*Israeli ministers attend conference calling for ‘voluntary migration’ of Palestinians.* I am sure any such migration would be no more “voluntary” than the use of nonfree software today: done under pressure that is hard to resist.
*EU [proposes] force cosmetic companies to pay to reduce microplastic pollution.* This is just a first step, but it will get started on a path that the world needs to follow much further.
Global heating is causing sea-level rise. The better-off people in the prosperous parts of Miami (mostly whites) want to move west to higher ground, into neighborhood now inhabited mainly by blacks. To facilitate this, redevelopment projects tear down old housing projects and build new housing, most of which is rented out for more than the […]
The Tories are now considering imposing conscription on the UK because young people don’t want to join the army. There is not much about the UK as it is misgoverned that would inspire people to fight to defend it. The only argument I know of is, “Government could be even worse.”
Australia finds that car manufacturer are still publishing greatly underestimated figures for pollution emissions.
*New Zealand to ban PFAS ‘forever chemicals’ in cosmetics from 2026.*
The US should pay compensation for the civilian casualties of its fighting in Somalia. And elsewhere, too.
Fossil fuel companies were warned about the danger of global heating in 1954, from research that they funded to track the level of CO2 in the air.
Understanding why nocturnal insects orbit lamps shows why light pollution at night can wipe them out.
Thailand has arrested a Russian dissident rock band and threatens to deport them to Russia, where Putin would imprison them.
Some investors in BP are demanding it cancel plans to ramp down fossil fuel extraction, saying it could make more money pumping more. A few decades from now, if we do not curb global heating, all that wealth will disappear along with the framework in which it is meaningful, But these fools don’t look at […]
The EU has delayed a rule requiring each farm to set aside 4% of its usable farmland for protection of wildlife and the soil. It is safe to delay this, but in the long term such protection is absolutely necessary to avoid disaster. I suggest phasing it in, perhaps introducing the rule by increments of […]
A seabed mining company is using NAFTA to prevent Mexico from protecting seabed ecosystems in the Gulf of California. NAFTA is a business-supremacy treaty and it contains an ISDS clause. Businesses can use those against any government. I call them “I Sue Democratic States” clauses because democratic states sometimes heed popular demand to make regulations […]
*[Tory] ministers plan to push cash-strapped English councils to sell assets.* The Tories cuts in support for local government now turn out to be part of a two-part dooH niboR scheme. First, cut the aid to local governments to the point that they can’t do anything for the non-rich, not even parks and public libraries, […]
China seeks unceasingly to recruit spies in Taiwan. Why should Taiwanese fight China? Not out of hatred for China the country, but rather to protect freedom in Taiwan — and someday, perhaps, to bring it to China as well.
Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) famously wrote that in the state of nature “the life of man” was “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” In his own long life of ninety-one years, Hobbes survived the turmoil of the English Civil War. In his “Leviathan,” he expounded a new version of social contract theory in which the contract […]
The presenter, 79, says she suffered a serious asthma attack but is now “dancing fit” again.
*It’s right to probe UNRWA’s problems &mdash yet what would replace it? Its critics have no answer.*
Economist James Meadway integrates awareness of global heating and its effects and consequences into understanding of the economy. When the climate was fairly stable, and fluctuations were temporary (“weather”), it may have worked to treat those as externalities. They are small changes and can be modeled with perturbation theory. But when global heating is taking […]
*The women suing Tennessee for being denied abortions [which they needed for medical reasons].* Vicious Republicans, shame on you!
There are proposals to impose censorship on material being shared digitally between individuals by means of requiring that computers (including snoop phones) contain a specific nonfree program which would check for forbidden communications before end-to-end encryption goes to work. That system design is called “client-side scanning”. For me, the first argument against this is self-evident: […]
US citizens: call on Congress to overturn the “Citizens” United decision. Those corporations called their organization “Citizens United”, but I have no reason to endorse their distortion, so I call it the Corporations United decision. If you phone, please spread the word! Main Switchboard: +1-202-224-3121
Roma – Il processo d’integrazione nell’Africa occidentale subisce una brusca battuta d’arresto con l’annuncio il 28 gennaio dei regimi militari di Mali, Burkina Faso e Niger, dell’uscita dei loro Paesi dalla Comunità economica degli Stati dell’Africa occidentale . Nonostante la loro dichiarazione comune affermava che lasciavano “con effetto immediato” la Comunità, lo statuto della stessa […]
di Chiara DommarcoSan Pietroburgo – La Caritas di San Pietroburgo, diretta dalla dottoressa Natalija Anatol’evna Pevcova, è nata nel 1993 e, da più di 30 anni, offe aiuto ai bisognosi e formazione a diversi specialisti e volontari. Attualmente sono attivi presso l’associazione una dozzina di programmi di aiuto, grazie ai quali trovano sostegno poveri, madri […]
Karachi – Nell’area di Safoora Goth, un quartiere nella parte orientale della metropoli di Karachi, capitale della provincia del SIndh, nel Pakistan meridionale, la presenza cattolica aumentava e le famiglie del distretto avevano mostrato il desiderio e la necessità di una chiesa. Così, grazie all’impegno di p. Anthony Abraz e il sostegno dell’Arcivescovo Benny Mario Travas, è stato […]
This is a collection of 52 poems read in English by LibriVox volunteers during January 2024.
The TV host was diagnosed with terminal cancer in 2020 after the disease had spread from his lungs.
The producer discusses his time on the BBC sci-fi series and his raucous new theatre comedy about giving birth.