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Geopolitics OneShot Society

Photo Of The Week: This Happened In Minneapolis

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/embed/lec-AslZYvo expand=1] A local murder case that set off a worldwide movement arrived this week at its verdict, after three weeks of witness and expert testimonies: A Minneapolis jury found former police officer Derek Chauvin guilty of murder and manslaughter in the death of George Floyd. A bystander’s video had captured Chauvin kneeling on […]

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In The News

The Case For Letting Algorithms Run The Vaccine Rollouts

Belgium’s vaccination campaign is a prime example, computer scientist Hugues Bersini argues, of how technology can not only improve efficiency, but also, in some cases, make things more fair.

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In The News

Happy Birthday, COVID: The Moments Missed We’ll Never Get Back

When I blew the candles on my 29th birthday cake, on March 27th 2020, it was only 10 days after the first lockdown had begun in France. Still, I felt lucky. I remember telling myself that, even though the day included no friends, at least in 2021 for the much more momentous passage into la […]

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In The News

Photo Of The Week: This Happened In Brazil

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/embed/SvrqUfd_El8 expand=1] One year into the coronavirus pandemic, Brazil registered its deadliest month in March. In the 31 days that have just passed, 66,573 people were killed by COVID-19, more than double the previous monthly high. The explosion of cases is largely blamed on the local virus variant, believed to be more contagious, having […]

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Weird

Turkmenistan Leader Pens Song To Celebrate Birth Of A Horse

What’s the deal with strongmen and their horses? Whether its Kim Jong-un galloping through the snow or shirtless Vladimir Putin on horseback mountain or Nicolas Maduro striking an el vaquero pose on the ranch, power-hungry world leaders tend to have an equestrian thing going on. Turkmenistan President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, however, is taking it to another […]

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Geopolitics Ideas

Risk Lessons, From A Grounded Ship In Suez To A Global Pandemic

A pandemic and a maritime accident teach us the same lessons: humility, fragility and ultimately human ingenuity. Risk is impossible to predict, except that we know it always exists.

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Geopolitics Ideas

Exclusive: The Secret Global Data Cell Infiltrating Jihadists

We knew the name: Operation Gallant Phoenix. But now Le Monde has exclusive access to details of the U.S.-led, Jordan-based effort to use digital tools to track, capture and convict some of the most dangerous perpetrators of Islamist terror around the wor

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Geopolitics Ideas

A Year For COVID: Why Our Political Leaders Were Bound To Fail

Up against a microscopic virus, the world’s leaders have failed myriad different ways to do what was necessary to beat the pandemic. Was another fate possible?

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Geopolitics Ideas Syria Crisis

On The West’s Betrayal Of Syria, History Will Not Be Kind

Ten years after the popular Syrian uprising against the Assad regime, we see the wider impact of both the moral and a strategic error committed by Western democracies to not intervene.

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Geopolitics OneShot

Fukushima Disaster A Decade Later: This Happened, March 11

One of the most striking photographs of the destruction caused by the tsunami that struck Japan and set off the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl.

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Geopolitics Ideas

COVID-19 Exposes Just How Weak The European Union Really Is

Delays in vaccination, bureaucracy and a lack of solidarity between member states are putting new strains on the already fragile Union.

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Geopolitics OneShot

Photo of the Week: This Happened In Myanmar

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/embed/T4ZOY2_Frso expand=1] On February 1, Myanmar’s military seized power and declared a year-long state of emergency, with commander in chief Min Aung Hlaing taking charge. The coup d’etat follows the national election victory of the party of leader Aung San Suu Kyi, which the armed forces refused to recognize. Suu Kyi and her party […]

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In The News

Man Found Alive 20 Days After His Funeral

An elderly COVID-19 victim, presumed to have been dead (and buried) for 20 days, has been located alive in the same Portuguese hospital where he was being treated. The 92-year-old, who had been hospitalized for about two months due to respiratory problems, was infected with COVID-19 while in the hospital the Jornal de Noticias reported […]

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Future Smarter Cities

Smart Cities Won’t Save The Planet: We Need Low-Tech Cities

The concept of smart cities is a kind of received wisdom among planners and technologists, but our digital world of today is not sustainable.

