[Long-time Desdemona readers will recall that smoke from peatland fires killed many people in Moscow in 2010. Dense wildfire smog grips Moscow in heatwave, Heat probably killed thousands in Moscow –Des] By Kate Lamb26 October 2015 (Jakarta) – Raging forest fires across Indonesia are thought to be responsible for up to half a million cases […]
By Natalie Roterman18 October 2015 (Latin Times) – The colonial Temple of Quechula has once again resurfaced for a second time in the Nezahualcoyotl reservoir due to a drought. Thanks to a drastic drought in the Grijalva River in Chiapas, Mexico, a mid-16th century church has resurfaced for a second time in the Nezahualcoyotl reservoir. […]
By Melanie Randle 11 October 2015 (The Conversation) – A new, four-nation study has found people rate the risks of global threats to humanity surprisingly high. These perceptions are likely to be important, socially and politically, in shaping how humanity responds to the threats. The study, of more than 2000 people in the US, UK, […]
5 October 2015 (BBC News) – The number of people seeking asylum in Germany this year will be as high as 1.5 million – almost double the previous estimate, German media report. The German government has not confirmed the new estimate, which comes from an internal official report cited by popular daily Bild. The report […]
By Sophia Tesfaye18 September 2015 (Salon) – Arizona Republican Congressman Paul Gosar, describing himself as a “a proud Catholic” took to the conservative website Townhall to lecture Pope Francis and announce his planned boycott of his historic papal visit to Congress next week. Calling it his “moral obligation” to call out Catholic leaders who […]
By Brady McCombs16 September 2015 HILDALE, Utah (Associated Press) – A van and SUV carrying three women and 13 children sat near the widening stream, waiting for the water to recede so they could cross back to their homes in a small, polygamous town on the Utah-Arizona border. But in an instant, flood waters engulfed […]
By John Gray13 March 2015 (The Guardian) – For an influential group of advanced thinkers, violence is a type of backwardness. In the most modern parts of the world, these thinkers tell us, war has practically disappeared. The world’s great powers are neither internally divided nor inclined to go to war with one another, and […]
By Adam Vaughan18 June 2015 (The Guardian) – On Thursday the Vatican published Pope Francis’s long-awaited encyclical on the environment, which warns of ‘serious consequences’ if the world does not act on climate change. [English translation: LAUDATO SI’, mi’ Signore] Ban Ki-moon reacts: The secretary-general welcomes the papal encyclical released today by His Holiness Pope […]
By David O’Reilly and Tom Avril 13 June 2015 (Philadelphia Inquirer) – On the day he was elected pope, Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio of Argentina stood before a line of his fellow cardinals to receive their blessings. “Don’t forget the poor,” whispered his Brazilian friend, Cardinal Claudio Hummes, as the two embraced in the Sistine Chapel. […]
By Timothy Cama12 May 2015 (The Hill) – Pope Francis’ closest adviser castigated conservative climate change skeptics in the United States Tuesday, blaming capitalism for their views. Speaking with journalists, Cardinal Oscar Rodríguez Maradiaga criticized certain “movements” in the United States that have preemptively come out in opposition to Francis’s planned encyclical on climate change. […]
