Re: “A barrage of bad news followed by some good recipes,” Aug. 14 letter to the editor
I have a suggestion for the writer of “A barrage of bad news,” who is seeking solutions for the litany of doom-and-gloom headlines she lists.
First, not all of the headlines need to be viewed as negative. One could look at the president’s attempt to reduce the crime rate in D.C. as a positive move. Washington’s crime rate exceeds the crime rate in the capitals of many other countries. Marilyn Bowser, the mayor of D.C., has been unable or unwilling to take the steps necessary to rein in crime in her city, often stymied by her city council.
Trump’s meeting with Putin is another attempt to end the ongoing war in Ukraine, and has the possibility of resulting in further talks with Zelensky. Or, not. Why not try? Trump has said that if Putin balks at ending the war, there will be severe economic consequences for Russia. At least there is some movement toward ending the war that should never have begun in the first place.
The point is, the way in which news is presented can slant the reader’s opinion. Starting in January, The Denver Post has presented almost everything Trump has done in a negative light.
As an avid Post reader, I have learned to read every article about Trump with some skepticism, as most of them have a negative slant. I would suggest to the letter writer that she balance her intake of news by adding other less biased sources to her daily news consumption.
Karen Libby, Denver
Where is Congress when we need them?
I could actually answer this question myself, but I’ll ask it anyway. How is it that everything we read in the news about our federal government’s opinions or decisions states, “The Trump Administration says …” Instead of “Congress has decided that …” Does Congress even have any say on things anymore, or are the Republicans just doing whatever Trump says they should do? I’m sickened and very concerned about what it means for our democracy.
Kathy Derrick, Denver
Trump’s order is a Trojan Horse for 401(k)s
On August 7, 2025, Trump issued another executive order entitled Democratizing Access to Alternative Assets for 401(k) Investors. This order, while initially viewed as expanding investment opportunities that range from private equity funds to crypto currency, is fraught with public policy concerns and requires independent scrutiny.
Unfortunately, this entire process circumvents the necessary regulatory and congressional oversight processes. Again, Congress willingly abrogates its oversight responsibilities and defers to the widening of Trump’s executive power and erosion of a regulatory system that has increasingly become merely perfunctory.
The use of private equity funds for investors requires due diligence that this oblique industry has consistently avoided. A complex and substantive fee structure, lack of transparency, public disclosure, and lack of substantive reporting requirements should give pause to investors.
Despite its constant deference to Trump, Congress has the obligation to initiate a comprehensive review of the impact of this executive order and reassert its constitutional right to ensure a regulatory structure that protects the interests of all investors.
No Sony Xperia has truly troubled the best smartphones lists for a while now, so you could understand if Sony was preparing to throw in the towel on its flagging mobile division. Yet according to company chief financial officer Lin Tao, the firm has no such plan.
During a recent presentation of Sony’s latest financial results, she said Xperia remained “a very important business for us” and that “we would like to continue to value the smartphone business” (Cnet Japan, via Google Translate).
Let’s be brutally honest, though: as things stand, Xperia’s future isn’t looking all that great. Sony hasn’t sold a flagship phone in the US for two years now, and a 2025 mid-ranger is seemingly MIA. Google’s Pixel phones are now bigger sellers in Japan, which just a few years ago would’ve been unthinkable given Japanese shoppers’ loyalty to domestic brands. Production of the Xperia 1 VII has even been outsourced to China, rather than home soil – and then Sony had to replace a bunch of the ones it did sell due to glitches.
In my four star Sony Xperia 1 VII review, I called it “an even tougher sell than previous generations” with styling that “shows its age” and battery life that’s “simply great now, rather than class-leading”. While I praised its ultrawide camera, which is arguably the best of the bunch in 2025, it doesn’t give anyone that’s not a Sony die-hard enough reasons to stick around.
Sony’s resolute refusal to abandon fan favourite features like front-facing speakers could be one reason for their dwindling popularity; the resulting thicker top and bottom display bezels look almost antiquated next to the latest iPhone or Galaxy. There are also only so many people left that genuinely care about microSD expansion or 3.5mm headphone ports on their phones – most have moved on to cloud storage and wireless earbuds, begrudgingly or otherwise.
It’s easy to blame Sony’s aggressively high pricing. In the UK, and Xperia 1 VII will set you back £1399 (roughly $1900). That’s considerably more than one of Apple, Samsung or Google’s current flagships. And it’s not like the network carriers are queuing up to offer tempting contract deals to take the sting out even a little.
Then there’s the creator-first approach to photography. Sony makes some of the best smartphone camera sensors out there, but you’ve needed to understand ISO values and reach for the manual mode to get the best out of them on its own phones. Most people just want to point and shoot. More recent Xperias have had more effective automatic modes, and they had physical shutter buttons a full decade before Apple would try to make them cool with Camera Control. But it’s too little, too late at this point.
Perhaps the online chatter sparked by Lin Tao’s words will be the wake-up call Sony needs. Maybe it’s time to go a little more mainstream, let the design team off the leash, and finally put expandable storage out to pasture. Or perhaps it should embrace its wackier side? If you’re listening, Sony, I’d happily buy an Xperia Play 2…
It feels awful for lots of reasons, of course, but mostly it’s because the country chose political vibes over policy ideas. As a researcher who spends his days trying to find evidence-based ways to make schools better, I’m at something of a loss.
See, whatever you thought about the Harris-Walz ticket’s particular proposals, the Democrats had things to say about education issues that genuinely shape children’s development: affordable early care and learning, access to nutritious school meals, funding for English learners, and more.
President-elect Trump’s education platform was made of much vaguer stuff — mostly culture war vibes. For instance, conservatives are eager to get the government involved in biological screenings to determine if kids have the “correct” genitalia for peeing in a particular bathroom or playing on a particular sports team. Trump talks about schools secretly imposing gender transition surgery on children. Finally, it’s likely that the administration will try to voucherize more public dollars to support families sending their children to private schools.
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But, again, all of this is light on substance. It’s pretty hard to see how bathroom-usage policies will help kids recover from the pandemic’s academic consequences, or get more children ready for kindergarten, or more third graders ready to read on grade level. School voucher programs may give anxious parents public money to pay for private education, but there’s not much evidence that they help students or the public schools they’re leaving behind.
Worse yet, some of conservatives’ K–12 ideas are at war with themselves. The Republican platform calls for federal defunding of schools teaching curricula that conservatives don’t like, but it also pledges — immediately afterward — to “veto efforts to nationalize Civics Education [sic].” So they’re promising not to nationalize how schools teach history, except when they don’t like how certain schools teach history.
Now, there was a detailed conservative plan for federal K–12 education drifting around during the campaign. The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 proposes to “eliminate” and “redistribute the various congressionally approved federal education programs across the government.” But Trump claimed to want nothing to do with it.
Maybe he’s telling the truth — perhaps he’s realized that Project 2025 would significantly reduce his ability to enact any sort of affirmative education policy agenda. It would be harder to remake American schools in a Trumpian image without a federal Education Department, after all.
Of course, that’s assuming 1) that Trump has given K–12 enough thought to work through that strategic calculus, and 2) conservatives actually have an affirmative agenda for making schools more effective, something that goes deeper than lines like this from their platform: “Our Great Teachers, who are so important to the future wellbeing of our Country, will be cherished and protected by the Republican Party so that they can do the job of educating our students that they so dearly want to do.”
Perhaps there’s a concrete, substantive plan for reforming Title II of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act lurking in those words, and I just don’t have the right GOP decoder ring?
So look, conservatives: You’ve got to figure something out. The country’s schools can’t afford another four years like the first round of President Trump’s leadership, which left U.S. public schools reeling.
By 2018, the leadership at the Fordham Institute, the country’s most august conservative education policy think tank, was calling for Secretary Betsy DeVos to resign in the hopes that troubles from her first two rocky years could be sorted out by a replacement.
In a January 2021 piece headlined “The Wreckage Betsy DeVos Leaves Behind,” the New York Times editorial board wrote, “The Department of Education lies in ruins at precisely the time when the country most needs it.”
Please forgive me if this reads like I’m being overdramatic. Perhaps it’s my outmoded instincts as a Very Serious Beltway Policy Researcher; I still think about policymaking as an effort to actually solve big public problems.
I’m a hidebound fossil that way. Of course, if you really want to own me, really want to prove experts like me wrong (again), you could shock everyone by setting aside the culture wars and giving substantive education reform a try.
