Articles by The New York Times
We found 299 results.
North Korea Tensions Pose Early, and Perilous, Test for Trump
David E. Sanger, Choe Sang-Hun, Chris Buckley and Michael R. Gordon – The New York Times,
20 Mar 2017
7 Mar 2017 – The United States began deploying a missile defense system in South Korea this week. China condemned the new antimissile system as a dangerous opening move in what it called America’s grand strategy to set up similar defenses across Asia, threatening to tilt the balance of power there against Beijing.
→ read full articleAmazon Deforestation, Once Tamed, Comes Roaring Back
Hiroko Tabuchi, Claire Rigby and Jeremy Whitefeb – The New York Times,
6 Mar 2017
A decade after the “Save the Rainforest” movement captured the world’s imagination, Cargill and other food giants are pushing deeper into the wilderness.
→ read full articleHarry Belafonte and Sidney Poitier: Soul Brothers
Charles M. Blow – The New York Times,
27 Feb 2017
Please allow me to divert my gaze for one day away from our national political darkness and toward two national rays of light. Monday [20 Feb] is Sidney Poitier’s 90th birthday. His best friend of 70 years, Harry Belafonte, turns 90 on March 1. This is an ode to and appreciation of the friendship — one of the most remarkable and resilient of our time — between two Hollywood royals. Happy birthday, gentlemen!
→ read full articleCongress Says, Let the Mentally Ill Buy Guns
The New York Times | Editorial – TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Feb 2017
16 Feb 2017 – For all their dysfunction, the Republican Senate and House have managed to act with lightning speed in striking down a sensible Obama administration rule designed to stop people with severe mental problems from buying guns. They did the gun lobby’s bidding in passing a regressive measure that President Trump is expected to sign.
→ read full articleChina, the Party-Corporate Complex
Yi-Zheng Lian – The New York Times,
20 Feb 2017
In Dec 2016, 15 years after China’s accession to the World Trade Organization, the European Union, the United States and Japan formally refused to grant Beijing the coveted label, denying it important concessions on tariffs and other trade restrictions. This is partly a response to economic distortions caused by government intervention.
→ read full articleThe Man Who Let India Out of the Closet
Aatish Taseer – The New York Times,
20 Feb 2017
16 Feb 2017 — The most ubiquitous man in Bollywood is under tremendous pressure to utter three simple words: “I am gay.” If these three words have acquired the force of absolution, it is because Karan Johar is by miles the most famous Indian ever to almost be openly gay.
→ read full articleAngelina Jolie: Refugee Policy Should Be Based on Facts, Not Fear
Angelina Jolie – The New York Times,
6 Feb 2017
2 Feb 2017 – Refugees are men, women and children caught in the fury of war, or the cross hairs of persecution. Far from being terrorists, they are often the victims of terrorism themselves. I’m proud of our country’s history of giving shelter to the most vulnerable people. Americans have shed blood to defend the idea that human rights transcend culture, geography, ethnicity and religion.
→ read full articleMyanmar’s Shameful Denial
The New York Times | Editorial – TRANSCEND Media Service,
16 Jan 2017
10 Jan 2017 – Last month, President Obama lifted sanctions against Myanmar, citing “substantial progress in improving human rights” following the historic election victory of the Nobel laureate Daw Aung San Suu Kyi in November 2015. Tragically, that praise is proving premature.
→ read full articleChina Joins the Fight to Save Elephants
The New York Times | Editorial – TRANSCEND Media Service,
9 Jan 2017
3 Jan 2017 – It is great news for elephants that China has declared a halt to commercial ivory trade by the end of 2017. The many governmental and nongovernmental organizations that have worked to protect the magnificent animals must now ensure that neither China nor the United States backslides on the bans, and that other nations will not try surreptitiously to move in.
→ read full articleIntelligence Report on Russian Hacking
The New York Times – TRANSCEND Media Service,
9 Jan 2017
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence released on Friday [6 Jan 2017] a report that detailed what it called a Russian campaign to influence the election. The report is the unclassified summary of a highly sensitive assessment from American intelligence and law enforcement agencies.
→ read full articleBroken Men in Paradise
Roger Cohen – The New York Times,
12 Dec 2016
The world’s refugee crisis knows no more sinister exercise in cruelty than Australia’s island prisons.
→ read full article14 Countries Press Myanmar to Allow Aid in Rohingya Areas
Mike Ives – The New York Times,
12 Dec 2016
Fourteen governments urged Myanmar on Friday [9 Dec] to allow a full resumption of aid to a predominantly Muslim part of Rakhine State, as the UN described an escalation of a humanitarian crisis there. The main ethnic group in the northern part of Rakhine is the Rohingya, a persecuted Muslim minority whose members are barred from citizenship in Myanmar, which is mostly Buddhist.
