Category Archives: Politics

The New York Times Magazine – Oct 29, 2023

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THE NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE (October 29, 2023): The latest issue features The Scientists Watching Their Life’s Work Disappear; Can We Save the #Redwoods by Helping Them Move?; ‘It’s Like Our Country Exploded’: #Canada’s Year of #Fire and #ClimateChange Is Keeping Therapists Up at Night….

The Scientists Watching Their Life’s Work Disappear

All the photographs in this article are black-and-white. David Obura holds finger coral.

Some are stubborn optimists. Others struggle with despair. Their faces show the weight they carry as they witness the impact of climate change.

Interviews by Catrin Einhorn

Amid the chaos of climate change, humans tend to focus on humans. But Earth is home to countless other species, including animals, plants and fungi. For centuries, we have been making it harder for them to exist by cutting down forests, plowing grasslands, building roads, damming rivers, draining wetlands and polluting. Now that wildlife is depleted and hemmed in, climate change has come crashing down. In 2016, scientists in Australia announced the loss of a rodent called the Bramble Cay melomys, one of the first known species driven to global extinction by climate change. Others are all but certain to follow. How many depends on how much we let the planet heat.

Can We Save the Redwoods by Helping Them Move?

Redwoods with foliage in a violet specturm. All of the photographs in this article have special color treatment to highlight the foliage.

The largest trees on the planet can’t easily ‘migrate’ — but in a warming world, some humans are helping them try to find new homes.

By Moises Velasquez-Manoff

When Philip Stielstra retired from Boeing in 2012, he needed something purposeful to do. He and his wife, Gay, were casual golfers, but Stielstra, an antiwar activist in college who refused to fight in Vietnam — he worked in a post office instead — wanted a pastime with bigger stakes. Before leaving his job, he received an email from the city of Seattle: The Parks and Recreation Department needed “tree ambassadors.” Tree canopy cover had receded in the city, and the department was responding by promoting an appreciation for its remaining trees. The volunteer ambassadors would learn about these trees and lead residents on walking tours to marvel at them. Stielstra, despite being a self-described introvert, signed up.

News: E.U. Urges Pause In Israel-Hamas War, China Foreign Minister Visits US

The Globalist Podcast (October 27, 2023) – Can Europe’s leaders find common ground on the Israel-Gaza conflict?  We discuss the European Union’s fractured approach to the Israel-Gaza conflict. Will the bloc’s leaders come to an agreement on their stance?

Plus: Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi’s visit to Washington and highlights from the Japan Mobility Show in Tokyo.

Previews: The Economist Magazine – Oct 28, 2023

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The Economist Magazine (October 28, 2023): The latest issue features America’s Test – How will it manage the Israel-Hamas war?; Argentina’s troubling election result; Should governments be ‘policing’ AI? and the ‘Art Rivalry’ between Paris and London….

American power: indispensable or ineffective?

How Joe Biden manages the war between Israel and Hamas will define America’s global role

Argentina’s election result is the worst of all possible outcomes

Sergio Massa, the economy minister, will now go head-to-head with Javier Milei

Governments must not rush into policing AI

A summit in Britain will focus on “extreme” risks. But no one knows what they look like


News: Israel-Hamas War Effects On Its Neighbors, Russia Exploits Tensions

The Globalist Podcast (October 26, 2023) – Neighbouring countries respond to the Israel-Gaza conflict and how Russia is capitalising on the situation. We also have a look through the morning’s papers and hear from president and CEO of Arctic360, Jessica Shadian.

Plus: China’s youngest-ever space crew and the latest in television news

Politics: The Guardian Weekly – October 27, 2023

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The Guardian Weekly (October 27, 2023) – The new issue features International security corespondent Jason Burke traceing the possible route to a wider war or, in the other direction, to at least a pause in hostilities.

Elsewhere, Ruth Michaelson and Julian Borger hear from terrified Gazans who have been pushed south, while Emma Graham-Harrison, Julian and Ruth consider the likely consequences of a “victorious” Israeli ground offensive.

There’s also a report on rising antisemitism against Jewish people across Europe since the 7 October Hamas terror attack on Israel and the subsequent Israeli bombardment of Gaza. And in the Opinion section, Jonathan Freedland and Nesrine Malik offer powerful perspectives on the conflict.

