By Robin Chazdon | The green belt of tropical rainforests that covers equatorial regions of the Americas, Africa, Indonesia and Southeast Asia is turning brown. Since 1990, Indonesia has lost 50% of its original forest, the Amazon 30% and Central Africa 14%. Fires, logging, hunting, road building and fragmentation have heavily damaged more than 30% […]
What Happens when Climate Emergency Drowns Whole Nations?
By Sarah M. Munoz | – Global climate change is endangering small island countries, many of them developing nations, potentially harming their ability to function as independent states. As international environmental co-operation stalls, we must ask what consequences climate change will have on the statehood of vulnerable countries. This is especially important because sovereignty is […]
Great Powers in Latin America have Tried to Make Walls before: It didn’t End Well
By Alberto P. Marti | – Despite the US administration’s renewed interest in Cuba, including new travel restrictions, few have paid attention to a little-known, but telling, historical episode: the island’s 19th-century military “Trocha”. This massive fortified line was a Spanish attempt to contain the Cuban independence rebellion by splitting the island in half – […]
G20: The Real Crisis Confronting Global Leaders is Trump-China Trade War
By Bill Durodie | – On June 28 and 29, the G20 summit will convene for the 14th time in Osaka, Japan. This gathering of leaders from the world’s leading economies, including the EU, plus invited guests and international organisations, ought to offer an important moment for mature reflection and collective coordination regarding the future […]
US-Iran Tensions Keep Growing with No Move to Negotiate in Sight
By Scott Lucas | – Washington and Tehran are locked in a political, economic, and propagandist confrontation – and there is no apparent way out. One route to de-escalation could be direct talks between the US and Iran, either on a bilateral basis or as part of multilateral discussions. When US President Donald Trump stepped […]
Why Trump Can’t Win by Ramping up Sanctions on Iran
By Natasha Lindstaedt | – After Iran shot down a US drone that allegedly entered Iran’s airspace, Donald Trump signed new sanctions against Iran on June 24, including against its supreme leader, Ali Khamenei. The move came days after the US president took to Twitter to reveal the US had been ten minutes away from […]
So, What Really is Jihad?
By Mohammad Hassan Khalil | – Often, many people conflate the terms jihad and terrorism. This is in part because many writers use the term “jihadist” when describing violent Muslim radicals. To be sure, such radicals have invoked jihad to justify their heinous acts, such as the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and […]
Why Interning Refugee Children In Military Bases puts them at Risk in Age of Trump
By Jana Lipman | – Fort Sill, an army base in Oklahoma, will soon become a refugee camp. The Department of Health and Human Services expects the repurposed military facility to house up to 1,400 unaccompanied migrant children from Central America by early July. Border agents apprehended 54,000 unaccompanied child migrants at the Mexico border […]
Risk of Shooting War with Iran Grows after Decades of Economic Warfare by the U.S.
By David Cortright | – Many are worried about the risk of war between the U.S. and Iran. But the truth is, the U.S. has been fighting with Iran for decades in an economic war waged via sanctions. Concerns about a war of guns, warplanes and missiles grew after Iran shot down a U.S. spy […]