→ read full articlePoaching’s Bloody Human Toll
Joe Walston – The New York Times,
12 Dec 2016
5 Dec 2016 – Being a wildlife ranger can be extremely hazardous to your health. At least 25 were killed by poachers or timber smugglers. One was shot and pushed off a cliff. Two were axed to death. One died when his helicopter was shot down by poachers. Most of the rest were simply shot. Just last month, for instance, a ranger in the Uganda Wildlife Authority was killed in a gun battle.
→ read full articlePentagon: Looking for a Few Good Hackers
The New York Times | Editorial – TRANSCEND Media Service,
5 Dec 2016
The last thing the Pentagon would seem to need is more hackers. But Defense Department officials are inviting them in.
→ read full articleThe Art of the Protest
Tina Rosenberg – The New York Times,
28 Nov 2016
Protests can change policies and often have. In other countries and throughout American history, ordinary citizens banding together have triumphed over governments, even when a single party holds sweeping control.
→ read full articleMy Life with Tourette’s Syndrome
Shane Fistell – The New York Times,
28 Nov 2016
I was born with a neurological disorder that causes involuntary movements, vocalizations and tics — sometimes mild, sometimes wildly disruptive: Tourette’s syndrome. Since my youth, I’ve often been stopped in public by the police and questioned because of my symptoms. I made the choice to sacrifice social acceptability for the freedom to be myself.
→ read full articlePower Imbalance at the Pipeline Protest
The New York Times | Editorial – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 Nov 2016
When injustice aligns with cruelty, and heavy weaponry is involved, the results can be shameful and bloody. Witness what happened on Sunday [20 Nov] in North Dakota, when law enforcement officers escalated their tactics against unarmed American Indians and allies who have waged months of protests against the Dakota Access oil pipeline.
→ read full articleMyanmar’s War on the Rohingya
The New York Times | Editorial – TRANSCEND Media Service,
28 Nov 2016
To preserve her reputation as a human rights champion, [Nobel Peace Laureate] Daw Aung San Suu Kyi needs to allow an impartial investigation into the violence.
→ read full articleMyanmar Urged by U.N. Expert to Let Aid Flow to Mainly Muslim State
Nick Cumming-Bruce – The New York Times,
21 Nov 2016
18 Nov 2016 — Amid mounting reports of violent unrest and brutal reprisals by Myanmar’s army in the mainly Muslim state of Rakhine, a United Nations expert said on Friday that the country’s government should let aid agencies into the area and investigate allegations of abuse instead of brushing them aside with blanket denials.
→ read full articleLeonard Cohen, Epic and Enigmatic Songwriter, Is Dead at 82
Larry Rohter – The New York Times,
14 Nov 2016
10 Nov 2016 – Over a musical career that spanned nearly five decades, Mr. Cohen wrote songs that addressed — in spare language that could be both oblique and telling — themes of love and faith, despair and exaltation, solitude and connection, war and politics. More than 2,000 recordings of his songs have been made by Judy Collins, Tim Hardin, U2, Aretha Franklin, R.E.M., Jeff Buckley, Trisha Yearwood, Justin Timberlake, Elton John, among others.
→ read full articleThe Pentagon’s ‘Terminator Conundrum’: Robots That Could Kill on Their Own
Matthew Rosenberg and John Markoff – The New York Times,
31 Oct 2016
The United States has put artificial intelligence at the center of its defense strategy, with weapons that can identify targets and make decisions.
→ read full articleThe Terrifying Impunity of Brazil’s Riot Police
Vanessa Barbara – The New York Times,
24 Oct 2016
Protests are back with a vengeance since Dilma Rousseff’s impeachment, and the cops are cracking down. Protesters will have to take matters into their own hands. I’ve seen it before: Activists once formed their own volunteer security group to protect people from police abuse. That could get ugly.
→ read full articleThe Lost Cultures of Whales
Shane Gero – The New York Times,
17 Oct 2016
I could point to many reasons to protect whales, like the way they mitigate the effects of climate change by cycling nutrients that enable the ocean to reduce carbon in the atmosphere, or how top predators regulate marine food chains. But if we are to preserve life, ours and theirs, we must find ways to succeed together, and value diversity in our societies and in our ecosystems.
→ read full articleAmerica’s Moral Duty in Yemen
Editorial Board – The New York Times,
17 Oct 2016
11 Oct 2016 – President Obama must cut off military aid to Saudi Arabia unless it ends the carnage and returns to peace talks. Yemen is near collapse, with 80 percent of the country in need of humanitarian aid. Al Qaeda’s affiliate there is becoming stronger and the population more radicalized. The longer the war goes on, the harder it will be to end.
→ read full articleGeneration Adderall
Casey Schwartz - The New York Times Magazine,
17 Oct 2016
The Adderall made my life unpredictable, blowing black storm systems over my horizon with no warning at all. Still, I couldn’t give it up. The psychiatrist observed my distress calmly and prescribed Wellbutrin, an antidepressant with a slightly speedy quality that could cushion the blow of withdrawal and make it less painful to get off the Adderall. Soon enough, I was simply taking both medications.
