International issues

Dear Julian, I wish I were in fifth grade. If so, this letter would be easier to write. I think if the judge were in fifth grade too, he would release you. But when we grow up, logic is compromised with personal interests, fear, and arthritis sometimes. I had read… »

By Nicolas J S Davies The world is waiting anxiously to see whether the U.S. and Afghan governments and the Taliban will agree to a one-week truce that could set the stage for a “permanent and comprehensive” ceasefire and a withdrawal of U.S. and other foreign occupation forces from Afghanistan. Could… »

By Laura Tiernan This week’s edition of the Lancet—the world’s pre-eminent peer reviewed medical journal—carries a letter from 117 medical doctors in 18 countries, renewing their call for urgent action to save the life of WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange. Their letter appears less than one week before the start of the… »

By Anis Chowdhury and Jomo Kwame Sundaram In an annual ritual early in the year, most major economic organizations have released forecasts for the global economy in 2020. Incredibly, almost as a reminder of where financial power resides in this day and age, the International Monetary… »

“Emissions from fossil fuels and deforestation need to be reduced to ZERO to stop this trend!” By Jessica Corbett, staff writer The concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere hit a record high Monday, a reading from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that elicited fresh calls from climate activists… »

The Federation of American Scientists revealed in late January that the U.S. Navy had deployed for the first time a submarine armed with a low-yield Trident nuclear warhead. The USS Tennessee deployed from Kings Bay Submarine Base in Georgia in late 2019. The W76-2 warhead, which is facing criticism at home… »

Co-Written By Brian Czech and Riccardo Mastini Limits to Growth and the Environmental Movement No later than the 1960s, scholars wrote in rigorous terms of the limits to economic growth. Europeans such as E.F. Schumacher, Americans including Herman Daly, and European-born Americans (most notably Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen and Kenneth Boulding) set… »

Draconian Migration Measures Put Lives, Rights at Risk Italy’s Democratic Party-Five Star Movement coalition government should revoke anti-asylum and anti-rescue measures held over from the previous government, Human Rights Watch said today. The government is expected to propose modifications to two so-called security decrees pushed through by the previous coalition… »

By Dr Chandra Muzaffar We are inundated with an avalanche of information on the novel coronavirus infection. Within this avalanche, there is a lot of “news” that is clearly false. Those responsible for such news can be classified into two categories at least. The first comprises mischief-makers who derive some… »

As we observe the 72nd anniversary of the assassination of Mohandas K. Gandhi on 30 January 1948, it is worth reflecting on one simple fact that he did not realize. His efforts to teach humanity that conflict, including violent conflict, could be resolved without violence were based on one fundamentally… »