The climate crisis cannot be tackled with incrementalism

The climate crisis cannot be tackled with incrementalism

George Monbiot writes: Can we talk about it now? I mean the subject most of the media and most of the political class has been avoiding for so long. You know, the only subject that ultimately counts – the survival of life on Earth. Everyone knows, however carefully they avoid the topic, that, beside it, all the topics filling the front pages and obsessing the pundits are dust. Even the Times editors still publishing columns denying climate science know it….

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Sustainable cities made from mud

Sustainable cities made from mud

BBC Future Planet reports: In Yemen’s ancient walled city of Sana’a mud skyscrapers soar high into the sky. The towering structures are built entirely out of rammed earth and decorated with striking geometric patterns. The earthen buildings blend into the nearby ochre-coloured mountains. Sana’a’s mud architecture is so unique that the city has been recognised as a Unesco World Heritage site. “As an outstanding example of a homogeneous architectural ensemble reflecting the spatial characteristics of the early years of Islam,…

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Why Putin thinks he’s winning

Why Putin thinks he’s winning

Tatiana Stanovaya writes: We are used to thinking that Mr. Putin sees the West as a hostile force that aims to destroy Russia. But I believe that for Mr. Putin there are two Wests: a bad one and a good one. The “bad West” is represented by the traditional political elites that currently rule Western countries: Mr. Putin appears to see them as narrow-minded slaves of their electorates who overlook genuine national interests and are incapable of strategic thinking. The…

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Statues perpetuate the myths of the ‘Great Man’ school of history

Statues perpetuate the myths of the ‘Great Man’ school of history

  On Sunday 7th June 2020, sparked by the horrific murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, protestors marching to support the Black Lives Matter movement in Bristol tore down the statue of slave trader Edward Colston and threw it in the city’s harbour. This dramatic action thrust the city onto the global stage and put it at the forefront of an ongoing and bitter culture war. David Olusoga OBE is a historian, writer, broadcaster, presenter and film-maker from Newcastle-upon-Tyne, now…

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Trump tells team he needs to be president again to save himself from criminal probes

Trump tells team he needs to be president again to save himself from criminal probes

Rolling Stone reports: When Donald Trump formally declares his 2024 candidacy, he won’t just be running for another term in the White House. He’ll be running away from legal troubles, possible criminal charges, and even the specter of prison time. In recent months, Trump has made clear to associates that the legal protections of occupying the Oval Office are front-of-mind for him, four people with knowledge of the situation tell Rolling Stone. Trump has “spoken about how when you are…

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Putin is already at war with Europe

Putin is already at war with Europe

Simon Tisdall writes: Time to wake up and smell the cordite. Like shockwaves from an exploding missile, Vladimir Putin’s war on Europe’s edge is rapidly rolling westwards, blasting its way through the front doors of homes, businesses and workplaces from Berlin to Birmingham. Its fallout seeds a toxic rain of instability, hardship and fear. The idea the Ukraine conflict could be confined to Ukraine – Nato’s politically convenient grand delusion – and that western sanctions and arms supplies would stop…

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Obstructionist in Chief, Joe Manchin, cares about nothing more than his own grip on power

Obstructionist in Chief, Joe Manchin, cares about nothing more than his own grip on power

The Wall Street Journal reports: The Biden administration’s international tax agenda suffered a setback when Sen. Joe Manchin rejected a 15% minimum tax on multinational companies this past week, dimming prospects of turning last year’s global tax agreement into reality. Biden administration officials had planned to use Democratic fiscal legislation to enact the U.S. piece of the deal struck last year by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and more than 130 other countries. They wanted quick action to set a 15%…

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For Biden, Saudi crown prince now looks more like pal than pariah

For Biden, Saudi crown prince now looks more like pal than pariah

Karen Attiah writes: President Biden just fist-bumped a man who has my friend and colleague’s blood on his hands. It’s not a stretch to say that when Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman began his ascent to power in 2015, he made his mark through fear and repression. He launched a bloody war in Yemen, kidnapped the Lebanese prime minister, blockaded Qatar, imprisoned critics and, most notoriously, orchestrated the operation that murdered Post contributing columnist Jamal Khashoggi, according to a…

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Ex-Khashoggi lawyer sentenced to three years in prison by UAE court, state media says

Ex-Khashoggi lawyer sentenced to three years in prison by UAE court, state media says

CNN reports: US citizen Asim Ghafoor, the former lawyer of murdered journalist Jamal Khashoggi, was sentenced by a court in the United Arab Emirates to three years in prison, state news WAM reported Saturday. The Abu Dhabi Money Laundering Court convicted Ghafoor of committing “two crimes of tax evasion and money laundering related to a tax evasion operation in his country and sentenced him to three years in prison and a fine of three million dirhams [$US 816,748], with deportation…

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American Scar: The environmental tragedy of the border wall

American Scar: The environmental tragedy of the border wall

  Murat Oztaskin writes: In a remote and rugged expanse of southern Arizona, between the vast stretches of the Sonoran and Chihuahuan deserts, a straight line runs. It cuts through mountaintops, across the foothills and valleys. At one time, the line was conceptual: the border between one country and another, a geopolitical abstraction real mainly to those who ached to cross it and to others who wished to prevent that. Now, in the past few years, much of it has…

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The economic shock from the pandemic continues to assault global fortunes

The economic shock from the pandemic continues to assault global fortunes

The New York Times reports: This past week brought home the magnitude of the overlapping crises assailing the global economy, intensifying fears of recession, job losses, hunger and a plunge on stock markets. At the root of this torment is a force so elemental that it has almost ceased to warrant mention — the pandemic. That force is far from spent, confronting policymakers with grave uncertainty. Their policy tools are better suited for more typical downturns, not a rare combination…

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Afghan economy has crumbled since Taliban takeover

Afghan economy has crumbled since Taliban takeover

The Wall Street Journal reports: Until a few months ago, Mohammed Wahid Haykalyar owned a busy restaurant in the heart of Kabul, where people came from all over the city for steaming plates of saffron rice and braised lamb. His monthly earnings of $3,000 were more than enough to pay for his children’s English-language lessons and after-school soccer practice. These days, he doesn’t even have money to buy food for his family. “I never imagined I would find myself here….

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The case for charging Donald Trump with manslaughter

The case for charging Donald Trump with manslaughter

Barbara McQuade writes: The next Jan. 6 committee hearing — a prime-time finale after seven previous hearings — is expected to focus even more intently on what was happening inside the White House during the insurrection. I will be listening for evidence of a crime that has gone largely undiscussed: manslaughter. Five people died in the Jan. 6 attack. Officer Brian Sicknick sustained a fatal stroke a day after rioters sprayed him with a chemical irritant. Air Force veteran Ashli…

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How a little-known lawyer pitched Trump on extreme plans to subvert election

How a little-known lawyer pitched Trump on extreme plans to subvert election

The New York Times reports: Around 5 in the afternoon on Christmas Day in 2020, as many Americans were celebrating with family, President Donald J. Trump was at his Mar-a-Lago home in Palm Beach, Fla., on the phone with a little-known conservative lawyer who was encouraging his attempts to overturn the election, according to a memo the lawyer later wrote documenting the call. The lawyer, William J. Olson, was promoting several extreme ideas to the president. Mr. Olson later conceded…

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