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Since Feb. 24, the eyes of the world have been fixed on Eastern Europe. But the events unfolding in and around Ukraine portend great changes for another region: the Arctic. Commonly viewed as a “territory of dialogue,” the Arctic has over the past three decades won a reputation as a “zone of peace” marked by exceptionally calm and collaborative security dynamics. Indeed, this is what former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev envisioned back in October 1987, when he launched a series of policy initiatives aimed at lowering the level of military confrontation in the Arctic by facilitating cooperation among the eight […]

A farmer carries wheat on his farm in a village in the Nile Delta town of Behira, north of Cairo, Egypt, May 14, 2015 (AP photo by Mosa’ab Elshamy).

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which pits two of the world’s major wheat and corn producers against one another, has deep implications for several grain-importing countries. Grain prices had already risen steadily over the past year due to pandemic-related supply chain disruptions and increasing energy prices. The war further pushed these prices to an all-time high in February, seriously rattling an already shaky global food system. While some commentators are calling for trade measures that would facilitate alternate sources of grain exports to make up for the shortfalls, what is really needed is a major rethink of the conventional food security […]

Demonstrators take part in an Extinction Rebellion climate change protest in Parliament Square, London, Sept 1, 2020 (AP photo by Matt Dunham).

Last month, Kirstie Allsopp—who hosts the popular British reality TV show, “Location, Location, Location”—sparked debate when she claimed that many more young people would be able to afford to buy a house if they made financial sacrifices, like foregoing Netflix, store-bought coffees or even a university degree. Allsopp insisted that “we’ve fallen into a trap of saying it’s impossible” to own property at a young age, “but there are loads of people who can do it and don’t.” Some people agreed, arguing that they, like Allsopp, had indeed been able to buy a house, in part by making “enormous sacrifices” to do […]

People work in a sawmill, with downtown Lagos in the distance, Lagos, Nigeria, May 12, 2020 (AP photo by Sunday Alamba).

In late February, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, released its most recent report, summing up the latest research on how climate change is affecting ecosystems as well as the effectiveness of the various climate adaptation measures governments across the world have enacted so far. On the latter score, the report concludes that the current pace of adaption is insufficient and finds that the measures being implemented are not holistic enough to address the major climate challenges the world faces. According to the report, some of climate change’s impacts on the natural world and human societies are now considered […]

Ukraine’s ambassador to the United Nations, Sergiy Kyslytsya, listens during the U.N. Security Council meeting on the Russian invasion of Ukraine, at the U.N. headquarters in New York, Feb. 25, 2022 (AP photo by John Minchillo).

“We the peoples of the United Nations, determined to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war … do hereby establish an international organization to be known as the United Nations.” These words, from the preamble of the United Nations’ founding charter, capture the ambition, far-sightedness and optimism of the leaders who founded the organization in 1945. But today, they ring a little hollow. On Feb. 24, after years of tension and months of anxiety, Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. With social media users sharing an almost blow-by-blow account of the conflict online, the world has looked on in horror as […]