Conor P. Williams is a senior fellow at The Century Foundation, a founding partner with The Children’s Equity Project, and a father of three children currently enrolled in public schools in Washington, DC. The views here are strictly his own.
The Hechinger Report provides in-depth, fact-based, unbiased reporting on education that is free to all readers. But that doesn’t mean it’s free to produce. Our work keeps educators and the public informed about pressing issues at schools and on campuses throughout the country. We tell the whole story, even when the details are inconvenient. Help us keep doing that.
Those of us who worked with high school students in the wake of the Supreme Court’s historic decision overturning race-conscious admissions can’t profess shock over news showing decreases in enrollment among Black and Latinx students across many college campuses, especially those considered competitive for enrollment.
We saw this coming.
Last year we saw too many highly qualified students shy away from applying to schools because they were sent a message that they wouldn’t get in without affirmative action. This year, it is more important than ever that we encourage our Black and Latinx students to apply to schools attended by similar students before the court’s reversal. Mentoring is a critical catalyst to achieve this goal.
Another year of dips in enrollment among Black and Latinx students would arguably ignite a snowball trend in some of our nation’s most recognized institutions, leading to a perception that they are unwelcoming to students of color.
As a society, we simply can’t afford this. We are at a demographic crossroads: Generation Z is forecast to be the last majority-white generation; the majority of Americans under the age of 18 are “nonwhite.” If we don’t increase the numbers of Black and Latinx students going to colleges where they belong and deserve to have a seat at the table, we are impacting the future of America.
To change this new dynamic, we need to think outside the [check your race] box. College-educated adults hold the key to reshaping how to support Black and Latinx students getting to and through the college process so that they can unlock their full potential and achieve the “holy grail” of economic mobility.
As colleges put more emphasis on early action and deadlines specific to first-generation students, our Black and Latinx high school seniors have the chance to make their voices heard through the power of their applications.
Increasing applications by November’s early admission deadlines is a critical first step.
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Also, vitally, first-generation students need to have strong, trusting relationships in place before, during and after the application process to reinforce a sense of belonging. The adults these students meet early in their lives — often outside the home — can help blunt a seismic shift in the makeup of college enrollment across our nation.
Over the past 25 years of working with primarily first-generation and low-income students, I have found that the path to and through college is built on a mentorship model that relies heavily on schools, corporations and communities working in lockstep. This tripod of support needs to work even more closely together to encourage students to increase their applications to and enrollment in selective universities.
Through a focus group of 42,000 (the total number of students mentored since 1999), my organization has shown that the model of starting junior year of high school with 1:1 mentoring is proven and ensures that every student has an adult champion to not only help them chart a path to college but also build the sense of belonging needed to persevere to graduation.
Mentoring develops the social capital to help establish careers and create the building blocks needed for long-term economic mobility.
Every adult needs to adopt a mentoring mindset. We cannot sit back and watch as Black and Latinx students are shut out of college.
One successful mentoring model I’ve seen uses partnerships with corporations that open their doors to high school students. This helps students start charting a course toward college and career paths based on interactive experiences in the conference room as well as the classroom.
As DEI initiatives decline on college campuses, many corporations are expanding their own affinity groups and DEI initiatives. For students, these corporate communities foster a sense of belonging in both college and careers. For adults, these experiences hone a greater understanding of the many inequities that Black and Latinx, often first-generation, students face.
Seemingly simple connections matter. Planting seeds of trust and confidence early in a relationship helps students see their future selves in their mentors. More Black and Latinx students need to hear “we don’t know if we don’t try,” and this work needs to start well before the beginning of senior year.
Looking through the lens of a trusted adult, students can better trust the process and not be deterred by such things as the reversals of court decisions.
While the decrease of Black and Latinx students enrolled in some selective universities this fall is discouraging, there is hope. The vast majority of students (97 percent) mentored in my organization who apply to college are accepted.
Higher education has a critical accountability role as well as we head into this admissions year. I applaud those who have already reached out to try to help encourage underrepresented students to apply for college.
Through an ecosystem of support, more Black and Latinx students will earn seats at the table in college and beyond.
Mentoring helps close equity gaps for first-generation students, guiding them toward successful college careers and beyond. Together, we can turn these recent challenges into a transformative opportunity for lasting impact. The future needs as many Black and Latinx college-educated students as possible.
Heather D. Wathington is CEO of iMentor, a national leader in 1:1 mentoring that builds long-term, personal relationships to help students, largely first-generation college students from underresourced communities, access and navigate postsecondary educations and careers.
The Hechinger Report provides in-depth, fact-based, unbiased reporting on education that is free to all readers. But that doesn’t mean it’s free to produce. Our work keeps educators and the public informed about pressing issues at schools and on campuses throughout the country. We tell the whole story, even when the details are inconvenient. Help us keep doing that.
As governors of the great state of Colorado, dozens of issues crossed our desks every day demanding attention and action. Among the most challenging was water, in large part because in Colorado water touches most every other issue: growth, economic opportunity, our all-important agriculture sector, landscapes, open spaces, environment, quality of life, tourism and recreation. Water is the cornerstone of the health and well-being of every household in the state.
Add to all that the complexities of our system of water allocation and water courts and you begin to understand what a challenge water policy in Colorado was when we served and why it remains so today.
From the governor’s office at the Capitol, we were always looking for shared interests and common ground on water. It’s rare to find some policy or project that has broad support from a diverse set of interests. So when something like that comes along, it’s important to get behind it.
That’s why we support the Colorado River District’s efforts to secure and permanently protect the water rights associated with the Shoshone Hydroelectric Plant in Glenwood Canyon. For over 100 years, the company which we now know as Xcel Energy, has owned these water rights (among the most senior on the Colorado River). Xcel used this water to produce hydroelectric power and then returned all the water to the river.
Years ago, the Colorado River District started thinking about how to protect these rights, and through careful planning, analysis, and discussions with hundreds of stakeholders from every part of the state, has assembled an impressive coalition that supports the District’s purchase of these water rights for $99 million. Xcel Energy’s subsidiary, the Public Service Company of Colorado, has been a strong and willing partner in putting this transaction together for the benefit of the state.
A broad-based coalition of West Slope interests – including counties, cities, elected officials, water conservancy districts, water providers, conservationists, recreation groups, and businesses – has raised over $55 million so far.
Joining the majority of our Congressional delegation and a bipartisan group of state legislators, we also support the River District’s application to the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation’s (USBR) Upper Colorado River Basin Environmental Drought Mitigation funding opportunity, known as Bucket 2E. The River District is putting the finishing touches on its application package, due by Nov. 22. If successful, these dollars will go a long way to fill the remaining funding gap.
Beyond the proposal to the USBR, additional work remains to bring this historic opportunity to fruition. For example, the River District is working with the Colorado Water Conservation Board on a beneficial instream flow use to the water rights so that the river’s historical flows would always be preserved.
In addition, as noted above, like every other water transaction in Colorado, this will have to go through water court, to make sure that other entities and water rights are not harmed by this transaction.
Finally, the remaining funding, beyond any federal support received, needs to be secured in the next couple of years.
We acknowledge that some water providers on the Front Range have raised concerns about potential impacts on their water rights. This is to be expected with a unique and historic opportunity like the Shoshone Permanency Effort.
We are confident that the review processes this proposal must go through, including the Colorado Water Courts, will show the wisdom and benefit to the entire state of preserving the Shoshone flows in perpetuity, as the River District has proposed.
We know well the challenges the Colorado River faces. Fed by our changing snowpack, the mighty Colorado provides water to nearly 50 million Americans, irrigates some of the most important agricultural lands in the world, is over-allocated and stressed by prolonged drought and climate change. Protecting it demands boldness and creativity. The Shoshone water rights purchase is both – and is essential to the health of the Colorado River and indeed to all Coloradans.
Learn more about this important opportunity at www.keepshoshoneflowing.org.
Roy Romer served as Colorado governor from 1987-1999 and Bill Ritter was governor from 2007-2011.
The UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) is the largest aid agency in the Gaza Strip where it provides emergency and other assistance to vulnerable Palestinians. Credit: UNRWA
Opinion by James E. Jennings (atlanta, usa)
Inter Press Service
ATLANTA, USA, Oct 31 (IPS) – The most solemn and terrifying words ever uttered are those inscribed over the gateway to Hell in Dante’s Inferno: “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here!” Hope is essential for human survival both as individuals and as nations.
