By Anuradha Sen Mookerjee | – The state of Assam in India is currently burning with violent protests against a new citizenship law passed by both houses of the Indian parliament in early December. The Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) will ease the Indian citizenship process for undocumented migrants in India who come from Pakistan, Afghanistan […]
Archives for December 2019
Actually we are implicated in the World’s 7th Mass Extinction of Life on Earth
By Julie Celestial | – (The Watchers) – The biodiversity crisis we experience today– defined by the rapid loss of species and rapid degradation of ecosystems– is believed to be the sixth mass extinction. However, some scientists say it should perhaps be called seventh, suggesting the inclusion of the End Guadalupian in the Big Five […]
Born Without Civil Rights: Israel’s Use of Draconian Military Orders to Repress Palestinians in the West Bank
(Human Rights Watch The Israeli army has deprived generations of Palestinians in the West Bank of their basic civil rights, including the rights to free assembly, association and expression, regularly drawing on military orders issued in the first days of the occupation. Even if such restrictions could have been justified then to preserve public order […]
Bush Falsely Promised a New Iraq, but now it is being Forged by Crowds in Baghdad’s Tahrir Square
After the death of hundreds of people since the eruption of Iraq’s revolution in October, there is no return to the old system.
Would Refugee Baby Jesus have been Torn from Mary’s Arms by Trump?
Revised Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) | – – In this political season in which refugees have become a political football, it is worthwhile remembering that baby Jesus is depicted by the Bible as being a political refugee not once but twice. NBC reports, “Officials at Customs and Border Protection, the DHS agency responsible for separating […]
Statistic of the decade: The massive deforestation of the Amazon
By Liberty Vittert | – This year, I was on the judging panel for the Royal Statistical Society’s International Statistic of the Decade. Much like Oxford English Dictionary’s “Word of the Year” competition, the international statistic is meant to capture the zeitgeist of this decade. The judging panel accepted nominations from the statistical community and […]
That’s not Good. Popular ToTok App is Emirates Spyware
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – ( Lily Hay Newman at Wired explores the implications of the revelation that the ToTok app is actually spyware for the United Arab Emirates. The app is fiendishly clever in the sense that there is nothing virus-like about it. It is just a communications application that wants to know who […]
Germany’s Solar Power Revived by Home Batteries, Hopes for Skyscraper Rooftop PV
By Benjamin Wehrmann | – ( Clean Energy Wire ) – Solar power in Germany has bottomed out from its breakdown a few years back and looks ahead at 2020 full of confidence that the odds are in its favour in the country thanks to the introduction of carbon pricing in the buildings sector and […]
The US Gov’t Lied About Success in the Afghanistan War . . . and in Vietnam
By Gordon Adams | – The Washington Post has, after more than two years of investigation, revealed that senior foreign policy officials in the White House, State and Defense departments have known for some time that the U.S. intervention in Afghanistan was failing. Interview transcripts from the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, obtained by […]