The Chinese Communist Party is setting up cells at universities across America

The Chinese Communist Party is setting up cells at universities across America

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Foreign Policy reports: In July 2017, a group of nine Chinese students and faculty from Huazhong University of Science and Technology participating in a summer program at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) formed a Chinese Communist Party branch on the third floor of Hopkins Hall, a campus dormitory. The group held meetings to discuss party ideology, taking a group photo in front of a red flag emblazoned with a hammer and sickle, according to a July 2017 article…

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William Morris’ vision of a world free from wage slavery is finally within reach

William Morris’ vision of a world free from wage slavery is finally within reach

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Vasilis Kostakis and Wolfgang Drechsler write: At the beginning of the 21st century, a new world is emerging. Not since Marx identified the manufacturing plants of Manchester as the blueprint for the new capitalist society has there been a deeper transformation of the fundamentals of our socioeconomic life. A new commons-based mode of production, enabled by information and communication technology (ICT), what we now call digitisation, redefines how we (can) produce, consume and distribute. This pathway is exemplified by interconnected…

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The Dreamtime, science and narratives of Indigenous Australia

The Dreamtime, science and narratives of Indigenous Australia

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Lake Mungo and the surrounding Willandra Lakes of NSW were established around 150,000 years ago. from www.shutterstock.com David Lambert, Griffith University This article is an extract from an essay Owning the science: the power of partnerships in First Things First, the 60th edition of Griffith Review. We’re publishing it as part of our occasional series Zoom Out, where authors explore key ideas in science and technology in the broader context of society and humanity. Scientific and Indigenous knowledge systems have…

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Taming the multiverse: Stephen Hawking’s final theory about the big bang

Taming the multiverse: Stephen Hawking’s final theory about the big bang

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University of Cambridge, April 27, 2018 Professor Stephen Hawking’s final theory on the origin of the universe, which he worked on in collaboration with Professor Thomas Hertog from KU Leuven, has been published today in the Journal of High Energy Physics. The theory, which was submitted for publication before Hawking’s death earlier this year, is based on string theory and predicts the universe is finite and far simpler than many current theories about the big bang say. Professor Hertog, whose…

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The real villain behind our new Gilded Age

The real villain behind our new Gilded Age

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Eric Posner and Glen Weyl write: The comedian Chris Rock once said, “If poor people knew how rich rich people are, there would be riots in the streets.” Populist revolts throughout the world may not count as street riots, but they do reflect disenchantment with not just our government but also liberal democracy itself. In the past two decades, growth rates in the United States have fallen to half of what they were in the middle of the 20th century….

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The water war that will decide the fate of 1 in 8 Americans

The water war that will decide the fate of 1 in 8 Americans

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Eric Holthaus writes: Lake Mead is the country’s biggest reservoir of water. Think of it as the savings account for the entire Southwest. Right now, that savings account is nearly overdrawn. For generations, we’ve been using too much of the Colorado River, the 300-foot-wide ribbon of water that carved the Grand Canyon, supplies Lake Mead, and serves as the main water source for much of the American West. The river sustains one in eight Americans — about 40 million people…

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Ukraine, seeking U.S. missiles, halted cooperation with Mueller investigation

Ukraine, seeking U.S. missiles, halted cooperation with Mueller investigation

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The New York Times reports: In the United States, Paul J. Manafort is facing prosecution on charges of money laundering and financial fraud stemming from his decade of work for a pro-Russian political party in Ukraine. But in Ukraine, where officials are wary of offending President Trump, four meandering cases that involve Mr. Manafort, Mr. Trump’s former campaign chairman, have been effectively frozen by Ukraine’s chief prosecutor. The cases are just too sensitive for a government deeply reliant on United…

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Netanyahu’s nuclear ‘revelations’ — old and new

Netanyahu’s nuclear ‘revelations’ — old and new

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The Times of Israel reports: While revealing a truly impressive intelligence coup by the Mossad, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday night did not present evidence that Iran had violated the 2015 nuclear deal, nor did the material shed dramatically new light on the Islamic Republic’s pre-agreement atomic program. Indeed, as Netanyahu noted, Iranian officials lie when they say their country never planned to manufacture nuclear weapons and put them on ballistic missiles. They did, and probably still do. But…

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Trump and Netanyahu coordinated announcement designed to sabotage Iran deal

Trump and Netanyahu coordinated announcement designed to sabotage Iran deal

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Reuters reports: A senior Israeli official said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had informed Trump on March 5 about alleged evidence seized by Israel in what Netanyahu on Monday presented as a “great intelligence achievement”. Trump agreed at the meeting that Israel would publish the information before May 12, the date by which he is due to decide whether the United States should quit the nuclear deal with Iran, an arch foe of both countries, the Israeli official said. Word of…

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Israel seems to be preparing for war with Iran and seeking U.S. support, officials say

Israel seems to be preparing for war with Iran and seeking U.S. support, officials say

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NBC News reports: An Israeli airstrike on the western Syrian city of Hama on Sunday killed two dozen Iranian soldiers and targeted arms recently delivered from Iran, said three U.S. officials, and is the latest sign that Israel and Iran are moving closer to open warfare. “On the list of the potentials for most likely live hostility around the world, the battle between Israel and Iran in Syria is at the top of the list right now,” said one senior…

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Robert Mueller likely already knows how this story ends

Robert Mueller likely already knows how this story ends

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Garrett M. Graff writes: Taken as a whole, the leaked questions [Robert Mueller wants to ask Trump*] help shape and underscore some key takeaways: 1. Mueller always knows more than we think. Every single indictment has been deeper, broader, and more detailed than anyone anticipated. This “misunderestimating” of what Mueller knows has been both true of the public and media reports, and of his witnesses and targets: Both Rick Gates and Alex van der Zwaan were caught in lies by…

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Netanyahu’s Powerpoint attack on the Iran deal was aimed at Trump

Netanyahu’s Powerpoint attack on the Iran deal was aimed at Trump

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Vox reports: All the so-called new information in Netanyahu’s presentation is actually pretty old. A 2011 International Atomic Energy Agency report noted the existence of Project Amad and the role SPND played in continuing its work — four years before the nuclear deal was signed. And the Israeli leader’s speech contained no evidence that Iran had restarted its weapons program or in any way violated the limits on nuclear activities like enrichment set up by the deal — which the…

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Suspected Israeli strikes hit Iran-linked targets in Syria, escalating regional tensions

Suspected Israeli strikes hit Iran-linked targets in Syria, escalating regional tensions

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The Washington Post reports: Missile strikes at two Iran-linked bases in Syria caused huge explosions and killed dozens of pro-government fighters, a monitoring group said Monday, in an attack seen as Israel’s latest blow in a shadow war to contain Iranian influence. Syrian state media reported major blasts in parts of Hama and Aleppo provinces about 10:30 p.m. Sunday. It did not identify the targets, but other pro-government media outlets said they were weapons depots for the Syrian regime and…

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Optimism about Korea will kill us all

Optimism about Korea will kill us all

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Jeffrey Lewis writes: North Korea agreed to stop testing because Kim is getting what he wants. The third inter-Korean summit was not premised on Kim Jong Un offering to disarm. He has never, ever made a concrete promise to abandon his nuclear weapons program. If you read the joint statement closely, what South and North Korea have done is to take disarmament off the table as a concrete outcome and substitute a vague aspiration that at some point nuclear weapons…

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