BRENDA GOH and YILEI SUN – Regulators in China have come down hard on its biggest technology firms this year, criticizing them for policies that exploit workers and infringe on consumer rights in addition to unleashing a slew of anti-trust probes and fines.
ISABELLE GERRETSEN – Fionn Ferreira says he has encountered skepticism throughout his journey as a young inventor and hopes that inventions such as his will help change that attitude. And as his generation inherits problems created by those that came before them, the world is likely to need more imaginative solutions.
ROZ BROWN – As the Bootleg fire burns in southern Oregon, the U.S. Senate is considering an infrastructure package that environmental scientists say contains misguided provisions. The infrastructure bill would include billions in funding for the U.S. Forest Service in the name of wildfire prevention.
KATHY KELLY – The U.S. government owes reparations to the civilians of Afghanistan for the past twenty years of war and brutal impoverishment.
CENTER FOR CITIZEN INITIATIVES – CCI calls for results-oriented dialogue to rediscover the road to a world free of nuclear weapons.
ERIC TEGETHOFF – There are signs this summer could be a bad one for the native salmon of the Northwest. Already, drought has gripped the region, causing low river flows that could be hard for fish to navigate or spawn in. That’s bad news for species already teetering on extinction, especially in the Columbia River Basin.
ALEXIS BENVENISTE – Carbon emissions are a huge contributor to climate change, so companies are getting creative about finding ways to suck the heat-trapping element out of the atmosphere and slow global warming.
SARAH BETANCOURT – Massachusetts has the lowest US gun death rates, and John Rosenthal says mass shootings won’t stop without real national action.
LIAM MCCOLLUM – The Montana state legislature overwhelmingly passed a bipartisan and unprecedented resolution Tuesday calling on the federal government to end endless wars. The resolution passed 95-3 in the House and 47-2 in the Senate. The resolution specifically urges President Joe Biden and the United States Congress to “end the endless war in Afghanistan,” repeal the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force, resist sending U.S. troops into combat without a declaration of war from Congress or specific authorization to do so, and to “execute a prudent foreign policy.”
SPACE WAR – China is calling on the global community to urgently start the negotiations on the space arms control, which should be based on a document proposed by Beijing and Moscow
JANE MEYER – On a leaked conference call, leaders of dark-money groups and an aide to Mitch McConnell expressed frustration with the popularity of the legislation—even among Republican voters.
NATYLIE BALDWIN – There have been recent reports of intensified fighting near the line of contact in the Donbass area of eastern Ukraine between Kiev forces and Donbass rebels who are supported by Russia. The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) Special Monitoring Mission reported a rise in ceasefire violations at the end of the week before last from 89 to nearly 500. There are accusations back and forth of new attacks by Kiev forces on Donbass and a military buildup in Russia near the border with eastern Ukraine.
GLOBAL VOICES SOUTH EAST ASIA – February became a bloody month as the military and police violently attacked anti-coup protesters
INTERVIEW OF MYCLE SCHNEIDER – Mycle Schneider says investing in nuclear power is the wrong way to go when it comes to tackling climate change.
RIVERA SUN – If a conservative Kansas grain farmer and a potato-picking farm girl from Maine can see eye-to-eye on the climate crisis, maybe there’s hope for the rest of the country. The future of humanity depends on it.
JEANNE THEOHARIS – The way we talk about Rosa Parks covers up uncomfortable truths about American racism.
KENNY STANCIL – Peace advocates rejoiced on Thursday in the wake of President Joe Biden’s announcement that his administration will be ending U.S. support for “offensive operations” in the Saudi-led war on Yemen and appointing a diplomatic envoy to help resolve the devastating conflict that has caused an estimated 233,000 deaths. “This war has to end,” Biden said during an address at the State Department. “And to underscore our commitment, we are ending all American support for offensive operations in the war in Yemen, including relevant arm sales.”
LLOYD K. MARBET – The three pro-nuclear power bills introduced into the legislature must be opposed.