Surveying the history of the seemingly endless series of wars and counter-wars between Israel and its foes in Gaza and Lebanon from 1948 until now—a period of 76 years—it seems that all hope for peace has been lost. Palestinians, Lebanese, the people of Gaza—and yes, the Israelis too—are all residents of this inferno, the endless Hell of war.
If you pay close attention to the weak, mealy-mouthed utterances of US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken—the emissary of the equally weak President Joe Biden—you’ll understand that the Middle East region and therefore the world is rapidly approaching the Ninth Circle of Hell.
Both of them utter meaningless phrases that reveal their lack of understanding at best, or at worst their vicious, inhumane complicity.
Now, the latest, and possibly most obscene, third act in this modern Greek tragedy was played out October 28 in Israel’s Knesset. Nearly 100 of the 120 members of that wise and honorable body voted to cut the lifeline for millions of Palestinians who depend on the UN’s Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) for health care and education.
Credit: UNRWA
Besides irrationally imposing new cruelties—rubbing salt in the wounds of an entire population of innocent people—the Knesset’s decision constitutes cultural genocide, an essential factor underlying the supreme international crime of Genocide as defined by the United Nations.
UNRWA’s registry constitutes the primary link millions of 1948 War refugees and their descendants have to their lost properties. Destroying that link erases an entire people from history. It obliterates Israel’s “Crime of the Century,” which is the theft of the nation of Palestine.
Is this the hand of friendship, the “Light to the Nations” Israel’s founder Ben Gurion promised in 1948? Review the numbers: there are still 1.2 million registered Palestinian refugees dependent on food aid in 68 camps in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, the West Bank, and Gaza. UNRWA services in Gaza alone include 140 health care centers and 700 schools educating 300,000 students.
Is there hope in this darkened scenario? Actually, there is. Sun Tzu’s long-ago Chinese classic, The Art of War, records the following sardonic, understated observation: “There is no example of a long war benefitting anybody.”
Which means that at some point people will have to come to their senses, or else generations will pass away before their descendants, with new issues to deal with, will wonder what the fuss was all about.
But that’s in the future—perhaps the distant future. What about now? Is there any hope? Surprisingly, yes, there is.
In an interview on al-Jazeera television on October 25, 2024, after more than a year of the most devastating and genocidal war on Palestine’s civilian population, leading Palestinian politician and spokesman Mustafa Barghouti, expressed optimism.
He said that the single positive development during the longest and most destructive war against Palestine in its history is the continuing determination of the Palestinian people to remain on their land and to resist efforts to expunge their national identity, as is their right.
In Arabic it is called Sumud, “steadfastness,” loosely translated as “Staying power.” Hope survives. Where there’s life, there’s hope.
James E. Jennings is President of Conscience International, an international aid organization that has responded to wars in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Palestine, and Gaza since 1991.
Dua Lipa might be starting to wonder if she’s forever destined to release records at less-than-opportune moments. Her second studio album, Future Nostalgia, arrived on March 27, 2020 — roughly two weeks after the country was plunged into the earliest, most harrowing days of the COVID-19 pandemic…
With both the 2024 Presidential election and the Puerto Rican Gubernatorial election rapidly approaching, citizens of the Caribbean island once again found themselves in a delicate position and in the headlines. Donald Trump‘s latest rally was filled with the kind of hate we’ve come to expect. However, Latinos and Puerto Rico were specifically singled out this time, with comedian Tony Hinchcliffe comparing the island to a “floating pile of trash” after commenting that Latines “don’t pull out.” Not only did these comments alienate Puerto Ricans, but they also seem to have bolstered support for Vice President Kamala Harris among the community, as only hours later, she received late-game endorsements from Ricky Martin, Jennifer Lopez, and current global phenomenon Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio – AKA Bad Bunny. And while the self-proclaimed “biggest star in the world” is no stranger to political action, prior to his endorsement, his efforts had been more focused on the heated race for the governor’s seat on the island.
At the beginning of the month in Puerto Rico, drivers passing over the freeways of San Juan were greeted by a surprising political message that pulled no punches: “Quien vota PNP, no ama a Puerto Rico,” which in English translates to, “Anyone who votes for the PNP doesn’t love Puerto Rico.” The billboard was accompanied by two others around the municipality with equally condemnatory messages for the PNP, the conservative Puerto Rican political party up for reelection for the governorship this November.
At first, the messages seemed like just another round of political gamesmanship by underdog challengers looking to turn the tide of the election against the incumbent. It was later revealed that the ads were Bad Bunny’s handiwork. Fresh off the release of his politically charged single “Una Velita,” the Puerto Rican reggaetonero was setting his sights on Puerto Rico’s ruling party. And now, he’s entered into American politics hoping to sway the other half of the equation that determines Puerto Rico’s future.
But to understand what’s at stake and why Bad Bunny’s attack on the PNP and endorsement of Harris are so important, you have to understand what has been going on in Puerto Rico over the past seven years. In 2017, the island was decimated by Hurricane Maria. Almost 3,000 Puerto Ricans lost their lives, 97 percent of the island’s power grid was destroyed, and the inept response by both the local and US governments saw emergency relief funds misallocated or outright blocked by the Trump administration.
Frustration from these events led to the ousting of disgraced governor and PNP poster child Ricardo Roselló in 2019. But the victory for his opponents was short-lived. Somehow, the majority of Puerto Ricans weren’t tired enough of getting screwed over by their own government and elected Pedro Pierluisi, also of the PNP, as governor in 2020. All the while, the island’s electrical grid has continued to falter. Blackouts continue to be the norm, sometimes leaving hundreds of thousands without power for days, and islanders have seen their energy costs soar. If you’ve been on TikTok lately, you’ve seen that island schools are in disrepair.
So, going into the 2024 elections, there is an undercurrent of frustration that has been boiling over for seven long years. And Bad Bunny is far from the only artist on the island using his platform to call for change. Artists like Residente and Rauw Alejandro have also been vocal about wanting to see the end of a two-party dichotomy of the PNP and PPD. Both artists support the newly formed party La Alianza, a leftist alliance between the two anti-colonial parties, the PIP and MVC. Others, like future superstar RaiNao, have taken to social media to animate the youth and give messages of hope while also shedding light on the fear-mongering and dirty politicking going on.
But even as they do, a greater question looms on the horizon because no matter who wins this election, Puerto Rico’s future as a state, a colony, or an independent nation hinges on the island’s relationship with the United States and whoever leads it. And that is an election that Puerto Ricans on the island can only watch and wait for the outcome. This is why Anuel and Nicky Jam coming out in support of Donald Trump – even going as far as to show up at his rallies – has been such a big deal.
Puerto Ricans on the island can’t vote. But the diaspora on the mainland can. The policies that the president of the United States sets can have more of an impact on the quality of life on the island than the ones set by the local government. For example, in 2023, when a group of Puerto Rican journalists demanded that the Financial Oversight and Management Board – a US entity that oversees and approves matters related to the colony’s budget – make information relating to financial reports, communications, and other important economic data available to the people, the US Supreme Court ruled that the board could have “sovereign immunity.” It, therefore, did not have to comply with the request. While the board has reduced the overall debt by a large amount, it has done so at a high cost to the people, with austerity measures that have impacted public services, as well as federally funded healthcare programs across the island.
So yes, no matter what happens during the island’s elections, nothing will change overnight. The US still holds a lot of the cards. But the PNP and PDP’s grip on power has done nothing but dig the island deeper into debt, deeper into disrepair, and deeper into the pockets of foreigners who come giving nothing and taking everything. It has not provided any opportunity for a clean political slate. And if we can clean house, remove corrupt politicians, and put the country on a path forward, then we’ll be able to negotiate our ultimate political fate from a position of power.
Puerto Rico is the oldest colony in the world. Since 1493, we have been passed from one colonial overlord to another, our resources are taken to enrich everyone but our own citizens, watching as our sister colonies all achieved the reality of independence that has forever eluded us. These latest elections won’t change the course of Puerto Rico’s fate overnight, But in the long run, they will decide whether things get better or worse. With a Harris presidency, we get a Democratic President who is more likely to listen to a Puerto Rican base that largely tracks Democrats. A Trump Presidency almost ensures that the way Puerto Rico has been treated by its colonizer continues. Meanwhile, on the island, a PNP win basically ensures that Puerto Rican life continues on the downward spiral it has for decades. But should La Alianza win, it might not solve all of our problems. It might resolve the issue of our status. But it gives us a chance for progress, the chance to walk into a future written by Puerto Rican hands.