→ read full articleChappatte on Hillary Clinton’s Health
Patrick Chappatte – The New York Times,
19 Sep 2016
Mrs. Clinton’s preference for privacy backfired.
→ read full articleTurkey’s Military Operation in Syria
Patrick Chappatte – The New York Times,
5 Sep 2016
31 Aug 2016 – Turkey sent tanks, warplanes and special operations forces into northern Syria last week.
→ read full articlePhone Spying Made Easy for All: Check Price List, Choose a Plan
Nicole Perlroth – The New York Times,
5 Sep 2016
Want to invisibly spy on 10 iPhone owners without their knowledge? Gather their every keystroke, sound, message and location? That will cost you $650,000, plus a $500,000 setup fee with an Israeli outfit called the NSO Group. You can spy on more people if you would like — just check out the company’s price list.
→ read full articleEurope: When a Swimsuit Is a Security Threat
Asma T. Uddin – The New York Times,
29 Aug 2016
To an American spectator, such bans probably appear a blatant restriction on religious liberty, or liberty generally, but what is striking is that the European jurisprudence upholding them speaks in the language of human rights. By couching prejudice and fear in the language of Article 9 exceptions, the court in effect uses human rights laws to limit human rights.
→ read full articleAs Homeless Find Refuge in Forests, ‘Anger Is Palpable’ in Nearby Towns
Jack Healy – The New York Times,
29 Aug 2016
“Yes, we’re homeless,” he said, sitting in the shade of his camper here in the Arapaho National Forest. “No, we’re not vagrants. No, we’re not beggars. We just barely are making it. What you see is by the grace of God.”
→ read full articleSaudi Arabia Kills Civilians, the U.S. Looks the Other Way
Samuel Oakfordaug – The New York Times,
29 Aug 2016
19 Aug 2016 – In the span of four days earlier this month, the Saudi Arabia-led coalition in Yemen bombed a Doctors Without Borders-supported hospital, killing 19 people; a school, where 10 children, some as young as 8, died; and a vital bridge over which United Nations food supplies traveled, punishing millions.
→ read full articleTaking a Stand at Standing Rock
David Archambault II – The New York Times,
29 Aug 2016
24 Aug 2016 — Perhaps only in North Dakota, where oil tycoons wine and dine elected officials, and where the governor, Jack Dalrymple, serves as an adviser to the Trump campaign, would state and county governments act as the armed enforcement for corporate interests. In recent weeks, the state has militarized my reservation, with road blocks and license-plate checks, low-flying aircraft and racial profiling of Indians. The local sheriff and the pipeline company have both called our protest “unlawful,” and Gov. Dalrymple has declared a state of emergency.
→ read full articleThe U.N.’s Cholera Admission and What Comes Next
Jonathan M. Katz – The New York Times Magazine,
29 Aug 2016
Scientists and researchers have repeatedly found, with overwhelming consensus, that U.N. peacekeepers introduced the disease to Haiti for the first time ever recorded by knowingly allowing their infected feces to slough into the Meille River, which locals used for drinking, bathing and washing — in violation of the U.N’s own protocols and the most basic tenets of public health.
→ read full articleEnd the First-Use Policy for Nuclear Weapons
James E. Cartwright and Bruce G. Blairaug – The New York Times,
22 Aug 2016
The United States has a policy allowing the first use of nuclear weapons. Abolishing it will save money and make the world safer. President Obama would be wise to follow China’s example. As commander in chief, he can adopt no-first-use overnight and lead the way in establishing it as a global norm among all of the nine countries with nuclear weapons.
→ read full articleBrazil’s Uplifting Olympics
Roger Cohen – The New York Times,
22 Aug 2016
Why is it the developed world has to find fault in a developing country that organizes a major sporting event?
→ read full articleHealth Secrets of the Amish
Moises Velasquez-Manoff – The New York Times,
8 Aug 2016
Disease emerges from the dance between genes and environment. The asthma epidemic may stem, at least in part, from the decline of our “old friends” — the organisms our immune systems expect to be present in the environment. The newly sneezing upper classes in the 19th century may have been the first to find themselves without these old friends. Now most of the developed world has lost them.
→ read full articleThe Blog That Disappeared
Roxane Gay – The New York Times,
1 Aug 2016
On June 27, Mr. Cooper’s Google account was deactivated, he has said. He lost 14 years of his blog archives, creative work, email and contacts. He has hired a lawyer and made complaints, and many of his readers and fans have tried to support his efforts. There is a petition circulating, urging Google to restore his work. Pen America, an organization that promotes free expression, has weighed in, saying that Mr. Cooper deserves a substantive response from Google.