“These increases [in the minimum wage around the United States] are a testament to the power of workers coming together and fighting for what real people and families need.”KENNY STANCIL –
GREG PALAST and ZACH D. ROBERTS – With Georgia voters to decide control of the United States Senate in a special run-off on January 5, GOP officials appear to be doing all they can to make voting for African-Americans a hellacious experience.
STEPHANIE HEGARTY – In 2015, the boss of a card payments company in Seattle introduced a $70,000 minimum salary for all of his 120 staff – and personally took a pay cut of $1m. Five years later he’s still on the minimum salary, and says the gamble has paid off.
JENNIFER K. FALCON – California Governor Gavin Newsom today joined with Oregon Governor Kate Brown, leaders of the Yurok and Karuk Tribes and Berkshire Hathaway-owned PacifiCorp in announcing an agreement to provide additional resources and support to advance the most ambitious salmon restoration effort in history. The project, when completed, will address declines in fish populations, improve river health and renew Tribal communities and cultures.
JOHN LAFORGE – In a fashion reminiscent of lawless dictatorships the world over, the Trump White House has written to countries that have adopted the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons urging them to withdraw their ratifications.
BRETT VANDENHEUVEL – According to PGE, the Boardman plant, which opened in 1977, will be the youngest U.S. coal plant closed for environmental reasons. Incredible work, team!
BOB FLAX – The U.S. government has championed ICC investigations into abuses in Burma and Syria, and even recently used human rights as a cudgel against China, Iran, and North Korea. But when the investigators’ eyes turned towards America, cooperation ends.
ROBERT KOEHLER – What are we doing to ourselves? Is there life beyond plastic? I certainly have no answers, but the questions flow without stop. And they won’t break down.
TED SICKINGER – Opponents of a proposed power plantin Umatilla County say state regulators are poised to allow construction of a “road to nowhere” that would allow the plant’s backers to avoid paying millions of dollars in extra fees under a strengthened global warming standard established this spring by Gov. Kate Brown.
ANDREW BACEVICH – Free of charge, Joe, here is an action plan that will get you from Election Night through your first two weeks in office. Follow this plan and by your 100th day in the White House observers will be comparing you to at least one President Roosevelt, if not both.
KRISSY WAITE – Deutsche bank joins a list of two dozen others that will not back Arctic drilling projects.
COLIN PERKEL – In its 26 years of existence, officers with Canada’s largest Indigenous police force have never shot and killed anyone and no officer has died in the line of duty, despite a grinding lack of resources and an absence of normal accountability mechanisms.
KOLBY KICKINGWOMAN – A federal judge has ordered the Dakota Access Pipeline to shut down and remove all oil within 30 days, a huge win for Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, and the other plaintiffs.
MIKE DEBONIS – Twenty-nine of the House’s most liberal Democratic members called Tuesday for a cut in military spending in the yearly national defense authorization bill — a declaration, they said, that is meant to focus federal resources on the coronavirus pandemic.
MOVE THE NUCLEAR WEAPONS MONEY – Three former UK Royal Navy Commanders sent a letter to all UK parliamentarians on April 1 questioning the policy of maintaining a continuous at sea nuclear deterrent. The commanders note that the £2 billion a year cost of maintaining this nuclear posture and readiness for war appear to be unjustifiable, especially as the economic costs of the coronavirus pandemic are mounting
KATHY KELLY – As COVID-19 threatens to engulf war-torn Yemen, it is even more critical to raise awareness of how the war debilitates the country.
CHLOE FARAND – IEA head Fatih Birol is calling on heads of state and international financial institutions to make coronavirus recovery plans sustainable.
BERNIE SANDERS – This is a moment that we have got to be working together and going forward together. What I wanted to do is talk about a series of proposals that we are working on and that we will introduce to the Democratic leadership about how we can best go forward.
OLIVER MILNE – Anti-nuclear campaigners said that any decision to upgrade Britain’s nuclear tech should have been debated by MPs.
