France and Britain just beat Donald Trump to building a border wall

By James McAuley and Michael Birnbaum 29 September 2016 CALAIS, France (Washington Post) – So far, Donald Trump’s plan to build a wall along the Mexican border is all talk. Last week, France and Britain actually began building one along theirs. Construction started here on a roughly mile-long concrete barrier intended to separate a sprawling […]

‘We are thirsty’, say Tunisians as drought creates tensions

TUNIS, 25 September 2016 (Associated Press) – Struggling with extremism and economic woes, Tunisia now faces another menace: persistent drought across several regions that is creating new social tensions and threatening farming, a pillar of the economy. Farmland is too parched to cultivate crops and rural protesters have tried disrupting water supplies to the capital, […]

Syria-Jordan border: 75,000 refugees trapped in desert no man’s land in dire conditions

15 September 2016 (Amnesty) – Video footage and satellite images showing makeshift grave sites and burial mounds offer a rare glimpse inside a desert no man’s land between Jordan and Syria where tens of thousands of refugees who have been virtually cut off from humanitarian aid for two months are stranded, said Amnesty International. The […]

Venezuela pets go hungry as economic crisis deepens – ‘We’re crying every day. You leave each day feeling traumatized.’

By Fabiola Sanchez7 September 2016 CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) – Carlos Parra used to love waking up to see his pet albino boxer, Nina. Now, seeing her skeletal body on the floor next to his bed has become a daily reminder of the economic crisis engulfing Venezuela. His other dog’s thick fur barely hides her ribcage […]

New UN report reveals millions of refugee children ‘missing out’ on education

15 September 2016 (UN) – In a new report, the United Nations refugee agency said that more than some six million school-age children under its mandate have no school go to and that refugees are five times more likely to be out of school than the global average. “This represents a crisis for millions of […]

In a hungry Venezuela, buying too much food can get you arrested

By Mariana Zuñiga and Nick Miroff 15 September 2016 BARQUISIMETO, Venezuela (Washington Post) – The hunt for food started at 4 a.m., when Alexis Camascaro woke up to get in line outside the supermarket. By the time he arrived, there were already 100 people ahead of him. Camascaro never made it inside. Truckloads of Venezuelan […]

Bioethicist: The climate crisis calls for fewer children

By Travis N. Rieder11 September 2016 (The Conversation) – Earlier this summer, I found myself in the middle of a lively debate because of my work on climate change and the ethics of having children. NPR correspondent Jennifer Ludden profiled some of my work in procreative ethics with an article entitled, “Should we be having […]

The American dream is becoming a rarity – Lifetime earnings mobility has declined since the early 1980s as inequality has increased

By David Brodwin 23 August 2016 (U.S. News & World Report) – If you work hard and play by the rules you will get ahead, according to the American Dream. But working hard and playing by the rules now feels like running in place to a lot of Americans. The past few years of economic […]

Amid epic drought, villagers bitter over Zimbabwe ethanol plant

By Andrew Mambondiyani28 July 2016 (mongabay.com) – Lyben Minyizeya’s homestead in Chisumbanje in eastern Zimbabwe resembles a dumpsite for disused tractors and other agricultural equipment. The broken and rusty machinery reminds him of the good old farming days. In this farming community near the border with Mozambique, it is sizzling hot in summer. Baobab, acacia, […]

Lopsided U.S. housing rebound leaves millions of people out in the cold – ‘You have these people who can’t get housing, and it’s turning into this rage’

By Laura Kusisto10 August 2016 (The Wall Street Journal) – The housing recovery that began in 2012 has lifted the overall market but left behind a broad swath of the middle class, threatening to create a generation of permanent renters, and sowing economic anxiety and frustration for millions of Americans. Home prices rose in 83% […]

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