→ read full articleWhen Law Is Not Justice
Brad Evans and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak – The New York Times,
18 Jul 2016
“Reasonable” versus “unreasonable” violence: When dealing with violence deemed unreasonable, the dominating groups demonize violent responses, saying that “those other people are just like that,” not just that they are worth less, but also that they are essentially evil, essentially criminal or essentially have a religion that is prone to killing. And yet, on the other side, state-legitimized violence, considered “reasonable” by many, is altogether more frightening.
→ read full articleDeath in Black and White
Michael Eric Dyson – The New York Times,
11 Jul 2016
7 Jul 2016 – We, black America, are a nation of nearly 40 million souls inside a country of more than 320 million people. And I fear now that it is clearer than ever that you, white America, will always struggle to understand us. But there’s one thing most of us agree on: We don’t want cops to be executed at a peaceful protest. We also don’t want cops to kill us without fear that they will ever face a jury, much less go to jail, even as the world watches our death on a homemade video recording. This is a difficult point to make as a racial crisis flares around us.
→ read full articleThe Humiliating Practice of Sex-Testing Female Athletes
Ruth Padawer – The New York Times Magazine,
4 Jul 2016
For years, international sports organizations have been policing women for “masculine” qualities — and turning their Olympic dreams into nightmares. But when Dutee Chand appealed her ban, she may have changed the rules.
→ read full articleDecades Later, Sickness among Airmen after a Hydrogen Bomb Accident
Dave Philipps – The New York Times,
4 Jul 2016
Fifty Years Later, U.S. Air Force Still in Denial over Palomares Nuclear Accident – In 1966, a B-52 bomber on a Cold War nuclear patrol exploded over Spain, releasing four hydrogen bombs. Fifty years later, Air Force veterans involved with the cleanup are sick and want recognition.
→ read full article51 U.S. Diplomats Urge Strikes against Assad in Syria
Mark Landler – The New York Times,
20 Jun 2016
16 Jun 2016 — More than 50 State Department diplomats have signed an internal memo sharply critical of the Obama administration’s policy in Syria, urging the United States to carry out military strikes against the government of President Bashar al-Assad.
→ read full articleState Department Draft Dissent Memo on Syria
The New York Times – TRANSCEND Media Service,
20 Jun 2016
17Jun 2016 – In a draft version of a dissent memo filed with the State Department’s senior leadership, dozens of diplomats and other mid-level officials called for military strikes against President Bashar al-Assad of Syria. The document was provided to The Times by a State Department official on condition that the names of the signers not be published.
→ read full articleWhat if PTSD Is More Physical Than Psychological?
Robert F. Worth – The New York Times Magazine,
13 Jun 2016
A new study supports what a small group of military researchers has suspected for decades: that modern warfare destroys the brain.
→ read full articleHow Far Is Europe Swinging to the Right?
Gregor Aisch, Adam Pearce and Bryant Rousseau – The New York Times,
30 May 2016
The candidate for the far-right Freedom Party in Austria lost the country’s cliffhanger presidential election on Monday [16 May] by the slimmest of margins. Still, it was an example of the electoral gains made by right-wing parties in a growing number of European countries amid a migrant crisis, sluggish economic growth and growing disillusionment with the European Union.
→ read full article[Nobel Peace Laureate] Aung San Suu Kyi’s Cowardly Stance on the Rohingya
Editorial Board – The New York Times,
16 May 2016
Daw Aung San Suu Kyi — Myanmar’s leader and Nobel Peace Prize laureate — does not want to call them Rohingya, the name they use, because nationalist Buddhists want to perpetuate the myth that they are “Bengalis” who don’t belong in Myanmar. She has also asked the United States ambassador not to use the term.
→ read full articleThe Lawyer Who Became DuPont’s Worst Nightmare
Nathaniel Richjan – The New York Times Magazine,
11 Jan 2016
The farmer said that his cows were dying left and right. He believed that the DuPont chemical company, which until recently operated a site in Parkersburg that is more than 35 times the size of the Pentagon, was responsible. Tennant had tried to seek help locally, he said, but DuPont just about owned the entire town.
→ read full articleU.S. Soldiers Told to Ignore Afghan Allies’ Abuse—Rape–of Boys
Joseph Goldstein – The New York Times,
21 Sep 2015
Rampant sexual abuse of children has long been a problem in Afghanistan, particularly among armed commanders who dominate much of the rural landscape and can bully the population. The practice is called bacha bazi, literally “boy play,” and American soldiers and Marines have been instructed not to intervene — in some cases, not even when their Afghan allies have abused boys on military bases, according to interviews and court records.
→ read full articleRupert Murdoch and Fox Take Control of National Geographic for a $725 Million Price Tag
Emily Steel, The New York Times -- Paul Farhi, The Washington Post,
14 Sep 2015
Murdoch is a notorious climate change denier, and his family’s Fox media empire is the world’s primary source of global warming misinformation. One of the missions of the National Geographic Society is to give grants to scientists. The group has supported pursuits as diverse as the underwater explorations of Jacques-Yves Cousteau and Jane Goodall’s study of chimpanzees in Tanzania. What now?
