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In the two days since a deal for cease-fire in Syria was reached by the US and Russia, at least 91 people have died from Russian and Syrian government airstrikes in rebel-controlled areas.

Yemen (on April 29th of this year) had an outbreak of 5 COVID cases, and an immediate 2-week lockdown was imposed. Though that number seems quite small, the health system was quickly overrun. This is because Yemen's health department has been "devastated by war," and though Saudi Arabia declared a unilateral cease-fire on April 9th, airstrikes by a Saudi-led coalition increased 30% from April 22nd - 29th. Even pre-COVID, Yemen had a cholera outbreak in January, quickly exacerbate by torrential rains and putting 5 million children under the age of 5 at risk.

A coronavirus outbreak in Yemen poses a dire threat that will add to the conditions that have been increased by the war. Yemen's health care system has been devastated by the war and is in no means able to handle a pandemic. Moreover, the increase in airstrikes lead by Saudi Arabia, despite a cease-fire, can and will increase the spread of the virus. Humanitarian efforts will decrease as a result and the already wrecked healthcare system will suffer more. It is clear the U.S and other members of the UN security council need to put pressure on Saudi Arabia to implement a cease fire.

I think that it's also important to mention that the United States is complicit in the crisis in Yemen. We not only provide support to Saudi Arabia but sell them weapons, most importantly bombs, that are used against Yemeni civilians. A bipartisan bill to end US involvement in the war passed the Senate last year, but was vetoed by President Trump. Not many people seem to know about our role in the war, and that needs to change.

I was gonna go to Tahoe in a couple of weeks ;-;

15% feels like a tiny percent contained. Hopefully, firefighters will contain the fire more quickly.

sorry for being the third one to upload this ://

This is really worrying

This article was so entertaining to read because of their views that to me seem outrageous. I am trying to put my liberal bias aside but it's difficult when they begin the article saying that President Obama has drastically changed the entire government "so that it is more of a behemoth than at any time in history and more involved in every aspect of our lives". However, the article addresses the apparent hypocracy of the government which wants to enforce and limit gun use, but is continuously increasing the national weapon stockpiles. They word this in an adamantly conservative voice. Overall I really don't mind the info that they are presenting and their argument is reasonably sound, however, their constant negative and angry side comments are endless. His main point is that liberals should be very concerned about the current government but are not.

81 more civilians were killed in Aleppo today. Up to 300 people have been killed in the past 3 weeks. In response to Aleisha's article, I think this pretty much proves that the cease-fire (which was created about a month ago) has been obliterated.

The ceasefire in Syria seems to have been truly meaningless; as I understand it the agreement barely stood for an hour. The fact that Russia has no problem shelling civilian areas into dust is absolutely reprehensible, and that the US and its allies haven't done much of anything substantive is quite sad.

Yes, I agree it is disappointing that the ceasefire failed; however, I think it is important to recognize that quite often, the first ceasefire of a conflict is not the last. Even though it was unsuccessful, it was not totally meaningless because it is just the start of a process, and it opened the door for a dialogue that could potentially lead to peace talks.

In Lagos, Nigeria, almost 300 girls were kidnapped by the militant group Boko Haram in 2014. Since 2014, the Nigerian government has been under fire to amp up their efforts to bring back the girls. Yesterday, it was confirmed that after complicated negotiations and many setbacks, 21 girls have been released.

I'm interested to see what the government gave Abubakar Shekau's faction in exchange for the release of the girls, and what will be necessary for the release of the remaining girls.

I wonder if using "exactly the same negotiations" will work. Also, I don't know if Nigerian pressure to bring back the girls died down as international pressure did these past two and a half years, but I am pretty impressed that after so long the Nigerian government continued to fight for their return.

Australia's climate commitment as of February 2019. . . major fires burning now, in November (their spring)

Biggest Forest Fire in California in 2020

Trump has come to California today to take inventory of the wildfires currently scorching the state. He has been firmly denying the existence of climate change while promoting the usage of fossil fuels throughout his campaign and presidency, even though climate change is at least partially responsible for the level of devastation the California fires have caused.

This is a super interesting article. I didn't realize how directly responsible Trump is for much of the current climate crisis and that his decisions in the past 4 years have had a global impact

You hate to see that these fires are impacting these world wonders

I think a policy implementation to fight climate change that would not be that hard would be to increase the budget to fund firefighters.

I hope nothing bad happens to those trees ;-;

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who has been under constant attack from the Amazon rainforest's soaring deforestation, is set to be given the cold shoulder at the G20 summit in Rome and won't attend the COP26 climate meeting in Glasgow, Scotland.

Disrupting large events and especially important pieces of art has been a trend in climate activism recently, at least the most documented/reported. Although this tactic may get the conversation started, in my opinion, it drives away many people who could (but don't) climate activism.

Yeah, I agree -- it makes the climate movement seem irrational rather than scientific.

It's crazy/a little sad that this is what some people feel like they have to resort to in order to spread the word. I understand that they usually have the right intentions however this can also just be seen as something done for publicity/attention.

Further development in the relationship between the US and Russia in Syria. John Kerry will meet with Russia's Sergey Lavrov in Lausanne, Switzerland on Saturday along with foreign ministers from a few other countries that support the rebels and possibly Iran (which supports Assad). PS: This article is way more interesting than my first one so I recommend this one more unless you're in the mood to question humanity and be sad.

I read this article and Aleisha's article about the Syrian civil war, and I was surprised at how complicated the conflict is. I also was not aware of the growing tension between the United States and Russia, so it was interesting reading about the power dynamic happening again. The CNN article, published just one day before the NYT article, portrays US involvement very differently, so I'm interested to see how that develops.

MEXICO CITY - The two Americans who were wounded when gunmen fired on an American Embassy vehicle last week were Central Intelligence Agency employees sent as part of a multiagency effort to bolster Mexican efforts to fight drug traffickers, officials said on Tuesday.

CoPo relevance: Mexico continues to live under--and resent living under--the shadow of the US. Keyword "political culture"

It's intriguing to see that the Kremlin still holds an insane amount of power. After disagreements between the Russian President and the Moscow Mayor, Mayor Luzhkov refused to resign. President Medvedev did what any good Russian president would do and fired him. All of Russia's most powerful regional leaders have been sacked or replaced in the last 18 months, all by the Kremlin. How can the Kremlin do this? Because in 2004 Putin "changed the law to abolish elections to these posts". Yes, that's right, the Russian people can no longer elect their own governors.

Medvedev fired the mayor of Moscow after Yuri Luzhkov said that Medvedev was leading the country back to Stalinism, even though Medvedev claims to have never seen/heard that statement. The article brings up interesting points about the corruption in Russia.