Region

I had the privilege of attending the opening and penultimate sessions of the Nuclear Weapons Ban and Prohibition Treaty negotiations at the U.N. this spring and summer. And, midst considerable celebration, on July 7, representatives of the majority of the world’s governments agreed to a treaty designed to outlaw the… »

By Shahidul Alam Bait Ur Rouf, the Bangladeshi mosque of Dhaka where this photography was done, is a work of art. The sculptural quality, the use of light, the tranquility of the space, the intelligent use of geometry and the natural ventilation, are some of the features… »

By George Monbiot for The Guardian James McGill Buchanan’s vision of totalitarian capitalism has infected public policy in the US. Now it’s being exported. It’s the missing chapter: a key to understanding the politics of the past half… »

Activist Vandana Shiva launched a strong and hopeful message during the “Poison at the Doors” conference in Rome on July 10. According to the Indian scientist, 70% of the food consumed worldwide is still grown by small and medium scale farmers. However, she says that industry multinationals selling low quality… »

Today I listened to the audio book of Entangled Empathy: An Alternative Ethic for Our Relationship With Animals by Lori Gruen while reading the hardcopy of From Bacteria to Bach and Back: The Evolution of Minds by Daniel Dennett. As a result I have been better able to empathize with… »

By Dr Ludwig Watzal The Ancient Greeks knew: “Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful.” No less a figure than the late Zbigniew Brzezinski and the CIA made use of this saying by recruiting the Muslim Brotherhood to… »

The director of the Office of Government Ethics, Walter Shaub Jr., says the Trump administration has so undermined ethical standards that the United States is “pretty close to a laughingstock at this point.” Shaub is resigning today. He’s been critical of President Trump on a slew of issues, including Trump’s… »

By Baher Kamal While the business sector jumps for joy as the number of tourists grew in 2016 for the seventh consecutive year to reach 1.2 billion, and as the first four months of 2017 have registered 6 per cent increase, the sheer speed,… »

A group of passengers who forced a two-and-a-half delay of a flight between Barcelona and Dakar by protesting against the deportation of a Senegalese man on-board, were barred from re-boarding the plane and are now considering legal action. There were 172 passengers scheduled to depart on low-cost airline Vueling’s flight… »

By Zeenat Khan A photo shared on Twitter by activist Ye Du was inserted in arecent front-page story in the New York Times. The skeletal like couple (Liu Xiaobo and Liu Xia) clinging onto one another will break any heart. In the photo, frail Xiaobo is pictured in his hospital… »