Miguel Machado is a journalist with expertise in the intersection of Latine identity and culture. He does everything from exclusive interviews with Latin music artists to opinion pieces on issues that are relevant to the community, personal essays tied to his Latinidad, and thought pieces and features relating to Puerto Rico and Puerto Rican culture.
With both the 2024 Presidential election and the Puerto Rican Gubernatorial election rapidly approaching, citizens of the Caribbean island once again found themselves in a delicate position and in the headlines. Donald Trump’s latest rally was filled with the kind of hate we’ve come to expect. However, Latinos and Puerto Rico were specifically singled out this time, with comedian Tony Hinchcliffe comparing the island to a “floating pile of trash” after commenting that Latines “don’t pull out.” Not only did these comments alienate Puerto Ricans, but they also seem to have bolstered support for Vice President Kamala Harris among the community, as only hours later, she received late-game endorsements from Ricky Martin, Jennifer Lopez, and current global phenomenon Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio — AKA Bad Bunny. And while the self-proclaimed “biggest star in the world” is no stranger to political action, prior to his endorsement, his efforts had been more focused on the heated race for the governor’s seat on the island.
At the beginning of the month in Puerto Rico, drivers passing over the freeways of San Juan were greeted by a surprising political message that pulled no punches: “Quien vota PNP, no ama a Puerto Rico,” which in English translates to, “Anyone who votes for the PNP doesn’t love Puerto Rico.” The billboard was accompanied by two others around the municipality with equally condemnatory messages for the PNP, the conservative Puerto Rican political party up for reelection for the governorship this November.
At first, the messages seemed like just another round of political gamesmanship by underdog challengers looking to turn the tide of the election against the incumbent. It was later revealed that the ads were Bad Bunny’s handiwork. Fresh off the release of his politically charged single “Una Velita,” the Puerto Rican reggaetonero was setting his sights on Puerto Rico’s ruling party. And now, he’s entered into American politics hoping to sway the other half of the equation that determines Puerto Rico’s future.
But to understand what’s at stake and why Bad Bunny’s attack on the PNP and endorsement of Harris are so important, you have to understand what has been going on in Puerto Rico over the past seven years. In 2017, the island was decimated by Hurricane Maria. Almost 3,000 Puerto Ricans lost their lives, 97 percent of the island’s power grid was destroyed, and the inept response by both the local and US governments saw emergency relief funds misallocated or outright blocked by the Trump administration.
Frustration from these events led to the ousting of disgraced governor and PNP poster child Ricardo Roselló in 2019. But the victory for his opponents was short-lived. Somehow, the majority of Puerto Ricans weren’t tired enough of getting screwed over by their own government and elected Pedro Pierluisi, also of the PNP, as governor in 2020. All the while, the island’s electrical grid has continued to falter. Blackouts continue to be the norm, sometimes leaving hundreds of thousands without power for days, and islanders have seen their energy costs soar. If you’ve been on TikTok lately, you’ve seen that island schools are in disrepair.
So, going into the 2024 elections, there is an undercurrent of frustration that has been boiling over for seven long years. And Bad Bunny is far from the only artist on the island using his platform to call for change. Artists like Residente and Rauw Alejandro have also been vocal about wanting to see the end of a two-party dichotomy of the PNP and PPD. Both artists support the newly formed party La Alianza, a leftist alliance between the two anti-colonial parties, the PIP and MVC. Others, like future superstar RaiNao, have taken to social media to animate the youth and give messages of hope while also shedding light on the fear-mongering and dirty politicking going on.
But even as they do, a greater question looms on the horizon because no matter who wins this election, Puerto Rico’s future as a state, a colony, or an independent nation hinges on the island’s relationship with the United States and whoever leads it. And that is an election that Puerto Ricans on the island can only watch and wait for the outcome. This is why Anuel and Nicky Jam coming out in support of Donald Trump — even going as far as to show up at his rallies — has been such a big deal.
Puerto Ricans on the island can’t vote. But the diaspora on the mainland can. The policies that the president of the United States sets can have more of an impact on the quality of life on the island than the ones set by the local government. For example, in 2023, when a group of Puerto Rican journalists demanded that the Financial Oversight and Management Board — a US entity that oversees and approves matters related to the colony’s budget — make information relating to financial reports, communications, and other important economic data available to the people, the US Supreme Court ruled that the board could have “sovereign immunity.” It, therefore, did not have to comply with the request. While the board has reduced the overall debt by a large amount, it has done so at a high cost to the people, with austerity measures that have impacted public services, as well as federally funded healthcare programs across the island.
So yes, no matter what happens during the island’s elections, nothing will change overnight. The US still holds a lot of the cards. But the PNP and PDP’s grip on power has done nothing but dig the island deeper into debt, deeper into disrepair, and deeper into the pockets of foreigners who come giving nothing and taking everything. It has not provided any opportunity for a clean political slate. And if we can clean house, remove corrupt politicians, and put the country on a path forward, then we’ll be able to negotiate our ultimate political fate from a position of power.
Puerto Rico is the oldest colony in the world. Since 1493, we have been passed from one colonial overlord to another, our resources are taken to enrich everyone but our own citizens, watching as our sister colonies all achieved the reality of independence that has forever eluded us. These latest elections won’t change the course of Puerto Rico’s fate overnight, But in the long run, they will decide whether things get better or worse. With a Harris presidency, we get a Democratic President who is more likely to listen to a Puerto Rican base that largely tracks Democrats. A Trump Presidency almost ensures that the way Puerto Rico has been treated by its colonizer continues. Meanwhile, on the island, a PNP win basically ensures that Puerto Rican life continues on the downward spiral it has for decades. But should La Alianza win, it might not solve all of our problems. It might resolve the issue of our status. But it gives us a chance for progress, the chance to walk into a future written by Puerto Rican hands.
Miguel Machado is a journalist with expertise in the intersection of Latine identity and culture. He does everything from exclusive interviews with Latin music artists to opinion pieces on issues that are relevant to the community, personal essays tied to his Latinidad, and thought pieces and features relating to Puerto Rico and Puerto Rican culture.
Right now I have an unlimited supply of content at my fingertips; I’m subscribed to a few streaming services, full of more programming than I could possibly watch in my mortal lifespan. I have a backlog of games piled up on my PC and a stack of unread books, and I’ve also fallen behind on my hobbies. It feels impossible to catch up, especially since there’s a constant flow of new stuff, all designed to be as easily consumed as possible. This is the slop era of entertainment, where quality has been sacrificed and quantity is king.
These days, the term “slop” covers a wide range of media, from TikToks where an AI narrates a post from /r/AmITheAsshole all the way up to big Disney productions like The Acolyte. That’s a wide range, but it makes sense when you consider that slop refers to content that is meant to be consumed, not examined, critiqued, or unpacked. This includes the “no thoughts, head empty” ritual of lying in bed, staring blankly at an endless stream of short videos as your thumb occasionally twitches like a rat hitting the button for its dopamine snack.
Image: Marvel Studios
But slop also refers to corporate ventures, even ones where many of the individual artists and creators involved may have had noble intentions. Consider the Marvel Cinematic Universe and its endless stream of shows, dropped plot points originally teased in post-credits stingers, and a constant string of Member Berries to previous, more popular iterations of the same franchise. Slop slides off your brain, even as you watch it. Slop rejects deeper thoughts or attempts at interpretation, going for the easiest payoffs. Much like jingling keys in front of an infant, slop can have a certain amount of spectacle or excitement, but any rough edges have been sawn off. Slop works best on a second monitor, enjoyed in the background while doing something else — perhaps consuming even more slop, for maximum brain-off delight.
Red Letter Media, a popular film YouTube channel, briefly hosted a satirical program called The Nerd Crew, a mocking take on the big fan productions built to hype up corporate properties. In one episode, Jay Bauman, one of the faces of RLM, responds to an inquiry with the line: “Don’t ask questions. Just consume product and get excited for next product.” Such is the perception of corporate slop; it’s media that’s created by committee out of a sense of obligation to long-standing franchises.
The label of slop implies a certain disrespect for the audience, an expectation that once the slop hits the trough, the little piggies will come and feast regardless of how good it is. That’s not quite fair, however, as all of us enjoy a little popcorn entertainment once in a while. New audiences, some of whom are turned off by the constant stream of big blockbuster products, are returning to older shows like Columbo, House, or Friends, all of which are available in the streaming age. Even older comfort shows can be like cotton candy; enjoyable in the moment but with no lasting enrichment. There’s nothing wrong with a guilty pleasure, and not everything needs to be an intellectual pursuit.