With much attention ranged on the Middle East, the war in Ukraine has fallen a little from the spotlight. Pjotr Sauer reports from Belgrade, where some young Serbs have been signing up to fight for Russia despite the risk of prosecution at home.

Tributes were paid this week after the death of Sir Bobby Charlton, the former Manchester United and England footballing legend. The Observer’s former football correspondent Paul Wilson remembers a player who became virtually synonymous with the English game.

News: U.S. Concerns Over Israel Objectives, Macron Visits Jordan And Egypt

The Globalist Podcast (October 25, 2023) – We discuss the relationship between the US and Israel, French president Emmanuel Macron’s proposition for an anti-Islamic State coalition and Germany’s newest political party.

Plus: China’s bizarre propaganda TV series ‘When Marx Met Confucius’.

News: Arming Of Israel’s Citizens, María Machado’s Rise In Venezuela Politics

The Globalist Podcast (October 24, 2023) – The latest from the Middle East and why Israel is arming its civilians, the so-called ‘Venezuelan Margaret Thatcher’ Maria Corina Machado storming the opposition primaries and the fallout of Australia’s Indigenous Voice referendum.

Plus: Why a French auction of the former Senegalese president’s possessions has been suspended and an arts-news round-up.

Opinion: Only America Can Save Israel, Elections In Poland, Surge In Bedbugs

‘Editor’s Picks’ Podcast (October 23, 2023) A selection of three essential articles read aloud from the latest issue of The Economist. This week, why only America can save Israel and Gaza from a greater catastrophe. Also, the recent election in Poland offers a lesson in how to push back on populism (10:30) and the resurgence of bedbugs, beyond the hype (16:00).

Previews: The New Yorker Magazine – Oct 30, 2023

Mark Ulriksens “Spooky Spiral”

The New Yorker – October 30, 2023 issue: The new issues cover features Mark Ulriksen’s “Spooky Spiral” – The artist discusses monsters, Halloween mishaps, and the frenzy surrounding the holiday.

China’s Age of Malaise

A giant statue crushing a Chinese city.
Few citizens believe that China will reach the heights they once expected. “The word I use is ‘grieving,’ ” one entrepreneur said.Illustration by Xinmei Liu

Party officials are vanishing, young workers are “lying flat,” and entrepreneurs are fleeing the country. What does China’s inner turmoil mean for the world?

By Evan Osnos

Twenty-five years ago, China’s writer of the moment was a man named Wang Xiaobo. Wang had endured the Cultural Revolution, but unlike most of his peers, who turned the experience into earnest tales of trauma, he was an ironist, in the vein of Kurt Vonnegut, with a piercing eye for the intrusion of politics into private life. In his novella “Golden Age,” two young lovers confess to the bourgeois crime of extramarital sex—“We committed epic friendship in the mountain, breathing wet steamy breath.” They are summoned to account for their failure of revolutionary propriety, but the local apparatchiks prove to be less interested in Marx than in the prurient details of their “epic friendship.”

Plundering the Planet’s Resources

Earth going through a funnel with oil dripping down.

Our accelerating rates of extraction come with immense ecological and social consequences.

By Elizabeth Kolbert

The town of Spruce Pine, North Carolina, doesn’t have a lot to say for itself. Its Web site, which features a photo of a flowering tree next to a rusty bridge, notes that the town is “conveniently located between Asheville and Boone.” According to the latest census data, it has 2,332 residents and a population density of 498.1 per square mile. A recent story in the local newspaper concerned the closing of the Hardee’s on Highway 19E; this followed an incident, back in May, when a fourteen-year-old boy who’d eaten a biscuit at the restaurant began to hallucinate and had to be taken to the hospital. Without Spruce Pine, though, the global economy might well unravel.

News: Israel Ramps Up Gaza Attacks, US – South Korea- Japan Joint Military Drills

The Globalist Podcast (October 23, 2023) – The latest from Israel, unprecedented joint drills between South Korea, the US and Japan, and the Swiss election results. Plus: we hear from our Monocle team in the Arctic Circle and the Vienna Contemporary’s new artistic director.