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Violence will rise as climate changes, scientists predict
Death Valley in July. (David McNew / Getty Images / July 14, 2013)
Long before scientists began to study global warming, author Raymond Chandler described the violent effects of dry, “oven-hot” Santa Ana winds gusting through the city of Los Angeles.
“Every booze party ends in a fight,” he wrote in his 1938 story “Red Wind.” “Meek little wives feel the edge of the carving knife and study their husband’s necks. Anything can happen.”
While social commentators have long suggested that extreme heat can unleash the beast in man, formal study of the so-called heat hypothesis — the theory that high temperatures fuel aggressive and violent behavior — is relatively new. Using examples as disparate as road rage, ancient wars and Major League Baseball, scientists have taken early steps to quantify the potential Read more…
Anarchy and Austerity: Why London Won’t Be the Last City to Burn
The Great Recession gave birth to a lost generation across the world, where youth unemployment rates stretch into the 20s, 30s and even 40s. Those millions have responded with violence.
REUTERS
The riots and fires consuming London are a story about senseless violence and crime. They are also a story about urban politics, race relations, education inequality, and British culture and society. But underneath all of that, they are part of an economic story that is universal.
For the last year, Great Britain has embraced austerity to a degree that would make some American conservatives blush. The purpose of shrinking government was to reduce debt. But the effect has been to kill the economy. With the UK tottering on the razor’s edge of recession, consumer confidence is at a record low, unemployment is rising, and even the Read more…
Religious violence, abuse growing: world study
WASHINGTON — Religious-linked violence and abuse rose around the world between 2006 and 2009, with Christians and Muslims the most common targets, according to a private US study released Tuesday.
“Over the three-year period studied, incidents of either government or social harassment were reported against Christians in 130 countries (66 percent) and against Muslims in 117 countries (59 percent),” said the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion and Public Life study.
In 2009, governments in 101 nations, more than half the globe, used at least some measure of force against religious groups. A year earlier only 91 nations had done so, the report said.
As of 2009, more than 2.2 billion people, or nearly a third of the world’s population of 6.9 billion, lived in countries where religious restrictions had risen substantially since Read more…
Ethnic Unrest Flares in China
Violence in Xinjiang late last month has once again focused attention on the ethnic unrest in one of China’s largest provinces, where the Muslim Uighur ethnic group forms 41.5 percent of the total population.The latest incident took place in Kashgar, the province’s second largest city, where Uighurs make up 80 percent of the population. On July 31, a group set fire to a restaurant in the city and attacked bystanders with knives, killing eight people and injuring more than a dozen more. City police shot dead four suspects at the scene, while two others were reportedly killed two days later.
This incident comes on the heels of violence that took place on July 30 in Kashgar, where two men hijacked a truck after killing its owner and proceeded to mow down pedestrians before attacking passersby with knives. Six people were killed in the incident and Read more…
Do Violent Video Games Really Make Us Violent?
Bang Bang you’re… fine?
Psychologists reveal how you really feel about video games
Two lecturers at the University of Huddersfield have uncovered new research that contradicts a wide stream of consciousness in the media.
Drs Simon Goodson and Sarah Pearson, who both lecture in Psychology, have revealed how playing a sporting video game is more emotionally evocative than a violent one.
Comparing brain activity from participating gamers, the team compiled data for the differing genres of video game to see how certain events in the game stimulate the player.
As Simon explains, the idea for the experiment derived from greatly over-exaggerated media scoops, suggesting violence is stimulated by aggressive video games:
“There was an assumption among reports that because a game Read more…
Arab media cannot ignore the truth about Libya’s blacks
It is hypocritical to celebrate pro-democracy protests while ignoring flagrant acts of racism and rights violations
Image Credit: Nino Jose Heredia/©Gulf NewsWhen Libyan rebels intercepted and seized a British intelligence and Special Forces unit in early March, the matter was handled with a sense of urgency and diplomacy. While all eight members of the SAS unit were reportedly released ‘unharmed’, black Africans haven’t been so lucky.
Since the popular Libyan uprising began in February, the widespread targeting of people merely because of their skin colour has gone largely unreported. Few were interested in tainting the image they had constructed of the Libyan revolution, fearing perhaps that such criticism could give credence to Muammar Gaddafi’s violent efforts to suppress democracy. However, the story involves more than simple attempts at keeping a revolution uncontaminated by ‘suspicious’ characters (who just happen to be mostly black Africans).
While Libya is an Arab and African country, it also comprises black Read more…
Climate factor involved in wars, crises
Christian Parenti is a contributing editor at the Nation and a visiting scholar at the Center for Place, Culture and Politics, at the Cuny university of New York’s Grand Center.He has reported extensively on Afghanistan, Iraq, and various parts of Africa, Asia, and Latin America. His work has been published among others at the Fortune, the Washington Post, the New York Times, and Mother Jones. He holds a PHD in Sociology from the London School of Economics.
Press TV has interviewed Parenti on his latest book, Tropic of Chaos: Climate Change and the New Geography of Violence.
The following is a rough transcription of the interview.
Press TV: Christian Parenti, thank you so much for joining us on the Autograph. While we often address the issue of climate change solely as an environmental challenge, in Read more…
Nigeria imposes curfew on Abuja nightclubs and pubs
The police HQ attack was an embarrassing strike at the very heart of the security establishmentThe Nigerian authorities have imposed a curfew on nightclubs, beer parlours and cinemas in Abuja two weeks after a major bomb attack on the capital city.
These establishments must now close by 2200 local time (2100 GMT) and public parks that admit children should close at 1800 local time.
Eight people died in the recent attack on the police headquarters carried out by the Islamist sect Boko Haram.
It is also accused of Sunday’s attack on a beer garden in Maiduguri.
The group, which usually targets the north-eastern state of Borno, around Maiduguri, says it is fighting for Islamic rule, and campaigns against all political and social activity associated with the West.
Abuja city’s administration said it has also banned parking of vehicles on two roads where most government offices are located.
“These measures are necessitated by the need to ensure adequate security Read more…
Fighting threatens civilians in Sudan’s Kordofan region
A major humanitarian catastrophe is unfolding in Sudan’s oil-producing South Kordofan state, with church and humanitarian officials saying some 300,000 persons are trapped, cut off from relief aid and unable to flee fighting between forces of the Sudanese government and members of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army, the former rebel group based in Southern Sudan.
In recent days, there have been growing reports of civilians fleeing to the Nuba mountains in South Kordofan, where officials of the Sudan Council of Churches say civilians are, according to one source, “being hunted down like animals by Read more…
Sudanese town burned, looted
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JUBA, Sudan — Armed men burned and looted the flashpoint town of Abyei on Monday after days of violence involving northern and southern troops in the disputed region. Southern Sudan’s military said it would defend its territory, while an Arab herdsman said his tribe is in Abyei to stay, an indication Sudan’s peace could crumble before the south’s July independence.
Violence flared late last week in Abyei, a no man’s land between north and south Sudan. Southern Sudan voted in January to secede from the south, and the region becomes an independent country on July 9. But violence in Abyei is overshadowing the march toward independence.
The UN mission in Sudan said armed men were burning and looting in Abyei and Read more…
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