Theodore Kury, Director of Energy Studies at the University of Florida, sees value in thinking of social media as the pipeline that carries a new kind of utility: information. He makes the case for regulating companies like Twitter accordingly.
Month: December 2022
While Russia again launched a major missile and drone attack Friday, there are growing signs that Vladimir Putin is planning a major ground operation against the capital Kyiv in early 2023. It’s becoming increasingly clear that the path to Moscow victory would be through massive Russian troop casualties.
In an unusual challenge to Iran’s senior leaders from Shia clerics in the country, a group of theologians and jurists in Qom say the state has been incompetent and had no right to execute protesters. At least two Iranian demonstrators have been executed this month, with the latest publicly hanged on a crane.
Commonly known as the Nirbhaya case, in Munirka, a neighborhood in South West Delhi, Jyoti Singh, a 22-year-old physiotherapy intern, was beaten, gang-raped, and tortured in a private bus while traveling with a friend. Sign up to receive This Happened straight to your inbox each day! What happened after the New Delhi attack? There were […]
With the price of meat on the rise, Brazilians have turned to eggs. The country is now producing 55 billion eggs a year, presenting challenges for farmers and raising questions of animal welfare. And in Brazil’s “Egg Capital”, the climate crisis is complicating matters further.
Categories
No Kindness Under The Christmas Tree
T’is the season for depression …
Welcome to Worldcrunch’s LGBTQ+ International. We bring you up-to-speed each week on a topic you may follow closely at home, but can now see from different places and perspectives around the world. Discover the latest news on everything LGBTQ+ — from all corners of the planet. All in one smooth scroll! This week featuring: TW: […]
Few see reason right now for holiday optimism, though Christmas ceasefires have happened multiple times since the conflict in Donbas started in 2014. A new call by religious leaders has raised hope for at least a pause in the fighting.
The world of work is at a crossroads. A new French study published last week shows that in the span of four years, jobs offering remote work have increased tenfold since 2017, as the world grapples with the long-term impact of COVID-19. The profound questioning of the necessity to “go to the office” that the […]
-Analysis- Some 100 of the most important political eyes in Africa aren’t turned towards the U.S. this week — they’re in the U.S. For the first time in eight years, the White House is hosting 49 African heads of state and leaders of government (and the Senegalese head of the African Union) for a U.S.-Africa […]
The impeachment and arrest of Peru’s Leftist president can be taken as perhaps a conclusive signal to the region that populism — from the Left and Right — may have run out of gas.
More than a decade ago, with the economy growing and political capital committed to public research and development, Brazil was the poster child for investing in the future. It was all bound to drop out quickly once the winds changed.
More and more French wine growers are interested in the mechanics of growing grapes and producing wine in the world’s most arid regions—like Israel. Climate change is pushing the wine world to imagining all possibilities, including the most extreme.
Poland’s legislature is in the process of passing new “blasphemy” restrictions that would impose jail sentences for denigrating the Catholic Church, Warsaw-based daily Gazeta Wyborcza reported Monday. Parliament’s lower house has approved an amendment that—if passed into law—would impose “a fine, a penalty of restriction of liberty, or imprisonment up to two years,” on anyone […]
Keeping out the poor from one country to another, or even within a country, is not a new idea, though former U.S. President Donald Trump seems to have set off a new wave across the region, and the world.
Volodymyr Vakulenko was a Ukrainian writer killed by the Russians during the invasion. He left behind a diary that is intensely personal, yet encompasses much of the tragedy of his nation.
Hong Kong only decriminalized homosexuality in 1991, but there had long been an underground LGBTQ+ culture, including male sex workers. They have learned to survive in difficult conditions, but their experiences are far from how they’re portrayed in films.
