The Guardian reports that air pollution in 62 Chinese cities fell by 30% between 2013 and 2016, according to the World Health Organization. Beijing, the capital, fell from a global 4th place ranking on polluted air to 187th. I was in Beijing in March, 2015, for a conference, and did a jaunt out to the […]
Month
Category
- Africa (262)
- Asia (1,293)
- Australasia (37)
- Authoritarianism (419)
- Canada (10)
- Culture (616)
- Economy (1,090)
- Agriculture (4)
- Banking (67)
- Boycotts (1)
- Carbon Footprint (6)
- Corporations (56)
- Cryptocurrency (2)
- Debt (21)
- Degrowth (1)
- Democratic Socialism (20)
- Demographic Decline (1)
- Development (26)
- Downward Mobility (1)
- Employment (118)
- Food Insecurity (23)
- Homelessness (18)
- Industry (5)
- Inequality (431)
- Inflation (6)
- infrastructure (11)
- Insurance (2)
- Investment (93)
- Market Crash (12)
- Middle Class (61)
- Monopolies (9)
- Neoliberalism (206)
- Plutocracy (638)
- Poverty (212)
- Poverty (18)
- Regulation (3)
- Retirement (1)
- Sanctions (5)
- Tariffs (5)
- Taxes (38)
- Technology (5)
- Trade (121)
- Weapons sales (8)
- Education (214)
- Energy (1,811)
- Agrovoltaics (4)
- Batteries (54)
- Coal (141)
- Electricity Cost (2)
- Floatovoltaics (1)
- Fossil Fuels (338)
- Fracking (50)
- Geothermal (7)
- Green ammonia (5)
- Green Energy (438)
- Green Hydrogen (8)
- Heat Pumps (6)
- Hydroelectric (2)
- Hydroelectric (16)
- Mining (1)
- Natural Gas (109)
- Nuclear Energy (161)
- Petroleum (305)
- Power Grid (12)
- Pumped Hydro (6)
- Solar Energy (454)
- Tar Sands (13)
- Wave Energy (10)
- wind energy (367)
- Environment (2,825)
- Climate Change (1,711)
- Acidification of Oceans (54)
- Agriculture (26)
- Biodiversity (16)
- Climate Refugees (6)
- CO2 (133)
- degrowth (1)
- Dehydration (5)
- Denialism (160)
- Desalinization (5)
- Desertification (163)
- Divestment (2)
- Dust Storms (7)
- Environmental Investment (1)
- Extreme Heat (411)
- Extreme Weather (304)
- Flooding (143)
- Food Supply (3)
- Forests (18)
- Green New Deal (42)
- Green Recycling (2)
- Greenwashing (3)
- Mass Extinction (63)
- Methane (21)
- Net Carbon Zerio (8)
- Nitrous Oxide (2)
- Rainforests (19)
- Rivers (13)
- Sea Level (345)
- Soil Carbon Release (14)
- Super Storms (272)
- wildfires (248)
- Wood Buildings (1)
- Climate Crisis (1,447)
- Drought (303)
- Ecology (2)
- Ecology (12)
- Environmentalism (394)
- Green Transportation (263)
- Ice Melt (145)
- Invasive Species (3)
- Islands (3)
- Oceans (106)
- Oil Spills (8)
- Pollution (234)
- Water (103)
- wildlife (24)
- Climate Change (1,711)
- Europe (1,418)
- Featured (4,516)
- Haiti (1)
- Health (726)
- History (387)
- Human Rights (1,716)
- Apartheid (265)
- censorship (357)
- Death Penalty (33)
- Disappeared (4)
- Displaced and Refugees (590)
- Food Insecurity (33)
- Forced Displacement (1)
- Gay rights (30)
- Genocide (84)
- Human Rights Watch (94)
- Indigenous Rights (1)
- Migrants (4)
- privacy (21)
- Rights (93)
- Slavery and Trafficking (16)
- Starvation (6)
- Torture (105)
- Trans Rights (6)
- Transgender Rights (5)
- Unlawful Imprisonment (113)
- Unlwful Killing (93)
- War Crimes (443)
- War Rape (9)
- International Politics and Economy (2,190)
- Arms Sales (77)
- BRICS (4)
- Corruption (270)
- Crime (133)
- Democracy (341)
- Dissent (477)
- Domestic Terrorism (15)
- Drones (113)
- Espionage (1)
- G20 (1)
- Guns (9)
- Hacking (8)
- Immigration (22)
- Immigration (5)
- Islamophobia (387)
- Migrants (2)
- military (125)
- nationalism (119)
- NATO (41)
- Neo-Imperialism (1)
- Neocolonialism (1)
- Peace (153)
- Policing (3)
- Politics (318)
- Politics&Culture (22)
- Propaganda (14)
- Race (4)
- Smuggling (1)
- Juan Cole (272)
- Latin America (122)
- media (496)
- Middle East (10,533)
- Arab World (5,411)
- Iran (1,458)
- Israel (1,015)
- Israel/ Palestine (3,973)
- Israel/Palestine (9)
- Kurds (299)
- Red Sea (1)
- Turkey (616)
- Turkiye (143)
- Patriarchy (12)
- racism (480)
- religion (1,558)
- robots (3)
- Romance (1)
- science (178)
- Secular (West) (9)
- Secularism (30)
- Spirituality (22)
- Statelessness (15)
- Stranded Assets (1)
- Surveillance (286)
- Terrorism (1,102)
- Tolerance (6)
- Uncategorized (8,088)
- United Nations (192)
- Urbanization (4)
- US Foreign Policy (1,463)
- US politics (5,694)
- Anti-War Movement (13)
- Campaign Finance (31)
- Censors (22)
- Central Intelligence Agency (63)
- Charity (1)
- Civil Rights (96)
- Congress (82)
