By Sune Engel Rasmussen 28 August 2017 SHAH FOLADI, Afghanistan (The Guardian) – The central highlands of Afghanistan are a world away from the congested chaos of the country’s cities. Hills roll across colossal, uninhabited spaces fringed by snow-flecked mountains, set against blistering blue skies. In this spectacular, harsh landscape, one can pinpoint more or […]
By Colin Kalmbacher 31 August 2017 (LawNewz) – Texas Governor Greg Abbott has signaled his state’s intent to accept a controversial offer of aid from neighboring Mexico in order to help victims of Hurricane Harvey. That aid will include food, automobiles, and boats and could also include assistance from the Mexican armed forces. Speaking at […]
GENEVA, 23 August 2017 (United Nations) – The UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) has called on the Government of the United States of America, as well as high-level politicians and public officials, to unequivocally and unconditionally reject and condemn racist hate speech and crimes in Charlottesville and throughout the country. In […]
22 June 2017 (UNODC) – Opium production on the increase In 2016, global opium production increased by one third compared with the previous year. Although there was also an increase in the size of the area under opium poppy cultivation, the major increase in opium production was primarily the result of an improvement in opium […]
By Sue Branford 10 August 2017 (Mongabay) – A Brazilian company, Intertechne Consultores, has asked Aneel, the federal Agency for Electric Energy, to authorize viability studies to build three new dams in the Aripuanã river basin — the Sumaúma and Quebra Remo dams along the Aripuanã River itself and the Inferninho dam along its tributary, […]
18 August 2017 (UN) – Warning about escalating suffering in Yemen’s man-made catastrophe, senior United Nations officials today addressed the Security Council, calling on the international community to push for a political solution to the more than two-year-old conflict. “Death looms for Yemenis by air, land and sea,” Special Envoy of the Secretary-General to Yemen, […]
4 August 2017 (United Nations) – Even as the flow appears to have thinned, migrants crossing the United States-Mexico border are dying at a faster rate in 2017 than in past years, according to a new United Nations agency study.“Some 232 migrant fatalities have been recorded in the first seven months of 2017, an increase […]
By Jeffery Gettleman 29 July 2017 LAIKIPIA, Kenya (The New York Times) – The two elders, wearing weather-beaten cowboy hats with the strings cinched under their chins, stood at the edge of an empty farm, covering their mouths in disbelief. Their homes — neat wooden cabins — had been smashed open. All their cattle had […]
By Meridith Kohut 22 July 2017 CARACAS, Venezuela (The New York Times) – Motley throngs of masked antigovernment protesters hurl rocks, fireworks and Molotov cocktails. The police and soldiers retaliate with tear gas, water cannon blasts, rubber bullets and buckshot. An uprising is brewing in Venezuela. Nearly every day for more than three months, thousands […]
By Steve Horn and Curtis Waltman 20 July 2017 (MuckRock) – Behind the scenes, as law enforcement officials tried to stem protests against the Dakota Access pipeline, alumni from the George W. Bush White House were leading a crisis communications effort to discredit pipeline protesters.Emails show that the firms Delve and Off the Record Strategies, […]