December 10-11 OUR WEEKLY NEWS QUIZ What do you remember from the news this week? 1. Twenty-five people were arrested Wednesday on suspicion of plotting to overthrow what country’s government? 2. Why was Peru’s ousted president detained by the police in Lima after his impeachment? 3. Indonesia’s new criminal code included what surprising ban […]
The World Cup in Qatar has been political on many fronts. Right now, with the event in an Arab country for the first time and Morocco as the first Arab team to make the quarterfinals, the Palestinian question is now very much on the agenda.
There’s been no shortage of boasting in Russia after the return of arms dealer Viktor Bout, in exchange for U.S. basketball player Brittney Griner. But even if Vladimir Putin showed his negotiating muscle, it’s a pyrrhic victory as too many other compatriots haven’t made it home alive..
By executing a protester after a rapid trial, Iran’s clerical regime has taken its clampdown on the once-in-a-generation uprising to a new level. Observers fear there are more to come soon.
The public sector has seen a revival in response to COVID-19. This can be a good thing, but must be checked carefully because history tells us of the risks of too much control in the government’s hands.
A Ukrainian journalist considers the controversy over the shutting down of exiled, independent Russian television station TV Dozhd. Can Russians be opposed to Putin’s war and yet support the troops?
Olaf Scholz took over for Angela Merkel a year ago, but for many he remains a mysterious figure through a series of tumultuous events, including his wavering on the war in Ukraine.
Iranian authorities have begun prosecuting multiple demonstrators arrested at recent mass protests, accusing them of the gravest crimes that are punishable by the death penalty. Authorities said a man arrested at a Tehran protest in October was hanged Thursday.
This is the Argentine author’s fourth world cup abroad, but his first as the father of two young boys.
Russian occupation authorities promised to rebuild housing in Mariupol by winter, but in reality, thousands of people face the cold in largely destroyed houses and apartments. Mariupol residents told Vazhnyye Istorii about how they are surviving as winter falls.
As they’ve done for the past year, Ukrainians have spent the past three days studying maps and calculating distances. But there’s a difference now: The maps are of Russia. [shortcode-Subscribe-to-Ukraine-daily-box] The unprecedented drone attacks this week of airfields deep inside Russian territory open a new phase in the war that is both tactical and symbolic. […]
How to handle a nuclear armed pariah state is not a simple question.
Nearly a century since the post-Ottoman reform of the Turkish alphabet, which replaced the Arabic letters with Latin based ones, the issues it evokes on both the personal and political level are still very much alive.
-Analysis- When the U.S. Congress passed the Biden administration’s landmark “green” spending bill in August, environmentalists around the world saw it as a very strong — and long overdue — step in the right direction on climate change. For years, the European Union’s far more stringent environmental regulations have produced a more carbon-efficient economy and […]
Russian commentators are asking if Ukrainian forces have the means and will to strike Moscow itself.
Reported declarations by some Iranian officials on revising the notorious morality police patrols and obligatory dress codes for women are suspect both in their authenticity, and ultimately not even close to addressing the demands of Iranian protesters.
Reports of Ukraine’s possible use of kamikaze drones deep inside Russian territory.
The war in Ukraine has shown how civilian drones can be effectively used as weapons. Meanwhile in Paris, with preparations on to host the Olympics in 2024, the city is testing some unlikely solutions to make sure the devices can’t be employed by terrorists.
An experiment in the Argentine capital sought to find out why some people sleep so well. Two young people stood out from the rest thanks to a certain inner tranquility and routines that get them in the snoozy mode. Next thing you know, they’re out…
In Somalia, four rainy seasons have failed to arrive, leaving the land desiccated and people starving. But drought alone is not enough to cause these numbers. A perfect storm of factors is setting the stage for a monumental human tragedy that most of the world is ignoring.
Saffron is well-known for its flavor and its expense. But in Kashmir, one of the flew places it grows, cultivation has fallen dramatically thanks for climate change, industry, and farming methods.
While many Chinese citizens are indeed fed up with the government’s Zero-COVID policy, predicting that a mass revolt is ready to overturn Communist rule is the latest sign of our deep misunderstanding of the Asian superpower. A view from Bogotá of a former Beijing correspondent.