In The News

Paying Migrants to Go Back Home Fails: Euronews

Lillo Montalto Monella and Sara Creta June 20, 2020
Migration from Africa to Europe is treacherous, yet many are still desperate to flee poverty, repression, conflict and hunger. Euronews describes one man’s experiences traveling through multiple countries, endurig a Mediterranean shipwreck, a gunshot wound, and two years of abuse and torture in a Libyan detention center. Families and friends shun some who return home and failing to send...

Oil, Gas Sector in Terminal Decline? OilPrice.com

Robert Rapier June 19, 2020
The rise of renewable energies and reduced energy consumption due to the Covid-19 pandemic may push fossil fuels into terminal decline, reports Robert Rapier. Global consumption of coal, while still growing, peaked in the developed world after being replaced by natural gas. Price pressure has accompanied intense production for oil and natural gas in recent years while consumers increasingly...

Capitalism as Victim of Covid-19? Salon

Matthew Rozsa June 18, 2020
The pandemic and climate change demonstrate that survival depends on the ability to learn while relying on best evidence. Political leaders who downplay or deny the consequences of Covid-19 and climate change – trying to protect economies for the short term, rejecting early warnings and refusing to adapt – actually risk more economic damage. Such disasters also show that the free-market...

UNHRC to Debate Systemic Racism: AFP

June 15, 2020
Burkina Faso’s ambassador to the UN, Dieudonné Desiré Sougouri, wrote a letter for 54 African countries calling for “urgent debate” from the UN Human Rights Council on systemic racism, police brutality, human rights violations against people of African descent and the attacks against peaceful protesters. The UNHRC, after a disruption due to Covid-19, resumes its 43rd session today. “The call came...

Tracking COVID-19 with Air Travel Data: Rand

Russell Hanson, Christopher A. Mouton, Adam R. Grissom and John P. Godges June 15, 2020
Rand Corporation researchers have developed a Covid-19 air-traffic visualization tool that combines case data from Johns Hopkins University with travel data from the International Air Transport Association. “Together, these data sets make it possible to visualize how coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) infections and commercial air travel have interacted to export infection risk across the world...

Sanctions Against ICC Officials: Al Jazeera

June 12, 2020
Donald Trump authorized economic and travel sanctions against International Criminal Court officials investigating military and intelligence officials of the US and its allies for war crimes in Afghanistan and elsewhere. The United States rejects ICC jurisdiction over US personnel, and the United Nations, the European Union and human rights groups condemn the sanctions. “The Hague-based court was...

Cybersecurity for Infrastructure: Project Syndicate

Marietje Schaake and Stéphane Duguin June 9, 2020
The Covid-19 pandemic underscores society’s reliance on infrastructure, including the internet for communication and data exchanges as well as health-care systems. Malevolent forces target social media with disinformation and hospitals and laboratories with ransomware, phishing and other malicious programs. Over the past two months, such attacks have occurred every three days, yet governments...