In The News

The Guardian: Global Pollution Threatens Human Survival

Damian Carrington October 20, 2017
Humans tend to ignore threats that are slow emerging or ubiquitous – and pollution is such a threat. “Toxic air, water, soils and workplaces are responsible for the diseases that kill one in every six people around the world,” writes Damian Carrington for the Guardian. He describes a report by the Lancet Commission on Pollution and Health. “[T]he true total could be millions higher because the...

Fortune: Yellowstone Supervolcano Could Erupt Sooner Than We Thought

Grace Donnelly October 19, 2017
An eruption of the Yellowstone supervolcano in the western United States may occur sooner rather than the centuries once assumed, suggest researchers at Arizona State University. They examined minerals of fossilized deposits that showed changes in temperature and composition from a previous eruption, and also found that the supervolcano’s magma reservoir is large and could fill more quickly than...

TechCrunch: WeChat Censors Users Ahead of China’s National Party Congress

Jon Russell October 18, 2017
China’s leaders are convening for the National Congress, held every five years for outlining policy priorities, and government censors are taking no risks. The goal is to prevent internal protests or external disruptions from outside trolls who used social-media messages to influence the 2016 US election. Posting anonymous content is banned in China, and social-media platforms WeChat and Weibo...

Deutsche Welle: Climate Change Sets the World on Fire

October 18, 2017
Fast-moving wildfires are striking densely populated communities throughout the Americas and Europe, resulting in mass evacuations, with dozens of deaths, thousands of homes destroyed, mass evacuations and disrupted businesses. “With global temperatures rising, scientists say wildfires are likely to become increasingly frequent and widespread,” reports Deutsche Welle. “Even Greenland, not known...

Project Syndicate: IP for the 21st Century Economy

Joseph E. Stiglitz, Dean Baker and Arjun Jayadev October 17, 2017
Intellectual property laws can be an obstacle when emerging economies are enduring a health crisis. Writing for Project Syndicate, Joseph E. Stiglitz, Dean Baker and Arjun Jayadev describe South Africa’s battle against the global pharmaceutical industry as HIV/AIDS swept through the continent. Today South Africa’s leaders are working to develop intellectual property policies to expand access to...

The Diplomat: Kyrgyz Election Brings High Expectations, Mixed Results

Abhi Goyal October 17, 2017
Kyrgyz citizens voted in the first competitive elections for a peaceful transfer of power in Central Asia since 1991 and the end of the Soviet Union. Sooronbai Jeenbekov, with the incumbent Social Democratic Party of Kyrgyzstan and who had served as prime minister, won the presidency with more than 50 percent of the vote. “Kyrgyz voters are well aware of the gravity of the event—their recent...

The New York Times: Iraqi Forces Sweep Into Kirkuk, Checking Kurdish Independence Drive

David Zucchino October 17, 2017
The Kurds voted overwhelmingly in a referendum for independence from Iraq. Three weeks later the government of Iraq responded by sending the military to the oil-rich region. “In clashes that pit two crucial American allies against each other, government troops seized the vital city of Kirkuk and surrounding oil fields, ousting the Kurdish forces who had controlled the region for three years in...