Ousmane Kane, HDS Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Professor of Contemporary Islamic Religion and Society and Professor of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, discusses his recent publication, Beyond Timbuktu: An Intellectual History of Muslim West Africa.
Ali Asani (FAS), Khaled El-Rouayheb (NELC), and Fallou Ngom (BU) served as respondents.
Learn more about Harvard Divinity School and its mission to illuminate, engage, and serve at http://hds.harvard.edu/.
Activist Tim DeChristopher joins a group of panelists convened in a Cambridge Forum to discuss our earthly options as the climate science debate heats up.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said on Tuesday Russia must choose between aligning itself with the U.S. and like-minded countries, or embracing embattled Syrian leader Bashar Assad, Iran and militant group Hezbollah. (April 11)
Industrial air pollution causes nearly three-and-a-half million deaths a year, and international trade is shifting some of the harmful effects from consuming nations to producing nations, according to a study in the journal Nature. Mike O’Sullivan spoke with one of the authors of the report, who says that high consumption in the U.S. and Western Europe affects the health of people in manufacturing countries such as China.
Originally published at – http://www.voanews.com/a/high-consump…
What a great idea for a business! Help homeowners set up and grow their own food garden without having to do the manual labor. Two Portland women, Donna Smith and Robyn Streeter talk about when their idea began and how they put it into practice.
A new investigation by Global Witness has revealed oil giant Shell knowingly participated in a massive bribery scheme that ended up robbing Nigerians of more than $1 billion. In 2011, Shell and Italian oil company Eni paid a combined $1.1 billion for access to a massive offshore oil block. Newly revealed internal emails show Shell executives knew the money would be stolen by Nigeria’s former oil minister, a convicted money launderer, who used the stolen money to bribe government officials and to buy a private jet, armored cars and firearms. Shell has long denied knowing anything about the corruption involved in the deal.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is heading to Russia today, where he’s meeting with Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov amid increasing tensions between the U.S. and Russia over the ongoing war in Syria.
Russian President Vladimir Putin will not meet with Tillerson—a move that points to increasing conflict between the two countries following the U.S. decision to launch 59 missiles at a Syrian government air base last week. The U.S. says that strike was in retaliation for a chemical weapons attack, allegedly carried out by the Syrian government, which killed 86 civilians, including dozens of children. On Monday, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer signaled the U.S. may take further military action in Syria—not only in retaliation to chemical weapons attacks, but also to attacks like barrel bombings.
Press Secretary Sean Spicer: “I think the president has been very clear that there are a number of lines that were crossed last week. I think what not just Syria but the world saw last week is a president that is going to act decisively and proportionately and with justification when it comes to actions like that. I mean, and I will tell you, the answer is, is that if you gas a baby, if you put a barrel bomb into innocent people, I think you can—you will see a response from this president.”
U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson spent Monday in Italy for the G7 meeting, where the foreign ministers discussed the ongoing Syrian war. Outside the meeting, demonstrators protesting the G7 meeting were attacked by Italian police. This is one of the protesters, Marco Rizzo.
Marco Rizzo: “The people in Europe and the Middle East need to wake up and find a way to make their real enemies pay the price [for what is being done]. Our real enemies are the governments, the banks, the big multinational arms manufacturers, who make profit with the blood of each one of us. This is the only solution there is. We think the only solution is not to expect anything more from these governments.”
http://democracynow.org – Does President Trump stand to personally profit off the wars he is escalating in Iraq, Yemen, Syria, Somalia and beyond? That’s the question many are asking, after it emerged that Trump has personally invested in Raytheon, the military contractor who makes the Tomahawk missiles used in the U.S. strike on a Syrian airbase last week. Raytheon’s stocks briefly surged after the attack. Overall, the stocks of defense contractors, such as Boeing and General Dynamics, have increased since Trump’s election, further fueled by his promise of a “historic” 10 percent increase in U.S. military spending. For more, we speak with William Hartung, director of the Arms and Security Project at the Center for International Policy. His latest book is “Prophets of War: Lockheed Martin and the Making of the Military-Industrial Complex.”
Welcome to Transition Studies. To prosper for very much longer on the changing Earth humankind will need to move beyond its current fossil-fueled civilization toward one that is sustained on recycled materials and renewable energy. This is not a trivial shift. It will require a major transition in all aspects of our lives.
This weblog explores the transition to a sustainable future on our finite planet. It provides links to current news, key documents from government sources and non-governmental organizations, as well as video documentaries about climate change, environmental ethics and environmental justice concerns.
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