→ read full articleThe Case for Teaching Ignorance
Jamie Holmes – The New York Times,
31 Aug 2015
In the mid-1980s, a University of Arizona surgery professor, Marlys H. Witte, proposed teaching a class entitled “Introduction to Medical and Other Ignorance.” Her idea was not well received. Eventually, the American Medical Association funded the class, which students would fondly remember as “Ignorance 101.” She wanted her students to recognize the limits of knowledge.
→ read full articleNSA Spying Relies on AT&T’s ‘Extreme Willingness to Help’
Julia Angwin & Jeff Larson, ProPublica; Charlie Savage & James Risen, The New York Times; Henrik Moltke & Laura Poitras, special to ProPublica – TRANSCEND Media Service,
17 Aug 2015
15 Aug 2015 – The National Security Agency’s ability to spy on vast quantities of Internet traffic has relied on a single company: the telecom giant AT&T. It has given the N.S.A. access, through several methods covered under different legal rules, to billions of emails as they have flowed across its domestic networks.
→ read full articleExposing Abuse on the Factory Farm
Editorial Board – The New York Times,
17 Aug 2015
8 Aug 2015 – While most Americans enjoy eating meat, it is hard to stomach the often sadistic treatment of factory-farmed cows, pigs and chickens. Farm operators go to great lengths to hide these gruesome images from the public. A popular tactic is the so-called ag-gag law, which makes it a crime to secretly videotape industrial feedlots and slaughterhouses to expose animal mistreatment and abuse.
→ read full articleHow to Live Wisely
Richard J. Light – The New York Times,
10 Aug 2015
Imagine you are Dean for a Day. What is one actionable change you would implement to enhance the college experience on campus? I have asked students this question for years. The answers can be eye-opening. A few years ago, the responses began to move away from “tweak the history course” or “change the ways labs are structured.” A different commentary, about learning to live wisely, has emerged.
→ read full articleStowaways and Crimes aboard a Scofflaw Ship (Part 1)
Ian Urbina – The New York Times,
3 Aug 2015
17 Jul 2015 — Men and Laws, Thrown Overboard – Few places on Earth are as free from legal oversight as the high seas. One ship has been among the most persistent offenders.
→ read full articleMurder at Sea: Captured on Video, but Killers Go Free (Part 2)
Ian Urbina – The New York Times,
3 Aug 2015
20 Jul 2015 — A video shows at least four unarmed men being gunned down in the water. Despite dozens of witnesses, the killings went unreported and remain a mystery.
→ read full article‘Sea Slaves’: The Human Misery That Feeds Pets and Livestock (Part 3)
Ian Urbina – The New York Times,
3 Aug 2015
27 Jul 2015 – Forced Labor for Cheap Fish – Men who have fled servitude on fishing boats recount beatings and worse as nets are cast for the catch that will become pet food and livestock feed.
→ read full articleA Renegade Trawler, Hunted for 10,000 Miles by Vigilantes (Part 4)
Ian Urbina – The New York Times,
3 Aug 2015
28 Jul 2015 – The Thunder, a fugitive fishing ship considered the world’s most notorious poacher wanted for illegal fishing, was chased for 110 days and more than 10,000 nautical miles across two seas and three oceans, until it sank in April 2015. Its dramatic story.
→ read full articleOutside Psychologists Shielded U.S. Torture Program, Report Finds
James Risen – The New York Times,
20 Jul 2015
The report, completed this month, concludes that some of the American Psychological Association’s top officials, including its ethics director, sought to curry favor with Pentagon officials by seeking to keep the association’s ethics policies in line with the Defense Department’s interrogation policies.
→ read full articleEnding Greece’s Bleeding
Paul Krugman, Nobel Economics Laureate – The New York Times,
13 Jul 2015
The campaign of bullying — the attempt to terrify Greeks by cutting off bank financing and threatening general chaos, all with the almost open goal of pushing the current leftist government out of office — was a shameful moment in a Europe that claims to believe in democratic principles.
→ read full articleU.S. Chamber of Commerce Works Globally to Fight Antismoking Measures
Danny Hakim – The New York Times,
6 Jul 2015
From Ukraine to Uruguay, Moldova to the Philippines, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and its foreign affiliates have become the hammer for the tobacco industry, engaging in a worldwide effort to fight antismoking laws of all kinds, according to interviews with government ministers, lobbyists, lawmakers and public health groups in Asia, Europe, Latin America and the United States.
→ read full articleBreaking Greece
Paul Krugman, Nobel Economics Laureate – The New York Times,
29 Jun 2015
25 Jun 2015 – I’ve been staying fairly quiet on Greece, not wanting to shout Grexit in a crowded theater. But given reports from the negotiations in Brussels, something must be said — namely, what do the creditors, and in particular the IMF, think they’re doing? At this point it’s time to stop talking about “Graccident”; if Grexit happens it will be because the creditors, or at least the IMF, wanted it to happen.