The rise of AI and content farms online, however, has made the presence of slop in our media diet much more apparent. I’ve lost several evenings to the endless scroll, getting lost in short videos of cute huskies, random fandom fun facts, and cake recipes. The algorithm has been so well trained to create an endless well of stuff to draw our attention, all captivating in the moment but utterly forgettable after just a few minutes. Before long, the feed starts offering up AI voices recapping the events of a movie scene, or a guy tonelessly reading from a 40K wiki over AI-created images of Space Marines and Imperial Guard.
Slop media invites slop criticism. It’s no secret that negativity delights the algorithm much more than thoughtful commentary. For every inoffensive corporate piece of slop we get, there’s an endless stream of social media controversies, YouTube videos about the evil woke, and explainer videos that laboriously pore over minute details for a “gotcha” moment.
The rise of slop has forced me to become more discerning with my own media choices. I do not care if something is low-budget or ugly; in fact, that’s becoming an increasing draw to me. I’ve set many AAA titles aside for weird little indie gems, I’ve started following media critics who I respect and trust to give me recommendations before I dive into a new show, and I find myself craving sincerity above all else.
I don’t claim to be more virtuous for my media consumption choices, but I do think it’s a better habit to adopt. The more social media tries to pull me in, the more I reflexively pull back. I still have my guilty pleasures and cotton-candy shows, but I’m careful not to fall down a rabbit hole. I’m on slop watch, and if the media landscape continues this way, I expect the term to only become more prevalent and relevant in our discourse.
When I was first offered the new Veltech 43in Roku TV for review, I was sceptical. After all, considering it’s just £209, I expected a compromise: subpar picture quality, sluggish performance, or sound that could double as background noise for a 90s dial-up modem. But I accepted – and I’m glad I did.
Veltech and Roku’s a new range of TVs start at 32in (£119) and go all the way up to 55in (£296). On paper, they seems too good to be true: all the apps you’d expect (Netflix, Prime Video, Disney+, BBC iPlayer etc.) smooth 4K resolution, and even smart home integration with Alexa and Google Assistant.
But the real shock? I think it actually delivers. Here’s why this little TV might be the steal of the century.
Picutre quality and Roku UI
Veltech claims this model offers “impeccable TV quality.” Sure, it’s not an OLED display that’s going to blow your mind, but for a kitchen or bedroom, this TV does the job very well.
With its 4K resolution, you get crisp visuals and vibrant colours. Watching a nature documentary on Netflix, the greens of the forest popped, the close-up animal shots were incredibly detailed, and I honestly couldn’t believe it was all coming from a £209 screen.
Is it perfect? No. To a super-discerning eye, you might notice that it’s not as bright or sharp as a high-end set, but let’s keep in mind—this isn’t a £1000 OLED TV. For the price, the picture quality is surprisingly good, and unless you’re seriously fussy, you’ll be impressed.
What really sets this TV apart, though, is the Roku operating system. It’s blissfully simple and quick. From the moment you turn it on, the user-friendly interface feels intuitive, even if you’re not the most tech-savvy.
There’s no messy menu to navigate – everything is laid out in an easy-to-use, customisable home screen, which means no endless scrolling through menus just to watch your favourite show.
Roku Search is a handy feature, too. Want to find a movie or show? You can search across all your apps in one go, and the TV will even tell you where to watch it for free.
Now, let’s talk about a feature I didn’t expect to like as much as I do: voice control. The TV’s integration with smart speakers like Echo and Google Assistant isn’t just a novelty either. Whether it’s turning up the volume or finding your favourite series without ever touching a remote, it’s a genuinely useful feature – especially when the remote has mysteriously disappeared under the sofa cushions.
I’m especially a fan of how customisable the Roku interface is – dynamic backgrounds and screensavers let you add a personal touch that makes the TV feel uniquely yours.
Any downsides?
Here’s where things fall a bit short: the sound. While the TV does come equipped with Dolby Audio, the overall experience can feel a bit flat. Don’t get me wrong – the sound is clear, and you’ll have no problem hearing dialogue (Dolby really does help with that), but it lacks the depth and immersion that makes a movie feel cinematic.
For everyday TV viewing, it’s totally fine. But if you’re planning on turning your living room into a home cinema, you might want to consider investing in a soundbar to give it that extra oomph.
The Veltech Roku TV won’t win any design awards, but it’s sleek enough for a budget option. The downside? The ports are located at the bottom, so unless you’ve got some cable management tricks up your sleeve, you might be stuck with unsightly wires hanging down below the screen. It’s a small annoyance, but one worth noting.
Also, this might sound trivial, but the buttons on the remote click loudly. It’s a minor gripe, but if you’re planning a quiet movie night while everyone else is asleep, the “click-click-click” might drive you up the wall.
Final Verdict
So, would I recommend the Veltech 43in Roku TV? Absolutely. For £209, this TV does way more than I expected. It’s got all the bells and whistles you’d want from a modern TV – 4K resolution, a seamless user interface, voice control, and smart speaker integration.
Sure, the sound could use a boost, and the remote’s loud clicks aren’t the most pleasant, but those are easy to overlook when you consider the price.
If you’re after an affordable 4K TV that doesn’t cut corners on the essentials, this Veltech Roku model might just be the best bargain you’ll find this year. Now, excuse me while I ask Google Assistant to put on the next episode of Only Murders in the Building – without ever touching a button.
I read Doug Friednash’s op-ed, again highlighting rising antisemitism as a result of the media bias and escalating retaliatory acts between Israel and Hamas.
As a descendant of Lebanese heritage, I find it insulting and remiss that Friednash can’t seem to acknowledge the toll this conflict is exacting upon innocent Lebanese civilians caught in the middle of this conflict. By his logic, failing to mention the collateral damage to the Lebanese people is actually anti-Lebanese.
Please, readers and the American public, appreciate and disavow the unintended consequences of these unending aggressions on Lebanese soil.
Peter Murr, Denver
I liked the piece in Sunday’s paper by Doug Friednash. It’s about time somebody said something. I was surprised to see it in The Post, as the paper is becoming known as the New York Times West!
The question that is never answered is why? Why is our media doing this? These are established American news companies, supposedly staffed by patriotic Americans, yet they slant their coverage to favor the terrorists.
Ralph H. McClure, Greeley
In his attempt to blame the media for presenting a false picture of Israel, Doug Friednash seems to assume that Americans are unable to understand the multiple layers that exist in that region of the world.
I am pro-Israel, but only within its pre-1967 borders. Since Israeli policy denies the right of return with full civil rights to the descendants of the indigenous people who lived there before Israel was established, I am also in favor of a fully sovereign Palestinian state in all of the West Bank and Gaza with East Jerusalem as its capital, which makes me pro-Palestine.
I have many Jewish friends — but that does not blind me to the fact that AIPAC’s lobbyists wield an effective veto over U.S. policy in the Middle East. That said, antisemitism is as stupid as racism or being anti-Chinese or anti-immigrant.
Because Zionism is a colonial project that continues to seize Palestinian land, I am an anti-Zionist. I am also vehemently anti-Netanyahu because his policies have killed many more non-Israeli civilians for each Israeli civilian who was killed on Oct. 7.
Friednash seems to expect unquestioning support for all elements of Israeli policy. If not, by some twisted calculus, one is antisemitic. This is nonsense. His real complaint is that for the first time in over 75 years, the American public is finally getting factual reporting on the Middle East instead of the steady diet of pro-Zionist “news” that had been common in the past.
The current policies of the Netanyahu government have covered Israel with shame. What is worse is that they are providing the fodder that has fueled the rise of antisemitism — worldwide. Since it is impossible to kill the idea of Palestinian nationalism with a bomb, this is surely a lose-lose situation for both Israel and the Jewish people.
The letter writer apparently is a bit befuddled; he starts with “all these ballot issues would otherwise violate the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights (TABOR),” then admits that “TABOR requires that government ask voters for such approval.”
Ideologically, doesn’t the reality of TABOR go against what conservatives always say: “Let the people decide?” That should apply at the get-go of our gross earnings because, personally, I don’t need or want the state to be an annual savings account for me.
His ending, “don’t mess with my TABOR refund,” is reminiscent of the protest signs in a past presidential election that said, “Keep your government hands off my Medicare.”
