Most of the world’s attention has recently been directed towards Syria. In the shadow of Syria, the conflict in Yemen has been left to its own devices, and Yemen is now set to experience an even greater humanitarian catastrophe than Syria.
In Syria, we witness the beginning of the end of one of the bloodiest conflicts in many decades. In Yemen, the conflict has barely begun.
In 2011, Yemen was seen as one of the few success stories from the Arab Spring. Photo: Al Jazeera / Wikimedia Commons
Monday 20 February Further international reporting on the declared famine in parts of Unity State, South Sudan: Al Jazeera, Inside Story: “Who is to blame for famine in South Sudan?” Al Jazeera: “UN: $4.4bn needed to prevent ‘catastrophe’ of famine” New York Times: “Millions in South Sudan in Urgent Need of Food, U.N. Warns”… Read more »
The United States under President Trump is not the only place where the rule of law is currently being put to the test.
In early February hundreds of Israeli police officers battled on the West Bank with hundreds of determined young protesters armed with stones. Sixteen police officers were injured in clashes with the demonstrators, who had come to prevent the police and army from completing their task: the evacuation of Amona, a so-called “outpost” on the Palestinian West Bank.
A Jewish settler struggles with Israeli security officers during one of the previous clashes in Amona. Photo: The Pulitzer Gallery via Flickr
An “outpost” is an Israeli settlement built without authorization from the Israeli authorities. The demolition of Amona was ordered initially by the Israeli Supreme Court in 1997, but the battle between the legal system and the religious nationalist settlers – and the politicians who protect them – has lasted much longer.
By entering into a new strategic cooperation agreement, the University of Oslo and the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) wish to contribute to solidify Oslo’s role as a global powerhouse for knowledge about the prevention and resolution of armed conflict.
Signing the cooperation agreement. Photo: Martin Tegnander / PRIO
The world is undergoing profound political change. After World War II, we have evolved from a period of Cold War dominated by two superpowers, to nearly three decades with a single dominant superpower and a strong commitment to the finding of shared solutions. Now we see the position of the United States being challenged by other powers, in particular China and Russia, while at the same time there are major forces within the United States pushing for a more isolationist policy. Nationalism, including its more intolerant forms, is on the rise in large parts of the world. International institutions are being weakened. There is a growing willingness to use armed force, political leaders are once again talking about the possibility of using nuclear weapons, and major wars between states are not unthinkable.Read More
When we discuss artificial intelligence, the digital technology that makes it happen, and singularity – the idea that both of them will exponentially take over the progression of society – we refer to them in singular. This is not a coincidence.
Both, science and fiction have portrayed AI as a particular form of reason, digital technology as an autonomous driver of change, and singularity as a unidirectional technological revolution. However, none of them are necessarily as “singular” as they appear.
Singluarity represented by HAL, the rogue computer from Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. PHOTO: Flickr.com/Rosenfeld Media
Rather, the different contexts in which digital technologies come to matter create a broad variety of knowledge and social effects. For example, digital technologies are currently used for predictions of any kind: from the spreading of pandemics to political elections and crime mapping. Not only does each of these predictions produce their specific societal effects: they influence whether or not we get vaccinated, for whom to vote or where to park our car. They also produce more complicated effects, some of which actually make us question their predictive power. Filter bubbles and fake news are just some of them. But what exactly makes these social effects complicated?
The integrity of science is threatened in many ways – by direct censorship; by commercial, political, or military secrecy; by various forms of publication bias; by exorbitant journal subscription fees that effectively deny access to the general public; by cheating and falsification of results; and by sloppiness in the research process or the editorial process prior to publication.
There isn’t a single antidote to all these problems, but transparency goes a long way in relation to many of them.
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One important way to promote transparency and quality control in published research is to require that systematic data be made available for replication studies.
Wednesday 15 February The Government of South Sudan (GOSS) seeks to cooperate with the private sector and other stakeholders to reverse the deteriorating economy. Clashes between government forces and the SPLA (IO) in Yuai, Jonglei State, as well as the Tigitigi and Ambasa areas, Central Equatoria State. Al Jazeera, In Pictures: “Atrocities prompt mass exodus… Read more »
The annual Munich Security Conference will take place later this week (February 17–19) with many prominent speakers, including Dan Smith, former PRIO director and presently SIPRI Director.
It was ten years ago at this forum that President Vladimir Putin delivered a famous speech detailing Russia’s deep dissatisfaction with the world order.
Vladimir Putin in Munich 2007. Photo: Antje Wildgrube, Wikimedia Commons
A decade hence, Russian official media is today full of commentary on the spectacular success the country has purportedly achieved by following the course set by that speech (TASS, RIA Novosti, February 10).
Although he did not, in fact, say much in his 2007 Munich address that had not been said by Russian officials before, Western participants fixated on the assertive way that Putin delivered Moscow’s complaints about the enlargement of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and objections to the United States’ global “hegemony.”Read More
Monday 6 February President Salva Kiir dismissed the chief administrator of Abyei, Chol Deng Alak, and replaced him with Kuol Alor Kuol Arop, better known as Kuol Alor Jok. A delegation of Sudanese lawmakers visited Juba for talks with their South Sudanese counterparts on bilateral cooperation. According to an official state report, at least 46… Read more »
Despite rapid scientific progress, firm knowledge about the societal consequences of global warming remains limited.
The real concerns linked to climate change are not about shrinking glaciers, eroding coastlines, or changes in precipitation patterns. Nor, strictly speaking, are they about coral bleaching, phenological changes, or species migration.
The primary grounds for concern relate to the consequences these physical changes will have for societal development and prosperity, including human well-being and physical security.
It is somewhat discomforting, then, that there is considerably deeper scientific understanding of the impacts humans have on the climate system than of the effects of climate change on human activity.
The Arab Spring showed that higher bread prices made it easier to mobilize mass resistance to governing regimes. Picture from Tahrir square in Egypt. Photo: Aschevogel / Creative Commons / Flickr