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Eyes on the U.S. Geopolitics

Bonjour President Biden: 26 Front Pages From Around The World

“Hope,” “unity,” “a new era,” “democracy,”… Newspapers around the world reacted to the inauguration of the 46th President of the United States Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, who were sworn Wednesday in Washington D.C. Biden pledged to make the pandemic his first priority and build his presidency on a commitment to unity following […]

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Eyes on the U.S. Geopolitics

The Donald Trump Presidency In 29 Magazine Covers

After four years in office and two months of denying his defeat to Joe Biden, U.S. President Donald Trump bids farewell this week to the White House. Whether this also means a final exit from the world stage remains to be seen — and one way to judge will be whether this is the last […]

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Economy Geopolitics

Post-Brexit, Tech And Trucks Make Port Of Calais ‘Smarter’

The customs border between the UK and the EU is back, with new rules and regulations, an influx of hastily trained agents, and a technology overhaul.

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In The News

Regional Immunity? Why Asia Has Avoided The Worst Of COVID-19

East Asia is home to 30% of the world’s population but has recorded only 2.4% of the COVID-19 global death toll. Scientists are looking at possible immunity from past epidemics or even genetics.

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Geopolitics Ideas

Rights v. Security: Europe’s Inner Battle Against Terrorism

The Schengen Area is not a “sieve” that lets migrants in but, as recent events have shown, it is not a fortress either. The fundamental rights of individuals will always prevail over security requirements.

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Geopolitics Ideas

Press Freedom, Another 2020 Victim We Must Not Forget

In addition to coronavirus-related deaths, the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) recorded 42 murders of journalists and media workers since the beginning of 2020 in targeted attacks, bombings and shootings.

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Geopolitics OneShot

Photo Of The Week: This Happened In Kent

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/embed/RljMJ8QE8dQ expand=1] News broke last weekend of a new, extra contagious strain of the coronavirus rapidly spreading in the UK, prompting several countries to suspend travel from the country. After France deciding to shut its UK border for 48 hours, thousands of trucks were unable to pass through from the Port of Dover via […]

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Geopolitics

Boris Johnson And The Collapse Of Chaos-As-Leadership

As the sudden arrival of harsh new lockdown restrictions and the closing of borders in European countries coincides with down-to-the-wire Brexit talks, BoJo is facing an all-time low in public confidence.

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In The News

Pride, Shame And VIPs: Convincing The Public To Get Vaccinated

PARIS — A threshold has been crossed this week as the first vaccinations have been administered, in the UK and Russia, with announcements of others to follow in additional countries in the coming days and weeks. It all sets the stage for the biggest vaccination campaign in world history. But even if the obvious logistical […]

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In The News

COVID Death Toll At 1.5 Million: A World United By Those We Lost

The COVID-19 pandemic has reached every corner of the planet, and we remember those we lost from more than 20 different countries.

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In The News

The Second Wave And Risks Of Rising Suicide Rates

PARIS — After first reckoning with the physical toll of COVID-19, the world also began to register the risk of rising rates of depression and isolation as the first wave of the virus forced hundreds of millions of people to stay confined at home for months at a time last spring. But now the second […]

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In The News

A Trip To Nowhere? Twisted Travel Plans For Our Pandemic Times

-Essay- COVID-19’s economic impact on travel is matched only by the existential impact on the modern traveler. In a sign of the desperation of both, several airlines and cruise ship companies have been offering trips to… nowhere. In Australia, Japan and Taiwan, passengers can book a flight that takes off and lands at the same […]

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Geopolitics Ideas U.S. Election 2020 - Views From Abroad

‘All Leaders Lie’ – Trump Takes A Truism To Its Logical Extreme

A leader can, in good conscience, conceal dysfunctions, hide problems or mitigate difficulties. Telling white lies allows him to restore hope for his allies, and rekindle their desire to act. But what happens when it is the very definition of self-serving

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In The News

When World Leaders Get Sick: Health, Lies And Videotape

The uncertainty around President Trump’s condition since contracting COVID-19 is part of a pattern when powerful politicians fall ill.

