Turkish Dam Project Threatens to Submerge Thousands of Years of History
For five generations, Firat Argun’s family has lived in Hasankeyf, an ancient town on the Tigris River in southeast Turkey where he runs a small bed-and-breakfast with a well-appointed garden. “I have everything in my garden,” he said recently. “I have already found my heaven.” But his lit…
Cash for peace? How sharing natural resource revenues can prevent conflicts
Some countries are blessed with natural resources, others are cursed. It’s been said that all the blessed ones are alike, they put the resources to good use, improving the people’s welfare in a sustainable manner. And for the cursed? More often than not, they struggle with political violence, especi…
Weapons business booming despite decline in sales: SIPRI report
A new report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) shows arms sales decreased last year. But that doesn’t necessarily mean we are moving toward a more peaceful world. Arms sales went on a downward slide last year, falling by 0.6 percent compared to 2014, according to t…
Robots won’t kill the workforce. They’ll save the global economy.
The United Nations forecasts that the global population will rise from 7.3 billion to nearly 10 billion by 2050, a big number that often prompts warnings about overpopulation. Some have come from neo-Malthusians, who fear that population growth will outstrip the food supply, leaving a…
Austria far-right candidate Norbert Hofer defeated in presidential poll
Far-right candidate Norbert Hofer has lost Austria’s presidential election. On Facebook, he described himself as “infinitely sad” and congratulated Alexander Van der Bellen, former head of the Greens, on his victory. Mr Van der Bellen, 72, won with about 53% of the votes – a projection, as postal ba…
Renzi’s Italy referendum loss heightens tensions in euro zone politics
Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi’s defeat in a referendum over his plan to reform the constitution is a harbinger of further uncertainty in Europe next year where populist parties are making gains in the key economies of France, Germany and the Netherl…
‘Avalanche’ Global Fraud Ring Dismantled
In what’s being billed as an unprecedented global law enforcement response to cybercrime, federal investigators in the United States, United Kingdom and Europe today say they’ve dismantled a sprawling cybercrime machine known as “Avalanche” — a distributed, cloud-hosting network that for t…
Sahel faces poverty and conflict traps: A call for international action
Conditions in the Sahel are grim—some say emigration is the only recourse as economic, social, demographic, and environmental vulnerabilities worsen there. The Sahel—Burkina Faso, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, and Chad—often called the “G-5” in recognition of the group set up to deal with their precariou…
Loss of soil carbon due to climate change will be ‘huge’
55 trillion kilograms: that’s how much carbon could be released into the atmosphere from the soil by mid-century if climate change isn’t stopped. And all in the form of greenhouse gases such as CO2 and methane. Tom Crowther (NIOO-KNAW) and his team are publishing the results of a worldwide study int…
Where are forests in Europe’s Sustainable Development Goals plans?
In September 2015, after the largest consultation in the history of the United Nations, more than 150 world leaders agreed on a new agenda to “free the human race from the tyranny of poverty”. The Sustainable Developments Goals (SDGs) lay out 17 universal goals, targets…