Opinion by Jomo Kwame Sundaram (kuala lumpur, malaysia)
Inter Press Service
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Oct 22 (IPS) – New institutional economics (NIE) has received another so-called Nobel prize, ostensibly for again claiming that good institutions and democratic governance ensure growth, development, equity and democracy.
Jomo Kwame Sundaram
Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson, and James Robinson (AJR) are well known for their influential cliometric work. AJR have elaborated earlier laureate Douglass North‘s claim that property rights have been crucial to growth and development.
But the trio ignore North’s more nuanced later arguments. For AJR, ‘good institutions’ were transplanted by Anglophone European (‘Anglo’) settler colonialism. While perhaps methodologically novel, their approach to economic history is reductionist, skewed and misleading.
NIE caricatures
AJR fetishises property rights as crucial for economic inclusion, growth and democracy. They ignore and even negate the very different economic analyses of John Stuart Mill, Dadabhai Naoroji, John Hobson and John Maynard Keynes, among other liberals.
Historians and anthropologists are very aware of various claims and rights to economic assets, such as cultivable land, e.g., usufruct. Even property rights are far more varied and complex.
The legal creation of ‘intellectual property rights’ confers monopoly rights by denying other claims. However, NIE’s Anglo-American notion of property rights ignores the history of ideas, sociology of knowledge, and economic history.
More subtle understandings of property, imperialism and globalisation in history are conflated. AJR barely differentiates among various types of capital accumulation via trade, credit, resource extraction and various modes of production, including slavery, serfdom, peonage, indenture and wage labour.
John Locke, Wikipedia’s ‘father of liberalism‘, also drafted the constitutions of the two Carolinas, both American slave states. AJR’s treatment of culture, creed and ethnicity is reminiscent of Samuel Huntington’s contrived clashing civilisations. Most sociologists and anthropologists would cringe.
Colonial and postcolonial subjects remain passive, incapable of making their own histories. Postcolonial states are treated similarly and regarded as incapable of successfully deploying investment, technology, industrial and developmental policies.
Thorstein Veblen and Karl Polanyi, among others, have long debated institutions in political economy. But instead of advancing institutional economics, NIE’s methodological opportunism and simplifications set it back.
Another NIE Nobel
For AJR, property rights generated and distributed wealth in Anglo-settler colonies, including the US and Britain’s dominions. Their advantage was allegedly due to ‘inclusive’ economic and political institutions due to Anglo property rights.
Variations in economic performance are attributed to successful transplantation and settler political domination of colonies. More land was available in the thinly populated temperate zone, especially after indigenous populations shrank due to genocide, ethnic cleansing and displacement.
These were far less densely populated for millennia due to poorer ‘carrying capacity’. Land abundance enabled widespread ownership, deemed necessary for economic and political inclusion. Thus, Anglo-settler colonies ‘succeeded’ in instituting such property rights in land-abundant temperate environments.
Such colonial settlement was far less feasible in the tropics, which had long supported much denser indigenous populations. Tropical disease also deterred new settlers from temperate areas. Thus, settler life expectancy became both cause and effect of institutional transplantation.
The difference between the ‘good institutions‘ of the ‘West’ – including Anglo-settler colonies – and the ‘bad institutions’ of the ‘Rest’ is central to AJR’s analysis. White settlers’ lower life expectancy and higher morbidity in the tropics are then blamed on the inability to establish good institutions.
Anglo-settler privilege
However, correct interpretation of statistical findings is crucial. Sanjay Reddy offers a very different understanding of AJR’s econometric analysis.
The greater success of Anglo settlers could also be due to colonial ethnic bias in their favour rather than better institutions. Unsurprisingly, imperial racist Winston Churchill’s History of the English-Speaking Peoplescelebrates such Anglophone Europeans.
AJR’s evidence, criticised as misleading on other counts, does not necessarily support the idea that institutional quality (equated with property rights enforcement) really matters for growth, development and equality.
Reddy notes that international economic circumstances favouring Anglos have shaped growth and development. British Imperial Preference favoured such settlers over tropical colonies subjected to extractivist exploitation. Settler colonies also received most British investments abroad.
For Reddy, enforcing Anglo-American private property rights has been neither necessary nor sufficient to sustain economic growth. For instance, East Asian economies have pragmatically used alternative institutional arrangements to incentivise catching up.
He notes that “the authors’ inverted approach to concepts” has confused “the property rights-entrenching economies that they favor as ‘inclusive’, by way of contrast to resource-centered ‘extractive’ economies.”
Property vs popular rights
AJR’s claim that property rights ensure an ‘inclusive’ economy is also far from self-evident. Reddy notes that a Rawlsian property-owning democracy with widespread ownership contrasts sharply with a plutocratic oligarchy.
Nor does AJR persuasively explain how property rights ensured political inclusion. Protected by the law, colonial settlers often violently defended their acquired land against ‘hostile’ indigenes, denying indigenous land rights and claiming their property.
‘Inclusive’ political concessions in the British Empire were mainly limited to the settler-colonial dominions. In other colonies, self-governance and popular franchises were only grudgingly conceded under pressure.
Prior exclusion of indigenous rights and claims enabled such inclusion, especially when surviving ‘natives’ were no longer deemed threatening. Traditional autochthonous rights were circumscribed, if not eliminated, by settler colonists.
Entrenching property rights has also consolidated injustice and inefficiency. Many such rights proponents oppose democracy and other inclusive and participatory political institutions that have often helped mitigate conflicts.
The Nobel committee is supporting NIE’s legitimisation of property/wealth inequality and unequal development. Rewarding AJR also seeks to re-legitimise the neoliberal project at a time when it is being rejected more widely than ever before.
When I left home at 17, I knew I wanted to go to college. I knew earning a degree would help me find a path to a more secure future. And I knew that I was interested in pursuing a career focused on social justice.
I also had no idea how I could afford college when I was already working multiple jobs just to earn enough money to make ends meet. I had never met my father, and I had a rocky relationship with my mother, so I was largely on my own. Fortunately, I was able to use financial aid to enroll at Prairie State College, a community college just outside of Chicago. It remains the best decision I have ever made.
I thrived at Prairie State, where I was surrounded by an incredible community of faculty, staff and other students who had my back at every turn. The support I received eventually allowed me to earn a scholarship and transfer to a four-year college to begin my pre-law journey.
I’m now a senior at Howard University, where it remains all too obvious that the four-year college experience is not designed for transfer students like me — a realization that leaves us feeling isolated and overlooked.
Like many transfer students, I felt stigmatized during the admissions process and alienated by other students; I didn’t get an orientation when I started, as first-year students do; and many of my previous credits didn’t transfer with me.
That even an HBCU — commonly known for community-building efforts — struggles to effectively support transfer students underscores the gravity of this issue.
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Solving such challenges will require four-year universities to reimagine how they support transfer students. Creating a sense of belonging for learners is critical. Research shows that students who feel as though they belong at their institution are more likely to remain and persist. Developing that connection can be challenging for transfer students, especially those coming from community colleges, as there are typically so few of us on a given campus.
Some 80 percent of community college students aspire to earn a bachelor’s degree, yet just one-third transfer to a four-year institution. In total, community college transfers account for just 5 percent of undergraduate students at elite colleges and universities.
The most obvious starting point for institutions looking to better support transfer students from community colleges is to admit more of us. This can be achieved by intensifying outreach efforts at local two-year colleges and more effectively promoting the message that transferring to a selective, four-year university is not only possible but encouraged. Some schools are already making an effort to admit more transfer students.
Community college transfer students can find themselves adrift in their new institutions due to a lack of proper guidance and support. We are typically not given the insider knowledge required to navigate the complexities of a four-year university. For example, I’ve been excluded from being a part of student-led organizations that I would have needed to join as a freshman — when I was still in community college. A history of belonging to these organizations is mandatory when being considered for larger and more prominent selective organizations, including sororities and fraternities.
The absence of a support system can transform what initially felt like an exciting step forward into a daunting and solitary journey. I am fortunate to have benefited from the support of the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation, which provides me with access to a network of fellow transfer students and alumni who have successfully navigated this path.
But many transfer students are not as lucky.
Colleges could help by connecting transfer students with one another — either through on-campus groups or external organizations — to ensure they have the support, community and resources they need to thrive.
Schools should make it clear that transfer students will be warmly welcomed and supported throughout their academic journey. By doing so, these schools can begin to foster a more inclusive environment, one that acknowledges and values the unique perspectives community college students bring.
