Reading Time: 9 minutes Our exercise in the folly of year-end lists continues! In Part I of this global review for 2022, three key themes emerged from this year’s major news events. The first was “Europe on fire”, and the implications of energy infrastructure policy for the environment and future imperialist tyranny. The second dealt with the collapse of […]
International
Posted inDeep Dive
2022: The year in global review, Part I
Reading Time: 8 minutes All end-of-year lists are suspect. One must embrace futility when trying to summarize what happened on a planet of eight billion for one spin around the sun. So why do we do write them? At best, to break up our routines of knee-jerk outrage at the latest inane news item, and to think more systematically […]
Posted inWar and Peace
In the fog of war, UN says at least 18,000 civilian casualties in Ukraine
Reading Time: 3 minutes It happens in every conflict, every international power play: reliable real-time numbers go out the window. In China, it’s lately taken the form of local government under-counting infection and casualty rates from COVID-19, despite overwhelmed emergency and funeral services telling a different story. In recent civil war around Tigray, in Ethiopia, the sheer complexity of […]
Posted inReligious News
Cycles of extremism: NGOs suspend services after Taliban bans female staff
Reading Time: 3 minutes In a series of moves surprising no one, the Taliban government in Afghanistan this past week banned women from universities, and also locked girls out of primary school (essentially ending education to female persons across the board), before also banning women from work in any local non-government organizations (NGOs). The usual nonsense reasons pertaining to […]
Posted inEnvironment
COP15’s grand—and questionable—promise for biodiversity conservation
Reading Time: 4 minutes There are a few ways to read the major concluding deal from this year’s UN Biodiversity Conference (COP15), held in Montreal from December 7 to 19. Over 190 countries ultimately signed on to what is being called a historic deal, the “30×30” pledge to establish 30 percent of the Earth’s natural ecosystems (on land and […]
Posted inFree Expression
This week in protests and strikes: China, Iran, and the US
Reading Time: 5 minutes On Tuesday, November 29, the US and Iran played at the FIFA World Cup in Qatar. It was a tense match, but not necessarily for reasons related to the game. The US Soccer Federation had originally flown an Iranian flag on social media platforms that omitted the emblem of the Islamic Republic. That was its […]
Posted inClimate Crisis
So what did COP27 actually accomplish?
Reading Time: 7 minutes From November 6 to 20, world leaders and representatives met for the 27th United Nations Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP27), held this year in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. The conference started and ended late due to reluctance around one key initiative: the topic of loss and damage for vulnerable countries hit by climate change […]
Posted inReligious News
Qatar’s last-minute beer ban raises deeper concerns about the World Cup
Reading Time: 4 minutes Just 48 hours before the start of the 2022 FIFA World Cup, the conservative Muslim country of Qatar reversed its position on allowing alcoholic beer in official stadiums. While such beverages may be sold at other fan destinations after 7pm, only Bud Zero may now be purchased within or around the stadium itself, unless you […]
Posted inEconomics
The crypto crisis fallout in El Salvador
Reading Time: 7 minutes When El Salvador’s president came to power in 2019, many didn’t care that the ensuing calm might have resulted from Nayib Bukele’s backroom arrangements with local gangs. The country of six million, terrorized for years in part by US MS-13 gang members offloaded to Central America, had high hopes of better days under the authoritarian […]
Posted inCulture
First death penalty issued for Iranian protesters under expanded mandate
Reading Time: 3 minutes Last week, 227 members of Iran’s 290-person parliament advocated for harsher retributive actions to be taken against protesters arrested in the nation-wide demonstrations after 22-year-old Mahsa Amini was brutally murdered by morality police in September. Prior to the parliament’s decision, the Islamic Revolution Court was already charging people connected to these protests with death penalty […]