By Oana Godeanu-Kenworthy | – Bernie Sanders has emerged as the Democratic front-runner in the race for the presidential nomination. Yet even some left-leaning pundits and publications are concerned about what they see as Sanders’ potential lack of electability. Sanders is a Democratic Socialist. And the label “socialist” is a political liability in American culture. […]
Can Iran Afford its Syrian Intervention in face of Failing Economy, Coronavirus?
By Tony Walker | – Iran’s emergence as a hot zone for the coronavirus further complicates that country’s relationships with its neighbours at a time when its economy is sliding deeper into recession. US President Donald Trump’s “maximum pressure” campaign on Iran by tightening economic sanctions coincides with a spreading health crisis that will test […]
Trump’s so-called Mideast ‘peace plan’ dispossesses Palestinians
By Rachad Antonius | – Nothing is further from a peace effort than the plan that Israel and the Donald Trump administration have concocted for Palestine. Previous American administrations have all been pro-Israel, and they’ve made every effort to circumvent international law. But previous U.S. administrations have never formally challenged international law, and they considered […]
Can the US-Taliban Truce Hold, Bringing Peace to Afghanistan after 40 Years of War?
By Elizabeth B. Hessami | – If a seven-day truce between the United States and the Taliban holds until Feb. 28, 2020, Afghanistan’s decades-long conflict may finally end. A peace deal could be signed as soon as Feb. 29, according to the State Department. The draft accord follows months of stop-and-go negotiations between the United […]
Nondisclosure and secrecy laws protect Bloomberg – not the women who sued him
By Elizabeth C. Tippett | – Billionaire and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg received a lot of flak at the Feb. 19 Democratic debate for his refusal to release employees who sued his company from nondisclosure agreements. He admitted to having a “few nondisclosure agreements,” after Sen. Elizabeth Warren challenged him over the […]
New Findings: 251.9 Million Years Ago Rapid Climate Change from CO2 Wiped out 90% of Species
By Jennifer Botha | – The end-Permian mass extinction is considered to be the most devastating biotic event in the history of life on Earth – it caused dramatic losses in global biodiversity, both in water and on land. About 90% of marine and 70% of terrestrial (land) species went extinct. This event may have […]
In Syria’s Idlib, Turkey is trying to play middle man between Russia and the US – with little success
By Umut Korkut and Tarik Basbugoglu | – The recent turn of events in Idlib, an opposition stronghold in north-western Syria undergoing bombardment by the Syrian military, has put Turkey in a difficult position. Since the end of January, Syrian regime forces have killed 13 Turkish soldiers who were monitoring a tense ceasefire in Idlib. […]
The unexpected link between the ozone hole and Arctic warming
By Karen Smith | – One of the earliest climate model predictions of how human-made climate change would affect our planet showed that the Arctic would warm about two to three times more than the global average. Forty years later, this “Arctic amplification” has been observed firsthand. Record-breaking Arctic warming and the dramatic decline of […]
Countering climate denialism requires taking on right-wing populism. Here’s how
By Richard Calland | – History may in due course record 2019 as the year in which the penny finally dropped about the climate emergency humanity faces. A sense of urgency was triggered last year by both Swedish teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg’s courage in challenging world leaders to take the crisis seriously, and the […]