Colleges should also work to dismantle obstacles that complicate the transfer process and serve as subtle deterrents to students. Every prohibitive application fee, convoluted form or arbitrary rule might as well be a sign that says, “Turn back now.”
For example, students lose an estimated 43 percent of their credits when they transfer, wiping out semesters of hard work, extending their time and increasing their costs to a degree. Institutions can proactively create clearer, more consistent transfer agreements with local community colleges, guaranteeing that credits will transfer.
The financial aid and application processes for transfer students, who are not typically provided financial award packages upon admission, must also take into account their unique needs and circumstances.
Here’s why this all matters: Data is clear that students who transfer from a community college are just as capable of succeeding as students who are first-time freshmen or transfer from four-year institutions.
We know we can do this. We just need opportunities and support.
Rebbie Davis is an English major, Philosophy minor who previously attended Prairie State College before transferring to Howard University. She is president of the Howard University Writers Guild and vice chair of HU’s Future Law Scholars’ board of directors.
The Hechinger Report provides in-depth, fact-based, unbiased reporting on education that is free to all readers. But that doesn’t mean it’s free to produce. Our work keeps educators and the public informed about pressing issues at schools and on campuses throughout the country. We tell the whole story, even when the details are inconvenient. Help us keep doing that.
Data is now everywhere in our lives, informing our decisions about which new show to watch, what path to take or whether to grab an umbrella. But it’s practically absent from the way our kids learn.
Our approach to teaching data science and data literacy has hardly evolved since I started my teaching career in 1995. Yet now more than ever, K-12 students need basic modern data science skills.
Nearly 1 in 4 job postings in the United States require data science skills. These aren’t just tech jobs — they span industries from manufacturing to agriculture to transportation. The ability to capture, sort and analyze data is as important for small business owners as it is for computer scientists.
Now is the time to reprioritize curricular emphases to reflect the importance of data science and data literacy. With data talent in high demand globally, other countries are investing billions in data education.
But American K-12 education still underemphasizes data science and data literacy skills — including the ability to understand qualitative and quantitative data, assess claims based on data and make data-driven predictions.
How do we know? Look at the data.
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Data science education is typically reserved for higher education, but only slightly more than a third of Americans have a college degree. The opportunity to learn basic data skills should not be reserved for a select group of students.
Every student needs a chance to practice these vital skills from kindergarten through high school. That’s why I am excited for the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics to be a part of Data Science 4 Everyone’s national Chart the Course initiative, exploring the integration of data literacy and science across our most important school subjects. It will build upon NCTM’s work to reimagine, revitalize and increase math’s relevance for high schoolers.
As president of NCTM, I’ve had the honor of helping to lead the mathematics education community through a time of profound technological change, which has included developing a position statement on AI.
Additionally, in partnership with the National Science Teaching Association, the Computer Science Teachers Association, the National Council for the Social Studies and the American Statistical Association, we made an unprecedented joint call to build data science as an interdisciplinary subject across K-12 education.
Early in my teaching career, we focused on teaching students how to use a dataset to create a bar graph or scatter plot. Now, students need to know how to formulate the question that will generate the data, how to collect the data and how to interpret the data.
Students are eager to make sense of the world around them, but many don’t see how classroom instruction is related to the problems they will face as adults.
Data — in the form of numbers, graphics and videos — can provide the hook that pulls students into lessons with real-world examples and applications.
While a math teacher might look at a graph and observe that a certain variable decreased, a social studies teacher might say, “Of course there was a decrease, look at what was happening at that moment in history.”
If we want students to think with and use data analysis skills in their everyday lives during and after high school, we need to create relevant data-learning experiences that engage students in using statistics to make sense of the world around them. This will also result in better test scores because students will understand the material and be able to apply what they know.
We are now joining with Data Science 4 Everyone in an even broader effort to create the first-ever national K-12 data learning progression that stretches across school subjects. It will shape how generations of students study data.
Educator voices are vital to this process. We need input from the people who are closest to students and who will be rolling out data science lessons in their classrooms, so we’re asking them to weigh in. We need to engage our educators in order to effect change.
Data Science 4 Everyone’s Chart the Course voting platform is open through October 31, and we are encouraging teachers to vote for the learning outcomes they believe are the most important for K-12 students to learn by the time they graduate from high school.
The selection of the learning outcome options in Chart the Course was informed by 11 focus groups made up of students, educators, higher education leaders, policymakers, researchers, curriculum designers and industry professionals.
The collaborative approach was designed to create a framework that meets the needs of students and reflects the cross-disciplinary potential of data science. We hope to equip students with the skills they need to understand data and think critically and carefully as they interact with AI tools and draw their own conclusions about the world around them.
Engaging with data is a way to make education relevant for all our students and bring our many subjects together in unique ways. It’s time to chart a course that connects classroom learning to the lives of students. That should be our goal for all teachers.
Kevin Dykema is president of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM), an international mathematics education organization with more than 30,000 members. He has taught eighth grade mathematics for over 25 years in southwest Michigan.
The Hechinger Report provides in-depth, fact-based, unbiased reporting on education that is free to all readers. But that doesn’t mean it’s free to produce. Our work keeps educators and the public informed about pressing issues at schools and on campuses throughout the country. We tell the whole story, even when the details are inconvenient. Help us keep doing that.
Deodat Maharaj, Managing Director of the United Nations Technology Bank for Least Developed Countries
Opinion by Deodat Maharaj (united nations)
Inter Press Service
UNITED NATIONS, Oct 18 (IPS) – Last month, world leaders gathered at the time of the UN General Assembly in New York and agreed on a pioneering Pact for the Future. This global accord has implications across a broad range of issues that affect every country. It offers much hope for the poorest and most vulnerable countries on the planet, known as Least Developed Countries (LDCs).
The world’s 45 LDCs are home to a billion people who face systemic underdevelopment marked by poverty, inadequate health systems, poor infrastructure and limited access to education and technology.
While some progress has been made during the last decade, less than a fifth of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are on track to be met. For example, only around 60% of children in least developed countries complete primary school despite improving literacy rates across the globe. Healthcare disparities are also stark, with maternal mortality rates averaging 430 deaths per 100,000 live births in low-income countries compared to 13 per 100,000 in wealthier nations.
The Pact for the Future, along with its two annexes, the Global Digital Compact and the Declaration on Future Generations, offers an inclusive roadmap aimed at accelerating progress towards the SDGs. By also leveraging advancements in science, technology and innovation, the framework seeks to dislodge decades of stagnation and inequality.
The Pact for the Future outlines several key commitments: On digital cooperation, the Global Digital Compact presents targeted actions for a safer, more inclusive, more equitable digital world by closing the digital divide and expanding inclusion in the digital economy.
On sustainable development and financing for development, the Pact reaffirms the 2030 Agenda and places the eradication of poverty at the centre of efforts to achieve it. Amongst the proposed actions, it pledges to close the SDG financing gap and strengthen efforts to address climate change, which is disproportionately impacting LDCs.
On financial reform, the Pact seeks an overhaul of global financial systems, including by granting developing countries a greater voice in decision-making. It seeks to mobilize additional financing for the SDGs and generally making finance more readily available. The Pact also addresses the unsustainable debt burdens of many LDCs.
This novel Pact for the Future has the potential to give a push to the development agenda across the developing world, but especially so in LDCs. However, for success, there are some prerequisites. Firstly, there is the matter of financing. It is good to see the welcome emphasis on boosting financing for developing countries and making it more accessible. With finance, the possibilities are unlimited. Without finance, progress will once more be stymied. Therefore, the international community must match words with action.
Secondly, the role of business as an essential partner is key. A government-centric approach on its own cannot and will not work. More specifically, there must be attention to the micro, small and medium-scale enterprises sector, which accounts for the majority of businesses and generates the bulk of employment in most developing countries. Systematic support for digitalisation, innovation and the application of technology to this sector will create jobs and opportunities whilst boosting inclusive growth.
Thirdly, multilateralism is vital. The Pact for the Future has enormous potential, with the power to materially shift the dial for least-developed countries. However, it will require international cooperation, sustained political will and strong accountability mechanisms. If realised, this bold initiative could become the catalyst for new technological investments that can help shape an equally bold future for the world’s poorest.
At its core, the UN’s Pact for the Future is a blueprint for renewed cooperation in a fragmented world and offers much hope. There may not be another such opportunity. Let us seize the moment.
