will experience more racial anxiety, which was the primary reason many voters went for Trump in 2016. If you have been in power your whole life, equality looks like oppression. Some white Americans feel that people of color are “replacing” them with each success, each publication, and each promotion. Those who have historically been marginalized, excluded, or cast as permanent sidekicks, though, finally feel that we have the chance…

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The founder of 8chan calls it a terrorist refuge in plain sight

The founder of 8chan calls it a terrorist refuge in plain sight

The Washington Post reports: The El Paso massacre began like the fatal attacks earlier this year at mosques in New Zealand and a San Diego-area synagogue: with a racist manifesto and announcement on the anonymous message board 8chan, one of the Web’s most venomous refuges for extremist hate. Like after the shootings in Christchurch and the Chabad of Poway synagogue, the El Paso attack was celebrated on 8chan as well: One of the most active threads early Sunday urged people…

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