When the world gets closer.

We help you see farther.

Sign up to our expressly international daily newsletter.

TOPIC: society

Future

White House To The World, Artificial Intelligence Is A Political Thing

Amid the summit hosted at the White House, and warning from AI experts, the world can't simply leave the machines to their own devices.

-Analysis-

PARIS — It was a White House summit with significance on two very different levels. Vice President Kamala Harris gathered the major U.S. players in Artificial Intelligence, including Open AI, the company that developed the now infamous chatbot ChatGPT.

The meeting was interesting for having highlighted the role of the vice president, who has been given the task of leading policy on future technologies, just a few days after President Joe Biden launched his campaign for a second term, at the age of 80.

Indeed, Harris' role is all the more essential due to the president's advanced age; she automatically takes his place if he is incapacitated. And as the Democratic vice president has so far not “made an impression” over the past two years, she is being put forward on this topic. And what a topic it is...

Watch VideoShow less

Are Humans Inherently Evil? History Says No

People's deplorable actions ultimately have more to do with socially induced fears and mistrust than some inherent evil. Fiction and tradition tells us humans are fundamentally wicked, but history says otherwise.

-Essay-

BUENOS AIRES — In June 1965, six boys from St. Andrew's College, an Anglican boarding school in the South Pacific island of Tonga, stole a boat, filled it with snacks and set out to sea in search of adventures.

They wanted to reach Fiji, although none had even considered bringing a compass. The oldest was barely 15 years old. The boys fell asleep and woke up in a storm.

After spending eight days adrift, they spotted a rocky isle, with no idea where they were. It wasn't even an isle, so much as an islet, just a bit of rock. They landed and lit a fire, working to keep it alive until rescued, just like the boys in William Golding's novel Lord of the Flies. In that novel, as we know, the castaways abandon their civilized ways and turn on each other, causing three deaths.

Keep reading...Show less

Ankara Or Abroad? A Turkish Exile's Dilemma As Elections Loom

Turkey holds key elections next month. Many who were exiled over the years have returned with optimism, only to be jailed. Turkish journalist Ece Temelkuran says from now on, she will only go back on her own terms.

-Analysis-

“Turkey doesn’t allow its children to be occupied with anything other than itself.” This is the damning indictment written in the diary of Turkish poet and novelist Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar. The sentence is well known in Turkey, but is due an update. Maybe it can be: “Turkey leaves its children nothing to do but to hold their breath” instead. Nothing but to helplessly wait… for another election, referendum, news bulletin, last minute update or breaking news update.

We Turks live our lives assuming our motherland and father-state will slap us unexpectedly one day. And we wait for that day to come — maybe tomorrow, maybe even sooner.

Keep reading...Show less

Colombia Pushes Coca Farmers Into Legal Crops — But It's No Clean Fix

Convincing coca farmers to plant legal crops is better than spraying poisonous pesticides to wipe out the plants. And yet it turns out these crop substitution programs are problematic, disrupting livelihoods and unintentionally causing violence and deforestation.

-Analysis-

BOGOTÁ — Since cocaine was made illegal, various strategies have been implemented to control its supply. One such strategy involves the development of substitute crops for farmers and rural territories that cultivate the coca plant, who essentially rely on an illegal economy. This approach represents a significant improvement over established drug eradication policies.

Firstly, the policy understands that coca growers often choose the crop because of financial pressures and a lack of opportunities in the legal market. The policy also emphasizes protecting the human rights of people in areas with coca farming. While the development of substitute crops is far from perfect, it is a more efficient and cost-effective way to reduce coca cultivation, compared to trying to eradicate it entirely.

Academics María Alejandra Vélez and Estefanía Ciro, among others, point to a major problem: the policy is still based on the idea of eliminating coca cultivation. While seeking in theory to resolve the structural factors that push people into the coca economy, it has yet to be proved as an effective method of curbing cultivation.

