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The US has decided to pull support for Syria. They are not able to come to agreements with Russia, and after both the US and Russia have dropped bombs that have killed civilians, the ceasefire is "at risk". It is possible that with this the war will be over sooner rather than later with the rebels losing, but it will not be a peaceful end.

I found it interesting how both sides believe the other is "the bad guy" in this situation: US thinks Russia is helping Syrians attack civilians, and Russia is upset that the US 'accidentally' dropped a bomb. I hope that the ceasefire will hold out and that the war will be over soon. I wonder if there is something that can be done for the end to have a chance of being peaceful.

After ending the war with FARC, a rebel group, with a peace deal 4 years ago, FARC pulled out of the countryside, however new rebel groups moved in and are fighting for control of territories. Rebel groups reportedly use killing innocent people to show power. There have already been 33 massacres in Columbia this year.

From this article, I learned that the U.S. push for U.N. sanctions on Iran is entirely unsupported by other members of the U.N. security council, as many members believe that the U.S. has no legal standing to push for sanctions. Reimposing U.N. sanctions on Iran was part of the "snapback provision" of the Iran nuclear deal, but Trump withdrew from the deal 2 years ago. It is because of this withdrawal that the other members believe the U.S. no longer has the legal right to enforce the provision and impose U.N. sanctions.

The U.S.' push for sanctions is interesting because sanctions could be possible if the U.S. had not pulled out of the of the 2015 Iran Nuclear agreement. However, now that President Trump wants to impose sanctions he can not because of his administration past actions. The U.S. said they are fine standing alone of this issue, but this process could have been easier, and they could have possible have built a coalition around the sanctions.

Ethiopia seems to be descending into chaos; the prime minister, Abiy Ahmed, is fighting a civil war against the Tigray rebels. Before he was elected in 2018, the Tigray People's Liberation Front held control of the country for 27 years. Foreign countries are pulling out almost all of their citizens. Although he has suffered a series of losses, Mr. Abiy still has a lot of public support.

UN climate change chief warns about the exponential progression of climate change. The world is currently on track to reach more than double the 1.5 degree goal of the Paris Agreement by the end of the century so a lot will have to be done to find solutions

I am concerned that the larger GDP nations will not have convincing propositions to get smaller nations to pull out of the fossil fuel industries. Even if they do, it is very understandable that such fossil fuel dependent nations will have trouble taking such a huge risk to their economy when countries like the U.S. are heavily invested in fossil fuels themselves, and despite their promises, aren't making any progress either- in fact, the reality is quite the opposite.