- The University of Toronto is warning faculty and staff participating in the pro-Palestinian encampment on campus that they may face dismissal if they do not leave the encampment by Monday morning, the deadline given for the camp to be removed. Meanwhile in Germany, protesters at the Free University of Berlin have faced an aggressive crackdown from the police.
- Donald Trump is doing dangerously well in the polls in several key swing states. Clearly something needs to be done about this, and fast. Bill McKibben thinks Biden and the Democrats need to pull out all the stops to make climate change the key issue. Seems reasonable to me; if nothing else it offers something on which the two major parties fundamentally differ, compared to things like the Israel-Palestine conflict where they're too similar to motivate many younger voters. Plus nature keeps sending Americans reminders that this really is an important issue; some of them might even listen under the right circumstances. And with such a high stakes election, Lloyd Axworthy and Allan Rock are proposing that Canada take the lead in sending election observers to the US this fall. Not a bad idea to be sure.
- Members of the German environmental group Letzte Generation have been charged with "forming a criminal organization", a move some fear could criminalize even public declarations of support for the group.
- A startup in the UAE claims that they will be able to use vertical farming techniques to grow several crops not generally amenable to this, including not only hydroponic standards like greens and tomatoes but also things like wheat, rice, and potatoes. Many are skeptical, however, especially since the UAE has not been above a bit of hype in the past.
- The US military is investing nearly $15 million in mines in northern Quebec and the Northwest Territories on national security grounds, apparently to limit China's ability to corner the market in critical minerals.
- The Competition Bureau is investigating two of Canada's largest grocery store chains for possible anti-competitive behaviour. Strangely, there's no comment from Sylvain Charlebois in the article; perhaps the media are starting to see through him.
No comments:
Post a Comment