Keep reading...Show less
Ideas

Beirut Blast And Us: A New Generation Of The Lebanese Diaspora Finds Its Voice

Lebanese citizens spread around the world have gradually gotten connected in new ways, thanks to the internet and social media. But the author recalls how the massive explosion in the port of Beirut triggered something altogether different.

-Essay-

PARIS — In a Paris emptied by the pandemic’s first summer, I was in the Jardin du Luxembourg when the images of the Beirut explosion started showing up in my Instagram feed.

There was a huge detonation, then an even bigger blast, followed by a massive mushroom cloud — red, white, and orange.

The posts showing images of the wounded and damage in the streets soon followed. It was quickly clear that people had been killed and the magnitude of the blast had destroyed buildings around the city.

We’d find out later that the explosions — which were first triggered on August, 4th, 2020, in 6:07 p.m. local time, — detonated 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate that had been stored at the Port of Beirut. That’s equal to 1.1 kilotons of TNT, and the explosions shook virtually every corner of the country of 6 million people and were heard more than 240 kilometers (150 miles) away on the island of Cyprus.

It is considered the most powerful non-nuclear explosion in history.

Watch VideoShow less
Ideas
Gaspard Koenig

Ratatouille Was A Documentary: A French Philosopher Dives Into The Paris Garbage Crisis

The ongoing strike of garbage collectors in France shows us why we try so hard to hide how much garbage we throw out. As trash piles up in the streets, philosopher Gaspard Koenig reminds us that it wouldn't be so hard to recycle and compost more of it.

-Essay-

PARIS — The strike of garbage collectors can be felt in many cities across France, but it is particularly impressive in the capital, Paris. After just one week, the streets have been invaded by mountains of trash, already estimated at more than 5,000 tonnes.

On some sidewalks, barricades of trash in torn-open bags have piled up above head height. In narrow alleys, the smell is unbearable. Rats are already enjoying an unexpected feast. As we know from Albert Camus’ The Plague, this is not a good sign.

Watch VideoShow less
Society
*Reza Saidi-Firouzabadi

Iran, How A Clerical Regime Has Undermined Religion Itself

One of the chief victims of radical clerical rule in Iran has been religion, historically a bulwark of Iranian society now seen as a tool of tyranny.

-OpEd-

The installation of a theocratic regime in Iran in 1979 upended the lives of Iranians, as the self-styled Islamic Republic sought, in the name of religion, to interfere with social customs and personal habits.

This republic has a particular reading of religion tied to its theory of unquestioned rule by a Shia jurisprudent (Velayat-e mutlaqe-ye faqih). The regime insists the Islamic religion has planned and regulated all aspects of daily and social life, which requires a government to enforce those rules.

Even religion must be governed, in contrast with the secular order preceding the revolution, where it was kept separate from public affairs.

Watch VideoShow less
Society
Ashutosh Singh

Menstruation Must Be Talked About And Treated — Like Any Other Health Issue

In India, questions related to menstrual health are largely taboo, and routinely ignored by authorities. Elsewhere in the world, there is some progress on the issue, though much more is needed.

-Analysis-

NEW DELHI — There have been some significant developments around menstruation across the globe recently. Spain became the first European country to approve ‘paid menstrual leave’ for workers in case of severe period pain. Other countries like Japan, Indonesia, South Korea, Taiwan, Vietnam, Zambia and the Soviet Union introduced similar laws many years ago.

The Soviet Union introduced a national policy in 1922, Japan in 1947 and Indonesia in 1948. Scotland was the first in the world to make period products available to all who need them at relatively accessible places. A considerable milestone was achieved when the first-panel discussion on menstrual health was conducted at the 50th session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva in June 2022.

Menstrual leave in India is not a Martian concept. A school in Kerala has been granting its students period leaves since 1912. Bihar has been providing two days of special menstrual paid leave to women in the workforce since 1992. Kerala approved menstrual leave for female university students in January 2023.