→ read full articleEdward Snowden: The World Says No to Surveillance
Edward J. Snowden – The New York Times,
8 Jun 2015
Two years ago today, three journalists and I worked nervously in a Hong Kong hotel room, waiting to see how the world would react to the revelation that the National Security Agency had been making records of nearly every phone call in the United States.
→ read full articleNew Snowden Documents Reveal Secret Memos Expanding Spying
Julia Angwin, Jeff Larson, Charlie Savage, Henrik Moltke - ProPublica & The New York Times,
8 Jun 2015
The Obama administration has stepped up the NSA’s warrantless surveillance program on U.S. soil to search for signs of hacking.
→ read full articleThat 1914 Feeling
Paul Krugman, Nobel Economics Laureate – The New York Times,
8 Jun 2015
A forced Greek exit from the euro would create huge economic and political risks, yet Europe seems to be sleepwalking toward that outcome. The allusion to Christopher Clark’s recent magisterial book on the origins of World War I, “The Sleepwalkers,” is deliberate.
→ read full articleJohn F. Nash Jr., Math Genius Defined by a ‘Beautiful Mind,’ Dies at 86
Erica Goode – The New York Times,
1 Jun 2015
John F. Nash Jr., a mathematician who shared a Nobel Prize in 1994 for work that greatly extended the reach and power of modern economic theory and whose long descent into severe mental illness and eventual recovery were the subject of a book and a film, both titled “A Beautiful Mind,” was killed, along with his wife, in a car crash on Saturday [23 May 2015] in New Jersey. He was 86.
→ read full articleDefying U.S., Colombia Halts Aerial Spraying of Crops Used to Make Cocaine
William Neuman – The New York Times,
18 May 2015
The government of Colombia on Thursday [14 May 2015] ordered a halt to the aerial spraying of the country’s vast illegal plantings of coca, citing concerns that the spray causes cancer. Colombia is one of the closest allies of the US in Latin America and its most stalwart partner on antidrug policy, but the change of strategy has the potential to add a new element of tension to the relationship.
→ read full articleA Sharp Spike in Honeybee Deaths Deepens a Worrisome Trend
Michael Wines – The New York Times,
18 May 2015
13 May 2015 – A prolonged and mysterious die-off of the nation’s honeybees, a trend worrisome both to beekeepers and to farmers who depend on the insects to pollinate their crops, apparently worsened last year.
→ read full articleAmerican Psychological Association Bolstered C.I.A. Torture Program, Report Says
James Risen – The New York Times,
11 May 2015
30 Apr 2015 — The American Psychological Association secretly collaborated with the administration of President George W. Bush to bolster a legal and ethical justification for the torture of prisoners swept up in the post-Sept. 11 war on terror, according to a new report by a group of dissident health professionals and human rights activists.
→ read full articleCommonly Used Chemicals Come Under New Scrutiny
Eric Lipton and Rachel Abrams – The New York Times,
4 May 2015
A top US health official and hundreds of environmental scientists on Friday [1 May 2015] voiced new health concerns about chemicals used in products as varied as pizza boxes, carpet treatments, electronics, footwear, sleeping bags, tents, protective gear for firefighters and even the foams used to extinguish fires. Studies showed that some PFASs lingered in people’s bodies for years, and appeared to increase the risks of cancer and other health problems.
→ read full articleYanis Varoufakis: No Time for Games in Europe
Yanis Varoufakis – The New York Times,
23 Feb 2015
Game theorists analyze negotiations as if they were split-a-pie games involving selfish players. Because I spent many years during my previous life as an academic researching game theory, some commentators rushed to presume that as Greece’s new finance minister I was busily devising bluffs, stratagems and outside options, struggling to improve upon a weak hand. Nothing could be further from the truth.
→ read full articleWeimar on the Aegean
Paul Krugman, Nobel Economics Laureate - The New York Times,
23 Feb 2015
You can argue that Greece brought its problems on itself, although it had a lot of help from irresponsible lenders. The simple fact is that Greece cannot pay its debts in full. Austerity has devastated its economy as thoroughly as military defeat devastated Germany — real Greek G.D.P. per capita fell 26 percent from 2007 to 2013, compared with a German decline of 29 percent from 1913 to 1919.
→ read full articleClaims against Saudis Cast New Light on Secret Pages of 9/11 Report
Arl Hulse – The New York Times,
9 Feb 2015
Feb. 4, 2015 – A still-classified section of the investigation by congressional intelligence committees into the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks has taken on an almost mythic quality over the past 13 years — 28 pages that examine crucial support given the hijackers and that by all accounts implicate prominent Saudis in financing terrorism.
