Secession ain’t easy, but it sure is popular.
Dec 16, 2016This is not revenge. This is an adequate response to the aggression that comes from the US.
↩︎ Bloomberg Businessweek
Should Scotland be an independent country?
Though Scotland will not be able to exempt itself from the Brexit proceedings or have another independence referendum, its parliament drew up a new independence bill in October anyway.
Where a wild country grows
The latest news out of the world's newest country, South Sudan:
1. New UNICEF figures put the total amount of child soldiers enlisted in South Sudan's bloody civil war (since 2013) at over 17,000, some 1,300 this year alone. Around 2,000 have been released.
"You either die, or kill your enemy. Everyone is treated the same way, whether young or old," a 16-year-old soldier told Human Rights Watch last year.
2. The UN mission in South Sudan provided arms to a rebel general whose troops committed some of the war's worst atrocities, per a Small Arms Survey report. The UN Security Council later sanctioned him.
3. Government agents forcibly removed an Associated Press reporter this month, putting him on a flight to Uganda.
4. "There is already a steady process of ethnic cleansing underway in several areas of South Sudan using starvation, gang rape and the burning of villages," a UN commission found last month.
Dec 16, 2016The institutions of the [Spanish] state should know that they cannot silence the will of a majority of our people.
↩︎ Financial Times
The Editors' Longreads Picks
- An excellent essay on poverty and writing by Starr Davis. Updated May 31, 2022
- Novelist Héctor Tobar tries to understand the 1992 Los Angeles riots through the experiences of a single high school.
- Steven Johnson with a long assessment of the current state of A.I. and language. (The illusion has gotten very good.)
Welcome to The Morning News Tournament of Books, 2017 edition.
- Our championship match is decided in the Tournament of Books, with news of a Rooster surprise debuting this summer. Updated Mar 31, 2017
- In Thursday's action, Reyhan Harmanci sets up a colossal final.
- The Zombie round opens with Buzzfeed's Isaac Fitzgerald reading The Nix and The Underground Railroad.
Все ваши Белый дом принадлежит нам.
- "Will Putin expose the failings of American democracy or will he inadvertently expose the strength of American democracy?" Updated Mar 3, 2017
- Wilbur Ross just wanted to make some money in ethically gray areas (that should've prevented him from taking office).
- Jeff Sessions's spokeswoman can't help but continue to lie.
The oceans are under assault, and not just from the White House and friends.
- Trump's assault on the environment begins with American headwaters. Updated Mar 1, 2017
- Don't just blame the oil companies for destroying the oceans—blame sushi restaurants.
- Nothing escapes the deepest trenches of the ocean floor. Not light, not nutrients, not pollutants.