My favorite blog for a general survey of environmental issues. Revkin frequently interviews or sets up discussions between scientists, and includes follow-up.
Here’s another round in a continuing exploration of views on next steps for nuclear power. Earlier this week, I received a letter arguing for a fresh push on nuclear technologies, building on the argument of James Hansen and three other climate researchers that I wrote about last fall.
Middle incomes are sinking, the ranks of the poor are swelling, almost all the economic gains are going to the top, and big money is corrupting our democracy. So why isn’t there more of a ruckus?
The answer is complex, but three reasons stand out...
Hundreds of thousands of Thais were blocked from voting on Sunday as antigovernment demonstrators obstructed polling places in Bangkok and southern Thailand in a campaign to suspend democracy and replace Parliament with an unelected “people’s council.”
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Critics of the protest movement, which is battling to purge the country of Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra and her influential family, called Sunday’s shutdown of polling places a major blow to democracy in Thailand and a possible portent of further moves to seize power from the government.
More than two million people out of a total electorate of about 48 million were registered for Sunday’s advance voting, which was held for those unable to vote in the Feb. 2 general election.
In a striking concession aimed at defusing Ukraine’s civil uprising and preserving his own grip on power, President Viktor F. Yanukovych on Saturday offered to install opposition leaders in top posts in a reshaped government, but they swiftly rebuffed the offer to the delight of thousands of protesters on the street craving a fuller victory in the days ahead.
The agreement will create an autonomous Muslim-dominated region in the restive south of the predominantly Christian country, handing much of the responsibility for security there to local authorities as well as a large share of revenues from the region’s wealth of natural resources. The militants have agreed to disarm, with many expected to join Philippine security forces.
Algeria’s largest Islamist political party announced it will boycott April’s presidential election, citing fears of fraud.
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The party’s decision represents a break from its history of always participating in elections. On Friday, the liberal Rally for Culture and Democracy party announced its own election boycott for similar reasons.
BEIRUT, Lebanon — THE letter bore the corporate tone of a C.E.O. resolving a turf dispute between two middle managers. In formal prose and numbered lists, Ayman al-Zawahri, the leader of Al Qaeda, directed one of the group’s affiliates in Syria to withdraw to Iraq and leave operations in Syria to someone else.
The response was unequivocal. Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, declared that his fighters would remain in Syria “as long as we have a vein that pumps and an eye that blinks.”
It was the first time in the history of the world’s most notorious terrorist organization that one of the affiliates had publicly broken with the international leadership, and the news sent shock waves through the online forums where jihadists meet. In no uncertain terms, ISIS had gone rogue.
In 2013, CAR collapsed: the wages of civil servants were paid by foreign donors (notably the government of Congo Brazzaville); security disappeared, and efforts to reinstate it could only be conducted by international forces; there is no government in place and all state services have dissolved. The European Union’s decision yesterday (20 January) to send troops – pending a UN Security Council resolution expected for later this week – indicates that international involvement will only be deepening.
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...On 20 January, after two rounds of balloting, a majority of the transitional council elected Bangui Mayor Catherine Samba-Panza the new president.