Watch VideoShow less
Society
Nakisanze Segawa

The HIV-Positive Ugandans Putting Anti-AIDS Campaign At Risk

“Elite controllers” are those who have HIV but show no symptoms. They’re proving a roadblock to the country’s otherwise promising anti-infection campaign.

LWENGO, UGANDA — Ahmed was certain the test result was wrong. It was 2003, and he and his five months-pregnant wife were at a health facility where she was getting a checkup. As staff did for all expectant parents, a worker prodded them to get tested for HIV. Ahmed’s wife tested negative. He did not. “I thought it was impossible, that my results must have been mistakenly switched with another person’s,” he says. That week, he took two more tests. Both confirmed he was infected with the virus that causes AIDS.

Health workers and Ahmed’s four wives begged him to start antiretroviral therapy, a cocktail of medications that prevents the virus from multiplying and reduces a person’s likelihood of spreading HIV and developing AIDS. At the time, Ahmed was in his early 40s; to his family, forgoing treatment seemed like courting a premature death. But he didn’t feel sick — no fever, chills or other symptoms — so he refused. Accepting treatment would have meant accepting a diagnosis he didn’t entirely believe, and the stigma that came with it.

Ahmed lives in Lwengo, a town about 165 kilometers (102 miles) southwest of Kampala, the capital. Amid a sweep of banana, cassava and coffee fields, small, white-roofed houses, and tarmacked roads, HIV is something to hide lest neighbors shun or mock a person as a “walking dead.” (That’s why Ahmed asked to be identified only by his first name.)

Watch VideoShow less
Society
Ian T. Adams and Seth W. Stoughton

Tyre Nichols And The Systemic Problem Of Elite Police Units — A Brief History

The officers charged in the fatal beating of Tyre Nichols were not your everyday uniformed patrol officers.

Rather, they were part of an elite squad: Memphis Police Department’s SCORPION team. A rather tortured acronym for “Street Crimes Operation to Restore Peace in Our Neighborhoods,” SCORPION is a crime suppression unit – that is, officers detailed specifically to prevent, detect and interrupt violent crime by proactively using stops, frisks, searches and arrests. Such specialized units are common in forces across the U.S. and tend to rely on aggressive policing tactics.

Watch VideoShow less
Society
Ignacio Pereyra*

Parenthood And The Pressure Of Always Having To Be Doing Better

As a father myself, I'm now better able to understand the pressures my own dad faced. It's helped me face my own internal demands to constantly be more productive and do better.

-Essay-

When I was a child — I must have been around eight or so — whenever we headed with my mom and grandma to my aunt's country house in Don Torcuato, outside of Buenos Aires, there was the joy of summer plans. Spending the day outdoors, playing soccer in the field, being in the swimming pool and eating delicious food.

But when I focus on the moment, something like a painful thorn appears in the background: from the back window of the car I see my dad standing on the sidewalk waving us goodbye. Sometimes he would stay at home. “I have to work” was the line he used.

Maybe one of my older siblings would also stay behind with him, but I'm sure there were no children left around because we were all enthusiastic about going to my aunt’s. For a long time in his life, for my old man, those summer days must have been the closest he came to being alone, in silence (which he liked so much) and in calm, considering that he was the father of seven. But I can only see this and say it out loud today.

Over the years, the scene repeated itself: the destination changed — it could be a birthday or a family reunion. The thorn was no longer invisible but began to be uncomfortable as, being older, my interpretation of the events changed. When words were absent, I started to guess what might be happening — and we know how random guessing can be.

Watch VideoShow less
Dottoré!
Mariateresa Fichele

Freedom Or Insanity? In The Eye Of The Beholder

Two patients walk with our Naples-based psychiatrist on that fine line between freedom and insanity.

"Dottoré, you are free, you know no limits!"

That is what two patients told me, as we were having breakfast together at a café.

Watch VideoShow less