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Geopolitics U.S. Election 2020 - Views From Abroad

Headlines And #Karma, World Reacts To Trump COVID Diagnosis

The news that Donald Trump has been infected with COVID-19 echoed around the world, making front pages and prompting a gush of wishes from leaders in all continents — and snark from many corners. In the night between Oct. 1 and 2, U.S. Eastern Time, the U.S. president confirmed on Twitter that he and his […]

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Geopolitics

RBGs Of The World: 6 Women Who Pushed Progress Through The Law

From Rosa Parks and Malala Yousafzai to Golda Meir and Corazon Aquino, women activists and political leaders have led the fight for gender equality and human rights around the world over the past century. But as the tributes keep pouring in for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died on Sept. 18 at […]

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In The News

Beyond Science, The COVID-19 Vaccine Is A Question Of Trust

The halting of AstraZeneca’s vaccine trial is not only a reminder of the challenge of finding a cure, but will feed growing public mistrust of states and scientists.

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In The News

How COVID-19 Has Changed Payments — And Could Kill Cash

The coronavirus outbreak has changed our relationship with work, health and… cash. The fear of contamination while handling coins and banknotes has accelerated a trend that had already been growing for years: contactless payments. Both consumers and businesses that may have been previously reluctant to go digital are changing their preferred payment methods. Does this […]

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Food / Travel Rue Amelot Society

When A Telework Veteran Takes Remote To Another Dimension

I’ve worked from home long before the coronavirus outbreak forced the rest of the world to go remote. When I used to talk about my job as a freelance writer and video editor — and the fact that virtually all my working hours were spent alone in my apartment, on my computer — my friends […]

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In The News

The Latest: Taliban Advance, Iran’s New President Speaks, Biles Bounces Back

Welcome to Tuesday, where the Taliban have launched an attack on a strategic city in southern Afghanistan, Iran’s new leader vows to fight U.S. sanctions and a world record is shattered in Tokyo. In Switzerland, there’s also an odd story of a man fond of his fondue fork for criminal purposes. • Taliban attack key […]

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In The News

The Latest: Worst Outbreak Since Wuhan, Out-Of-Control ISS, Rickroll Record

Welcome to Friday, where China sees its largest COVID-19 outbreak since Wuhan, the International Space Station is (briefly) thrown out of control, and a meme-related 80s hit passes the 1-billion-views mark. Meanwhile, pan-African weekly news magazine Jeune Afrique looks at the hurdles in the way of vaccination across the continent. • Hong Kong conviction, crowd […]

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In The News

The Latest: HK Security Law Trial, Last Miami Building Victim, Tesla Record

Welcome to Tuesday, where the first person charged under Hong Kong’s national security law is found guilty, the final victim of the Miami building collapse is identified, and Tesla reports skyrocketing profits. Meanwhile, The Conversation offers a deep dive into the Australia vs. UNESCO spat over the decision to list the Great Barrier Reef as […]

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Geopolitics

The Latest: Tunisia PM Sacked, U.S.-China Tense Talks, Skateboard Gold

Welcome to Monday, where Tunisia’s prime minister is sacked over handling of pandemic, U.S.-China talks are off to a rocky start and a 13-year-old skateboarder wins the first Olympic gold medal. German daily Die Welt also looks at the geopolitics behind the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline deal between Russia and Germany. • Tunisia PM […]

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In The News

The Latest: Olympics Kick Off, Xi’s Tibet Trip, Spanish Beef

Welcome to Friday, where the 2020 Olympic Games finally kick off, Xi Jinping makes a historic trip to Tibet, and there’s some beef (or rather, chuletón) between Spain and the EU. We also take an exclusive look at how the so-called “salvage grocery stores’ popping up around the world are finding commercially viable ways to […]

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In The News

The Latest: Peru’s New President, Broken Olympics Bubble, Steamrolled Bitcoin

Welcome to Tuesday, where Peru’s contested election finally gets a winner, the Olympics bubble system is broken and another billionaire is blasting off for space. German daily Die Welt also explains why Asian countries, which were previously considered successful COVID tamers, are now struggling with new waves of infections. • Pedro Castillo declared winner of […]

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Geopolitics

The Latest: Spyware Revelation, Seoul v. Tokyo, Spike Lee Stumbles

Welcome to Monday, where an international probe reveals spyware has been used to target thousands of journalists and activists around the world, South Korea’s president is protesting the Olympics after a diplomatic spat and a Slovenian cyclist wins the Tour de France for the second time in a row. The Initium also looks at how […]

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