Reading
Something which has slipped past most people’s radar is that China recently acted as the intermediary for peace talks between Iran and Saudi Arabia. The two countries have been at each other’s throats for decades, funding and running operations and proxies against each other. Elijah Manjier has a decent summary (part is behind a subscriber wall) from a pro-Iranian point of view.
It’s also interesting that in this conference no English was used!
Now it’s obvious why the US couldn’t be involved: it hates Iran and doesn’t intend to change that any time soon. But that China was reached out to indicates that it has good relationships with Iran and Saudi Arabia and that it’s considered powerful and prestigious enough to be involved a region far from its core.
Studies have found that alphabet books are helpful and fun tools to promote literacy and teach life lessons to children. But studies also show that kids’ lives are ridiculously easy. They don’t have to pay rent or run errands or wonder whether it’s time to start thinking about freezing their eggs. Adults, on the other hand, are faced with all kinds of unwritten rules every day—and we need to have them spelled out. Literally. Here are twenty-six experiences that define being twenty-six and beyond.
A is for Adulthood, its trials and tribulations…
B is for the Babysitter—whose rates outpace inflation.
C is for Cups covering your nightstand and desk…
D is for the rush you’ll get Depositing mobile checks.
E is for Escaping your home friend’s MLM biz…
F is for FICO score, whatever that is.
G is for Grocery shopping—AGAIN—for moldy berries…
H is for HBO to cure the Sunday scaries.
Iain Barbour first noticed something was wrong when he started choking on a burger. ‘I realised I couldn’t swallow. And I had these chest pains that I thought was a heart attack,’ he recalls. When he went to the doctor in July 2020, he was told it was acid reflux. After weeks with no progress […]
- by Aeon Video
- by Mario Saraceni
I’m sure experts can say many deep things about war crimes. Alas, I’m no expert. And yet, that caveat in place, I think I’ve noticed two things about war crimes. It’s up to you to judge how interesting they are.
The first thing I can say about war crimes is that for years we hear next to nothing about them, even during wartime. It’s almost like wars became civilised affairs.
Then, suddenly, news reports are full of alleged war crimes.
That’s what happened since February 2022, when the Russian Federation invaded the Ukraine: the term “war crime” became almost as frequent on our TV screens as the daily appearances of the Ukrainian President.
The second thing I’ve noticed is that current news coverage of war crimes is inevitably framed within a cosmic good versus evil conflict – sorry – Western liberal democracies versus autocratic regimes narrative. In this story war crimes are the preserve of the Other: autocratic regimes (aka, the bad guys). Western liberal democracies (We), the immaculately good guys, abhor such things. Living under the rule of law, We promote an “international rules-based order”.
