In The News

Paul D. Shinkman August 15, 2019
Russia conducted a failed missile test on a platform in the White Sea near Severodvinsk in northern Russia, killing seven workers and injuring others, but the world knows little more. Analysts suspect the test was relate to a nuclear-powered ballistic missile. “A deadly nuclear mishap with a yet-unclear fallout threatens to derail Russia's ambitions to develop a new generation of weapons...
August 12, 2019
Protests have paralyzed Hong Kong throughout the summer, putting China’s system of governance for the island into question. While the protesters’ numbers have fallen, the movement has expanded its demands and methods, including disruptions that have forced the Hong Kong airport to close. The protests may have dashed China’s vision for Hong Kong as an “‘economic’ city in which politics plays a...
August 8, 2019
Rising temperatures, linked to pressures on fertile soil, are putting world food security at risk, notes a special report on climate change and land by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. More than 100 authors reviewed research on land. The UN urges sustainable land use and limits on greenhouse gas emissions. Humans impact more than 70 percent of land’s ice-free surface, and about...
Ahsan I. Butt August 8, 2019
After little parliamentary debate and virtually no citizen input, the Modi government is scrapping two articles in the Indian constitution that apply to the state of Jammu and Kashmir, splitting the state and administering two sections as a union territory. At the same time, the government increased its troop presence, closed schools and the internet, and placed some leaders under house arrest....
Andrew Whitehead August 5, 2019
The special status assigned to Jammu and Kashmir reflects an agreement between India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, and Kashmir's political leaders. “India's BJP-led government has now unilaterally torn up that special dispensation,” reports Andrew Whitehead for BBC News. “It's the biggest change in Kashmir's constitutional status since the 1950s.” The government...
David E. Sanger and Catie Edmondson July 27, 2019
The US Senate Intelligence Committee has issued a heavily redacted report describing Russian intrusion into US election systems in all states. Richard Burr, the Republican committee chairman, said the US had been “blindsided,” with only a handful of federal and state officials detecting the intrusion. Hackers could have deleted or changed voter data, though there is no evidence that happened. “...
Danielle Hanna Rached July 23, 2019
Leaders often reject advice on how to manage development or resources within their national borders, yet the effects of pollution or resource depletion can have global consequences. Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro contends that the Amazon is Brazil’s to exploit. “His promotion of the rainforest’s development and attacks on environmental regulation have led, for example, to the expansion of...