5 things to know about the new US climate commitment
The United States has an aggressive new commitment for fighting climate change: cutting its greenhouse gas emissions by 50 to 52 percent relative to 2005 levels in less than a decade. The announcement came at the White House’s Earth Day summit on Thursday, where 40 world leaders met virtually to discuss and announce their new…
Alexei Navalny, the Russian dissident challenging Putin, explained
The greatest challenger to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s rule is a man whose name the dictator won’t say and whom he has tried to kill: Alexei Navalny. Having defiantly returned to Russia after surviving a brazen assassination attempt only to be immediately detained and thrown in jail upon arrival, the opposition leader and anti-corruption crusader…
Vietnam defied the experts and sealed its border to keep Covid-19 out. It worked.
This story is one in our six-part series The Pandemic Playbook. Explore all the stories here. Every January or February, Le The Linh and his wife pack their children into their car and drive 80 miles to visit family in Haiphong, a port city east of Vietnam’s capital, Hanoi, for Lunar New Year. But this…
Ben Rhodes is worried about Joe Biden’s climate change and China policies
Since leaving government at the end of the Obama administration, former Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes has spent the last four years calling for Democrats to put climate change at the center of US foreign policy. He and his colleagues at National Security Action, a now-closed progressive foreign policy group filled with former Obama…
Joe Biden wants to prove democracy works — before it’s too late
There’s a quote often attributed to Winston Churchill, the former British premier: “Democracy is the worst form of government except for all those other forms that have been tried.” Churchill’s tongue-in-cheek defense of democracy came just two years after the end of World War II. Totalitarian forces had vied for their chance to lead the…
Ethiopia is facing a human-made famine
Ethiopia’s Tigray region is facing a deepening hunger emergency, with about 350,000 people threatened by famine. It is the most severe starvation crisis in the world right now, and it is almost entirely manmade. The region, located in the north of the country, has been engulfed in conflict since November, when a political dispute between…
The political crisis in Tunisia, explained by an expert
Tunisia’s president has pushed the country’s fledgling democracy into crisis. Over the weekend, President Kais Saied fired the country’s prime minister and suspended Parliament in what his political opponents have called a coup. But he says the move was justified after thousands of Tunisians took to the streets in recent days to protest the government’s…
The biggest threat to democracy isn’t coming from China. It’s coming from within.
One of the emerging tenets of the Biden presidency is that the United States and China are locked in ideological conflict over the fate of democracy. In March, during his first press conference as president, he declared that “this is a battle between the utility of democracies in the 21st century and autocracies.” In April,…
Ghana-Nigeria Combined XI: Essien vs Mikel
Which of these Chelsea greats would make our Super Eagles-Black Stars combined XI? Goal/GettyGhana-Nigeria Combined XI Ahead of this week’s World Cup qualifying double header between Nigeria and Ghana, GOAL Africa are picking our dream combined XI between these two West African heavyweights. Both the Super Eagles and the Black Stars have storied histories in…
Barcelona's Ter Stegen snubs Messi in best XI of team-mates across his career
The Argentina icon was not among the seven Barcelona figures included in the shot-stopper's list Marc-Andre ter Stegen has named his dream XI of current and former team-mates, and there is no place for Lionel Messi in the side. The goalkeeper’s time with Borussia Monchengladbach, Barcelona and Germany has seen him play alongside many top…