→ read full articleDon’t Trade Away Our Health: Trans-Pacific Partnership and International Drug Price Fixing
Joseph E. Stiglitz, Nobel Economics Laureate – The New York Times,
2 Feb 2015
30 Jan 2015 – A secretive group met behind closed doors in New York this week. The efforts to raise drug prices in the T.P.P. take us in the wrong direction. The whole world may come to pay a price in the form of worse health and unnecessary deaths.
→ read full articleEnding Greece’s Nightmare
Paul Krugman, Nobel Economics Laureate – The New York Times,
2 Feb 2015
So now that Mr. Tsipras (Syriza) has won, and won big, European officials would be well advised to skip the lectures calling on him to act responsibly and to go along with their program. The fact is that the Troika have no credibility; the program they imposed on Greece never made sense. It had no chance of working. What actually transpired was an economic and human nightmare.
→ read full articleCan Torture Ever Be Moral?
Gary Gutting and Jeff McMahan – The New York Times,
2 Feb 2015
My interviewee is Jeff McMahan, White’s Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of Oxford. He is the author of “The Ethics of Killing.” — Gary Gutting
→ read full articleI Am Not Charlie Hebdo
David Brooks – The New York Times,
12 Jan 2015
Let’s face it: If they had tried to publish their satirical newspaper on any American university campus over the last two decades it wouldn’t have lasted 30 seconds. Student and faculty groups would have accused them of hate speech. Public reaction to the attack in Paris has revealed that there are a lot of people who are quick to lionize those who offend the views of Islamist terrorists in France but who are a lot less tolerant toward those who offend their own views at home.
→ read full articleSuicides Spread Through a Brazilian Tribe
Charles Lyons – The New York Times,
5 Jan 2015
The 15-year-old boy, Dedson Garcete, had hanged himself — one of 36 suicides among tribe members in 2014 through September. Indigenous peoples suffer the greatest suicide risk among cultural or ethnic groups worldwide.
→ read full articlePrivate Oncologists Being Forced Out, Leaving Patients to Face Higher Bills
Gina Kolata – The New York Times,
1 Dec 2014
Because of quirks in the payment system, patients and their insurers pay hospitals and their doctors about twice what they pay independent oncologists for administering cancer treatments.
→ read full articleMyanmar Policy’s Message to Muslims: Get Out
Jane Perlez – The New York Times,
10 Nov 2014
The Myanmar government has given the one million Rohingya people a dispiriting choice: Prove your family has lived here for more than 60 years and qualify for second-class citizenship, or be placed in camps and face deportation.
→ read full articleIn Cold War, U.S. Spy Agencies Used 1,000 Nazis
Eric Lichtblau – The New York Times,
3 Nov 2014
CIA Allen Dulles believed “moderate” Nazis might “be useful” to America, records show. J. Edgar Hoover, for his part, personally approved some ex-Nazis as informants and dismissed accusations of their wartime atrocities as Soviet propaganda.
→ read full article(Castellano) Tiempo de Acabar el Embargo de Cuba
Editorial – The New York Times,
27 Oct 2014
Cuando mira un mapa del mundo, el Presidente Obama debe sentir angustia al contemplar el lamentable estado de las relaciones bilaterales que su administración ha intentado reparar. Sería sensato que el líder estadounidense reflexione seriamente sobre Cuba, donde un giro de política podría representar un gran triunfo para su gobierno.
→ read full articleOld Masters
Lewis H. Lapham – The New York Times Magazine,
27 Oct 2014
After 80, some people don’t retire. They reign.
→ read full articleObama Should End the Embargo on Cuba
Editorial – The New York Times,
20 Oct 2014
Scanning a map of the world must give President Obama a sinking feeling as he contemplates the dismal state of troubled bilateral relationships his administration has sought to turn around. He would be smart to take a hard look at Cuba, where a major policy shift could yield a significant foreign policy success.
→ read full articleU.S. Ramping Up Major Renewal in Nuclear Arms
William J. Broad and David E. Sanger – The New York Times,
29 Sep 2014
This expansion comes under a president who campaigned for “a nuclear-free world.” Mr. Obama spoke in Prague saying the United States had a moral responsibility to seek the “security of a world without nuclear weapons.” The Nobel committee, citing his disarmament efforts, announced it would award Mr. Obama the Peace Prize.
→ read full articleBacksliding on Nuclear Promises
The Editorial Board – The New York Times,
29 Sep 2014
The administration is making a foolish trade-off — pouring money into modernization while reducing funds that help improve security at nuclear sites in Russia and other countries where terrorists or criminals could get their hands on nuclear materials.
→ read full articleU.S. Identifies Citizens Joining [Mercenary] Rebels in Syria, Including ISIS
Michael S. Schmidt and Eric Schmitt – The New York Times,
1 Sep 2014
American intelligence and law enforcement agencies have identified nearly a dozen Americans who have traveled to Syria to fight for the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.