MOHAMMED ALI – A meeting of the leaders of Russia, China, the United States, France and the United Kingdom, the permanent members of the UN Security Council, which was proposed by Russian President Vladimir Putin, can be helpful and even necessary in light of the changing international situation.
JULIA CONLEY – A study by British and American scientists revealed that a massive sheet of ice known as the “doomsday glacier” is melting faster than experts previously believed—edging the world closer to a possible sea level rise of more than 10 feet.
PAUL ANTONOPOULOS – Last week NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg explained why the U.S. are strengthening their military presence in Europe. The reason is unsurprisingly to pressurize and intimidate Russia, but also against China and the so-called fight against terrorism. Stoltenberg explained that there are now more U.S. soldiers in EU Member States, more than ever since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. In the coming months, the Defender-Europe 2020 exercises, the largest of its kind in the last 25 years, will begin. And with this exercise, U.S. troop numbers will only increase in Europe with another 20,000 troops and officers arriving.
GAYLE SPINAZZE – Doomsday Clock Now Closer to Midnight Than Ever in Its History; Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Cite Worsening Nuclear Threat, Lack of Climate Action & Rise of “Cyber-Enabled Disinformation Campaigns” in Moving Clock Hand.
MICHAEL PECK – In another sign that the nuclear arms race is heating up, the U.S. is ramping up production of nuclear bomb cores.
ALEX LANDON – The world is, finally, awakening to the imminent threats posed by climate change and pollution, and London is starting to do its bit to help. From zero-emissions streets to pollution-eating solar panels, along with restaurants trending towards zero-waste and veganism, the capital has begun to put greener, more sustainable methods into practice. Next in the war on global warming are three new City Trees, a series of CO2-filtering structures which have just been installed in Leytonstone.
BISHOP THOMAS GUMBLETON – All Catholics should refuse to kill and should refuse cooperation with United States wars.
KATHY KELLY – What are the lessons learned from the rampage, destruction and cruelty of U.S. wars? I believe the most important lessons are summed up in the quote on Cynthia Banas’s T-shirt as she delivered water to Marines in Baghdad, in April, 2003: “War Is Not the Answer”; and in an updated version of the headline Ramzi Kysia wrote that same month: “Heavy-handed & Hopeless, The U.S. Military Doesn’t Know What It’s Doing” -in Iraq, Afghanistan or any of its “forever wars.”
ALEXANDER BOLTON – Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, on Friday introduced a resolution to block President Trump from further escalating hostilities with Iran. The resolution is privileged, which means Republicans cannot block it from reaching the floor, and comes the day after the surprise drone strike that killed Iraninan Gen. Qassem Soleimani, the leader of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’s elite Quds Force.
NATYLIE BALDWIN – In response to an attack last Friday in Iraq that killed a U.S. military contractor and injured several U.S. service members, the U.S. bombed Iraqi Shia militias known as Popular Mobilization Units (PMU’s), particularly one known as Ketaib Hezbollah, which it claimed was responsible for the Friday attack. The Iraq government warned Washington not to conduct the retaliatory attack, citing violation of Iraq’s sovereignty. The conflict has arisen amid a climate of relations that were already frayed as many of the recent popular protests in Iraq were partly an expression of disgust about perceived foreign control of the country by both the U.S. and neighboring Iran, in addition to domestic grievances.
JAKE JOHNSON – More than 180 House Democrats joined a nearly united Republican caucus Wednesday night to pass a sweeping $738 billion military spending bill that gives President Donald Trump his long-sought “Space Force,” free rein to wage endless wars, and a green light to continue fueling the humanitarian catastrophe in Yemen.
JON QUEALLY – ‘Make America 36th Out of 41 Developed Nations Again’: Social Justice Index of Developed Nations Puts US Near Bottom.
ADAM BEAM – California Gov. Gavin Newsom cracked down on oil producers [a week ago] Tuesday, halting approval of hundreds of fracking permits until independent scientists can review them and temporarily banning another drilling method that regulators believe is linked to one of the largest spills in state history.
