Global News and Analysis

Source: YES! Magazine

When opposition to the Dakota Access pipeline galvanized the support of hundreds of US tribes, it became an unprecedented show of Indian Country unity and resolve.

Now, it’s a global indigenous movement.

Members of tribal communities from around the world have joined in activism led by the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. A Sami group from Norway was the latest to arrive on Friday. This resistance campaign, many say, has emerged as part of a greater global crisis — a united struggle in which indigenous lands, resources, and people are perpetually threatened by corporations and governments often using military force. Integral to this shared narrative is the routine ignoring of treaties. read more

Source: The Intercept

Earlier this month, inmates across the country embarked on what organizers have called the largest prison strike in U.S. history, an ambitious mass protest against prison labor and inhumane prison conditions. The strike, which was the culmination of a series of renewed efforts at prison organizing in recent years, kicked off on September 9, in tribute to one of the bleakest moments in the country’s history of incarceration, the uprising at the Attica Correctional Facility, in upstate New York. read more

Source: New Republic

The future of humanity depends on math. And the numbers in a new study released Thursday are the most ominous yet.

Those numbers spell out, in simple arithmetic, how much of the fossil fuel in the world’s existing coal mines and oil wells we can burn if we want to prevent global warming from cooking the planet. In other words, if our goal is to keep the Earth’s temperature from rising more than two degrees Celsius—the upper limit identified by the nations of the world—how much more new digging and drilling can we do? read more

Source: The Nation

The bulk of his career actually undermined the peace he claimed to be seeking.

When major figures die, the remembrances begin to pour in. The narratives created about those who have gone are supposed to tell us a lot about them. But what we choose to remember and how we choose to remember tell us great deal about us as well.

In the case of Nelson Mandela, the mainstream American remembrance narrative was that of Mandela the nonviolent dealmaker—a portrait that brushed aside Mandela the freedom fighter who reserved the right to use violence against oppressors supported by the United States and Britain. In the case of Muhammad Ali, the remembrance narrative leaned toward that of the aging Olympic flag-bearer, silenced by Parkinson’s, who was a symbol of tolerance—not the fiery, vocal champion of oppressed African Americans who denounced racism and American imperialism and sacrificed the peak of his career by refusing to be drafted to fight in Vietnam. We remember, in these figures, that which is easy for us, and we forget that which makes us uncomfortable. read more

Source: The Guardian Unlimited

How do we measure inequality? From some angles, things appear to be improving, but from others the situation is getting worse and worse

It’s familiar news by now. Oxfam’s figures have gone viral: the richest 1% now have more wealth than the rest of the world’s population combined. Global inequality is worse than at any time since the 19^th century.

For most people, this is all they know about global inequality. But Oxfam’s wealth figures don’t quite tell the whole story. What about income inequality? And – more importantly – what about inequalities between countries? If we expand our view beyond the usual metrics, we can learn a lot more about how unequal our world has become. read more

Source: Truthout

From September 15-16, John Kerry and the US State Department hosted this year’s “Our Ocean” conference in Washington, DC, where participants (including, of course, the ever-present Leonardo DiCaprio) put forward 136 new initiatives that they claim will contribute $5.24 billion toward protecting the world’s oceans. Among the developments at the conference was a vow from the US and 12 other countries to negotiate an agreement on fishing subsidies that contribute to excessive and illegal fishing. New commitments were also made to establish marine protection of areas encompassing more than 1.5 million square miles. read more