→ read full articleDethrone ‘King Dollar’
Jared Bernsteinaug – The New York Times,
1 Sep 2014
What was once a privilege is now a burden, undermining job growth, pumping up budget and trade deficits and inflating financial bubbles. To get the American economy on track, the government needs to drop its commitment to maintaining the dollar’s reserve-currency status.
→ read full articleThe Fall of France
Paul Krugman, Nobel Economics Laureate – The New York Times,
1 Sep 2014
It’s a remarkable spectacle. France isn’t Greece; it isn’t even Italy. But it is letting itself be bullied as if it were a basket case.
→ read full articleU.S. Actions in Iraq Fueled Rise of a Rebel
Tim Arango and Eric Schmitt – The New York Times,
11 Aug 2014
10 Aug 2014 – When American forces raided a home near Falluja during the turbulent 2004 offensive against the Iraqi Sunni insurgency, they picked up an apparent hanger-on, an Iraqi man in his early 30s whom they knew nothing about.
→ read full articleIsrael’s Colonialism Must End
Ali Jarbawi – The New York Times,
11 Aug 2014
In the eyes of an occupying power, the humanity of those under its thumb depends on the degree of their submission to, or collaboration with, the occupation. If the occupied population chooses to stand in the way of the occupier’s goals, then they are demonized, which allows the occupier the supposed moral excuse of confronting them with all possible means, no matter how harsh.
→ read full articleHow the West Chose War in Gaza
Nathan Thrall – The New York Times,
4 Aug 2014
The current escalation in Gaza is a direct result of the choice by Israel and the West to obstruct the implementation of the April 2014 Palestinian reconciliation agreement. The road out of the crisis is a reversal of that policy.
→ read full articleJapan Announces a Military Shift to Thwart China
Martin Fackler and David E. Sanger – The New York Times,
7 Jul 2014
Japan’s prime minister announced a reinterpretation of the country’s pacifist Constitution on Tuesday [1 Jul 2014], freeing its military for the first time in over 60 years to play a more assertive role in the increasingly tense region.
→ read full articleThe Fog Machine of War: The U.S. Military and Media Freedom
Chelsea Manning – The New York Times,
30 Jun 2014
I believe that the current limits on press freedom and excessive government secrecy make it impossible for Americans to grasp fully what is happening in the wars we finance.
→ read full articleHow Not to Pay the Price for Free Wi-Fi
Stephanie Rosenbloom – The New York Times,
16 Jun 2014
Part of globe-trotting nowadays is flitting from one free Wi-Fi network to the next. From hotel lobby to coffee shop to subway platform to park, each time we join a public network we put our personal information and privacy at risk.
→ read full articleThere’s a Kind of Hush
Nicholas Kristof - The New York Times,
16 Jun 2014
Aung San Suu Kyi should be one of the heroes of modern times. Instead, as her country imposes on the Rohingya Muslim minority an apartheid that would have made white supremacists in South Africa blush, she bites her tongue. It seems as though she aspires to become president of Myanmar, and speaking up for a reviled minority could be fatal to her prospects. The moral giant has become a calculating politician.
→ read full articleN.S.A. Collecting Millions of Faces from Web Images
James Risen and Laura Poitras – The New York Times,
9 Jun 2014
The spy agency’s reliance on facial recognition technology has grown significantly over the last four years as the agency has turned to new software to exploit the flood of images included in emails, text messages, social media, videoconferences and other communications, top-secret documents reveal.
→ read full articleObama Success, or Global Shame?
Nicholas Kristof – The New York Times,
9 Jun 2014
What’s odious about what is happening here is that the suffering is deliberately inflicted as government policy. The authorities are stripping members of one ethnic group of citizenship, then interning them in camps or villages, depriving them of education, refusing them medical care — and even expelling humanitarians who seek to save their lives.
→ read full articleMyanmar’s Appalling Apartheid
Nicholas Kristof - The New York Times,
2 Jun 2014
Welcome to Myanmar, where tremendous democratic progress is being swamped by crimes against humanity toward the Rohingya, a much-resented Muslim minority in this Buddhist country. Budding democracy seems to aggravate the persecution, for ethnic cleansing of an unpopular minority appears to be a popular vote-getting strategy.
→ read full articleFine Line Seen in U.S. Spying on Companies
David E. Sanger – The New York Times,
26 May 2014
The NSA has never said what it was seeking when it invaded the computers of Petrobras, Brazil’s huge national oil company, but angry Brazilians have guesses: the company’s troves of data on Brazil’s offshore oil reserves, or perhaps its plans for allocating licenses for exploration to foreign companies.
→ read full articleThe President on Mass Surveillance
Editorial – The New York Times,
20 Jan 2014
Jan. 17, 2014 – The collection of all this data may not be making us any safer, concluded the president’s review panel, as a federal judge ruled the program unconstitutional, and an extensive report by the New America Foundation found that the program “has had no discernible impact on preventing acts of terrorism.”
→ read full article