- Conspiracy Theories (24)
- Constitution (425)
- Courts (16)
- crime (12)
- Democratic Party (981)
- Democratic Socialists of America (27)
- Domestic Terrorism (20)
- Drone Warfare (27)
- Espionage (124)
- Ethnicities (401)
- Far Right (410)
- FBI (48)
- Federal Government (1)
- Foreign Policy (204)
- Gay Rights (17)
- Guns (97)
- Immigration (261)
- Israel Lobbies (131)
- Marijuana (4)
- Militarization (275)
- National Security State (478)
- Native Americans (42)
- Nuclear arsenal (8)
- penitentiaries (6)
- Pentagon (585)
- Police (43)
- prison reform (10)
- Private Prisons (4)
- Progressive Politics (15)
- Puerto Rico (30)
- Religious Right (16)
- Reproductive Choice (69)
- Republican Party (3,252)
- South Asian-Americans (1)
- Supreme Court (133)
- USAID (1)
- Voter suppression (36)
- Whistleblowers (7)
- Xenophobia (9)
- Veterans (36)
- Voting Rights (16)
- War (646)
- White Supremacists (243)
- wikileaks (8)
- women (577)
- workers (237)
- Writing (5)
- Youth (220)
Asia
How Peak Hype crashed Trump’s N Korea Summit/ Nobel Peace Prize
Trump’s petulant letter to North Korean President Kim Jong Un cancelling the planned Singapore summit between the two leaders was all but foreordained. The entire endeavor was poorly conceived and badly planned, and attended with fantastic, typical Trump snake oil and hype. North Korea does not have the slightest intention of renouncing its nuclear weapons. […]
To Fight Talibanism, Pakistan finally gives Rights to People in Tribal Areas
Islamabad (AFP) – Pakistan passed legislation Thursday paving the way for its restive tribal areas, long a focal point in the global war on terror, to enter the political mainstream, ending a colonial-era arrangement that endorsed collective punishment and fuelled militancy. The constitutional amendment would see the semi-autonomous Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) along the […]
China picking up Iran Gas Deal Trump forced France’s Total to Give Up… In Yuan, not Dollars
Beijing (AFP) – The US decision to reimpose sanctions on Iran could scare off European investors but oil-thirsty China may step into the void and ramp up business links with the country. China, which is already Iran’s top trade partner and one of its biggest buyers of crude, has signalled that it intends to keep […]
The Dragon and the Lion: How China will Win Big from Trump’s Scrapping of Iran Deal
London (Informed Comment) – China has rhetorically thrown its weight behind Russia and Europe in continuing to back the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) between Iran and the P5+1 countries after US President Donald Trump announced that he was withdrawing America from what he called “the decaying and rotten” agreement set up to contain […]
Pakistan’s Sufi music fights to be heard after singer’s Killing
By David STOUT | – – Karachi (AFP) – Nearly two years after Pakistan’s foremost qawwali singer Amjad Sabri was gunned down in Karachi, the devotional music of Islam’s Sufi mystical sect is struggling to survive, as fears of sectarianism and modern pressures slowly drown out its powerfully hypnotic strains. Thousands poured into the streets […]
Two-Faced Trump: Peace in Korea, World War in the Middle East
Trump believes he can simultaneously capture a Nobel Peace Prize for North Korea while leaping toward war with Iran. The president giveth and he taketh away. Donald Trump is a stern and wrathful leader. He thinks nothing of raining down fire and fury upon the enemies of his “chosen people.” Indeed, he even flirts with […]
Burma General on Hot Seat over charges Army Raped Rohingya Muslim Women
Yangon (AFP) – Myanmar’s army chief denied his forces committed rape and other sexual abuses during a crackdown he ordered on Rohingya Muslims, as he addressed UN Security Council delegates in the capital Naypyidaw. Senior General Min Aung Hlaing heads an army accused of “ethnic cleansing” by the United Nations, including the widespread rape and […]
Why does Trump want to Sabotage the Iran Deal but to Negotiate with North Korea?
The fate of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal is sealed. It is set to expire by mid-May, as President Trump looks bent on ditching it. He won’t re-certify the deal unless some “terrible flaws” are fixed by Washington’s European allies – Britain, France and Germany. The “terrible flaws” are three additional elements Trump is seeking […]
© 2026 All Rights Reserved