Author: nick

In 2011, the world welcomed its newest country. Fifteen years later, South Sudan is less a symbol of self-determination than a case study in state failure. Its politics remain dominated by factional strongmen, its economy is almost entirely dependent on oil, and the threat of renewed large-scale violence never quite recedes. For most Americans, it barely registers—just another distant tragedy filed away under “Africa.” But South Sudan did not simply emerge from the mists of post-colonial history. It was, in no small part, a project of Washington. That fact alone should invite scrutiny, especially given the current crisis and familiar…

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For Margarita Tadevosyan, peacebuilding is not an abstraction. It begins with memory. She remembers standing in line for bread as a child in Armenia in the early 1990s, during the collapse of the Soviet Union and the war with Azerbaijan. Winters were bitterly cold. Electricity was scarce. Families cut wood in nearby parks just to heat their homes. Each person received only a small ration of bread. The uncertainty of those years etched itself into her childhood in ways she would only later understand. “I remember being afraid until my father came home,” she recalls. Military police would take able-bodied…

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Like a mad king of old, President Donald Trump spends hours wandering his palace, developing plans to better display his wealth and glory to an increasingly skeptical and antagonistic world. Occasionally he remembers his royal responsibilities and implements the right policy, though even then often for the wrong reason. Such as reducing the number of U.S. troops in Germany. At least it’s a start, though resulting from a fit of pique, since Berlin, like virtually every other government on earth, criticized his lawless, reckless attack on Iran, which is disrupting the global economy. He is threatening to do the same…

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Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr’s questions this week about the scale of antidepressant use in the United States should be welcomed, whatever your politics. Long-stated concerns about psychiatric medication are now being taken seriously, and Kennedy has announced initiatives aimed at reducing the use of SSRIs, the most widely prescribed class of antidepressants. These […]Read More…Read Full Article ⟶ Source link

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Whatever his position on transgenders, Chirayu Rana, the Indian who claims a female executive at JPMorgan made him her “sex slave,” must be wishing he could change his gender right about now. No sooner had he filed a sexual harassment complaint against Lorna Hajdini than the media tore him to shreds. This is something new. The media have believed way more laughable stories than his. In fact, we seem to be living through the Golden Age of women being canonized for falsely accusing men of rape, specifically white men—white lacrosse players, white military contractors, white frat boys at the University…

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While drinking my morning espresso this Tuesday, I took a gander at the home webpage of KOMO News, which covers Seattle and western Washington. That region of the country—once renowned for its natural beauty, grunge music, and good governance—apparently isn’t doing too well. “Foss High School students return to class days after stabbing leaves 6 injured,” blared the top headline. “Man arrested for rape, kidnapping after allegedly dragging teen girl into Northgate woods,” read the one below. And, beside that: “Video shows 2 men beating 77-year-old in unprovoked attack in downtown Seattle.” If it bleeds, it leads, as every journalist…

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