Opinions
Our bees, ourselves: Bees and colony collapse
VANCOUVER, British Columbia — AROUND the world, honeybee colonies are dying in huge numbers: About one-third of hives collapse each year, a pattern going back a decade. For bees and the plants they pollinate — as well as for beekeepers, farmers, honey lovers and everyone else who appreciates thi...
Global food security: Why it affects us all
Concerns about food security — and efforts to achieve it — are nothing new for the international development community....
Inequality is not inevitable
AN insidious trend has developed over this past third of a century. A country that experienced shared growth after World War II began to tear apart, so much so that when the Great Recession hit in late 2007, one could no longer ignore the fissures that had come to define the American economic landsc...
Class war: Thailand’s military coup. Outnumbered by the country’s rural voters, Thailand’s once vibrantly democratic urban middle class ...
This article is a joint publication of Foreign Policy In Focus and TheNation.com. After declaring martial law on Tuesday, May 20, the Thai military announced a full-fledged coup two days later. ...
Food’s big-picture guy
I wish Olivier de Schutter had the power to match the acuity of his analysis, but it’s great that we’ve had an advocate whose vision is as broad as that of the corporations who have for the last 50 years determined global food policy. Since 2008, the human rights lawyer has had the title of Unit...
The Case for Reparations. Two hundred fifty years of slavery. Ninety years of Jim Crow. Sixty years of separate but equal. Thirty-five years of racist...
And if thy brother, a Hebrew man, or a Hebrew woman, be sold unto thee, and serve thee six years; then in the seventh year thou shalt let him go free from thee....
South Sudan has failed to justify its existence: Thus far, South Sudan has failed to distinguish itself in anything but human rights violations, refug...
Earlier in May, the South Sudanese government resumed its negotiations with the rebels. That very week, The Sudan Tribune reported that numerous civilians, who had sought shelter at a United Nations base in Bor, were killed by an unknown mob. Also, trainee soldiers were shot in Mapel, and several ot...
Always hungry? Here’s why
FOR most of the last century, our understanding of the cause of obesity has been based on immutable physical law. Specifically, it’s the first law of thermodynamics, which dictates that energy can neither be created nor destroyed. ...
What is Boko Haram and whence did it arise?
The kidnapping of hundreds of schoolgirls by Boko Haram has outraged the world; particularly after their captors promised to sell the girls as slaves. They are portrayed as Muslim fundamentalists seeking to impose a harsh Sharia Law over the whole of Nigeria. They have murdered over a thousand Niger...
What we’re reading now
Poisons: Scientists condemn a new F.D.A. study claiming BPA, a chemical present in certain plastics, is safe, saying it borders on scientific misconduct....