Note: Deodat Maharaj is the Managing Director of the United Nations Technology Bank for Least Developed Countries and can be contacted at: [email protected]
Even if you can chuckle at a golf company putting a YouTube channel logo on a driver and charging $700, accept that the polo in the pro shop can easily cost upwards of $100, rationalize the cost and hassle of the trip to the top-tier golf resort, or nap your way through umpteen “playing through” commercial breaks on the Sunday afternoon broadcast, at least live professional golf has generally been good.
You walk around or find a good spot and take a seat. And either way, you see the best players in the world in competition closer than just about any other sport can offer. Most of the time it’s an excellent value — I can buy a ticket right now for Sunday at the 2025 U.S. Open at Oakmont Country Club outside of Pittsburgh for $185.
That would not get me past the gates on Tuesday at the 2025 Ryder Cup, three full days before the competition actually begins. And if I actually wanted to see Scottie Scheffler, Jon Rahm and the rest of the best players in the world in an alternate shot match? The PGA of America has made it beyond the limits of most golf fans.
A single ticket for each match day at the Ryder Cup at Bethpage Black in New York will cost $749.51.
Seven hundred and forty-nine dollars and 51 cents. For one ticket. For one day.
It’s beyond. It just is. I do not want to hear about supply and demand, or how much tickets go for on the resale sites. Rory McIlroy is not Taylor Swift, and face value for tickets to her shows is nowhere near that high.
The Ryder Cup is a massive event with ticket prices that now reflect that. (Adam Cairns / USA Today)
That’s four times the prices at the last U.S.-hosted Ryder Cup, at Whistling Straits in 2021. It’s $255.27 to attend practice days, and $423.64 for Thursday’s practice round, opening ceremony and celebrity competition. Has the PGA of America gone mad?
They rationalize that these tickets are actually Ryder Cup+ tickets, a marketing ploy that means I can get all the food and non-alcoholic drinks I desire. How good are these hot dogs if I have to pay an extra $500 for them? And can you bring a case of them around to the parking lot? Because I’ll need to bring them home to feed the family for a while. Throw in some buns, yes.
It will cost a family of four $3000 to attend the Ryder Cup. I’m not arguing everything should be for everyone, but that feels excessive, no?
I expect the crowd at Bethpage Black, as a result, to be a bizarre mix. On one hand, it’ll be overly corporate, because those charge cards don’t blink. Those fans also do not care what’s happening on the course, because they’re more concerned with making deals under the tents. Then you’ll have the crowd that has scraped together the cash to get in, and feels that paying $1,000 (once you include parking, merchandise and alcoholic drinks) entitles them to do and say anything they damn well please. Should be fun!
Normal golf fans are outraged. They should be. We have put up with years of bickering and lawsuits, and desperate decisions that aided bank accounts and made the product worse. Purses have never been higher, but the same can be said for the costs of sponsoring and airing a PGA Tour event. That means more commercials and less golf shots, and we wonder why TV ratings are down week to week.
But at least the live product was good. It still is — if you live near a pro golf stop on any tour, you should go. You’ll probably enjoy it.
But the Ryder Cup is the Ryder Cup. It’s the only event we have that can rival the Masters, and it brings out a sense of nationalism in all of us. The stakes feel so high that the anticipation for every shot is heightened, and the atmosphere around that first tee box can take your breath away.
I hope you can experience it one day. I hope you’ve been lucky enough to be able to go to Bethpage and not worry about the cost. But if you can’t, I hope what has been done here is only an outlier, and not a sign of what is to come.
Opinion by Danielle Nierenberg (baltimore, maryland usa)
Inter Press Service
BALTIMORE, Maryland USA, Oct 14 (IPS) – World Food Day 2024
World Food Day seems like it should be a time to celebrate. A day to eat delicious meals and enjoy the rich traditions and cultures of food around the globe.
But it’s difficult to celebrate when conflict, the climate crisis, and our biodiversity loss crisis leave at least 733 million people hungry around the world. Dr. Evan Fraser from the Arrell Food Institute at the University of Guelph calls these cascading crises. And the results are dire.
According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), in 2023, one in 11 people worldwide faced hunger last year. And one in five people in Africa experience hunger.
If current trends continue, more than 582 million people will be chronically undernourished in 2030, with half of these folks living on the continent of Africa, according to FAO and four additional United Agencies. That’s less than 6 years away, which means we have a lot of work to do.
Fortunately, we already know what works. The theme of this year’s World Food Day is Right to Foods for a Better Life and a Better Future. Everyone deserves healthy, nutrient rich, safe, and delicious food.
And the United Nations says, “A greater diversity of nutritious foods should be available in our fields, in our markets, and on our tables, for the benefit of all.” I would add that we also need a diversity of people, practices and thought to help feed the world.
This year the prestigious World Food Prize will be awarded to the Special Envoy for Food Security, Dr. Cary Fowler, and agricultural scientist Dr. Geoffrey Hawtin. These two individuals, according to the World Food Prize Foundation, are being awarded for “their extraordinary leadership in preserving and protecting the world’s heritage of crop biodiversity and mobilizing this critical resource to defend against threats to global food security.”
And Dr. Fowler is working to encourage farmers and governments to grow “opportunity crops” like cowpea, millet, sorghum, and other ancient and resilient foods. These crops have often been overlooked in favor of maize, rice, and other so-called staples, but they have, again, the opportunity to solve a multitude of problems. They build soil health and if storage and processing can improve in places like sub-Saharan Africa, they can be profitable.
Another solution—and it should be obvious—is empowering women and girls. We are systematically underutilizing at least 50 percent of the world’s population. Equal rights for women are not only an ethical and moral imperative, but can help solve the hunger crisis.
According to FAO, if women had the same access to resources as men—education, access to credit and financial services, extension, and respect—they could lift as many as 100 million people out of hunger. And equal rights are good for the economy. And according to Betty Chinyamunyamu of the National Smallholder Farmers’ Association of Malawi, “gender integration makes good business sense.”
In addition, women are often growing the foods that are actually nutritious—including those opportunity crops, but also fruits and vegetables that contribute to agrobiodiversity. “Women’s empowerment has a positive impact on agricultural production, food security, diets and child nutrition,” states FAO’s Status of Women in Agrifood Systems. Making sure that women are empowered in all aspects of their lives just makes common sense.
Moreover, farmers—small, medium, and large—literally need a seat at the table, from in person input at international dialogues like COP29, the U.N. Climate Change Conference, to co-creating technologies with scientists and entrepreneurs that will actually solve the problems that farmers are experiencing in fields and ranches.
Good Nature Agro in Zambia, for example, is developing with farmers ways to prevent post-harvest losses and more sustainably manage their farmland. And the organization Global Alliance of Latinos in Agriculture aims to create a world where farmers and ranchers thrive globally—and they plan to bring hundreds of producers to COP30 in Belem, Brazil next year.
This World Food Day (October 16), the Arrell Food Institute is bringing together agri-food leaders and experts dive into solutions like diversity, empowering women, and putting farmers in the drivers’ seat to create a more safe and sustainable global food system. A food system that works for everyone.
Hopefully, in the not-so-distant future, World Food Day will actually be a day to celebrate.
Danielle Nierenberg is President and Founder, Food Tank, which describes itself as a global community that inspires, motivates, and activates positive transformation in how we produce and consume food.
The iconic Chinese fishing nets along the Kerala coast offer a picturesque scene that draws tourists from around the world. However, the fishworkers that have used them for centuries livelihoods are in peril. Credit: Aishwarya Bajpai/IPS
Opinion by Aishwarya Bajpai (kochi, india)
Inter Press Service
KOCHI, India, Oct 10 (IPS) – Fishworkers are often invisible in discussions about climate change, yet they are at the heart of food security, feeding millions while struggling to feed their own families. Their fight for survival is not just about tradition or livelihood—it’s about justice. Shouldn’t their futures be at the forefront of climate justice debates?Every morning before dawn, fishworkers along the shores of Kochi, Kerala, head out to sea, casting their nets in the shadow of the iconic Cheenavala—the Chinese fishing nets that have become a symbol of their community. I witnessed this time-honored tradition, once a reliable means of survival, now a daily gamble, a fight against unpredictable seas and shrinking fish populations.
The COVID-19 pandemic exposed how vulnerable they are; despite being classified as essential workers, they were left without the protections they needed.
And now, as climate change tightens its grip, these fishworkers find themselves on the front lines of a new crisis. Rising sea temperatures, erratic weather, and depleting fish stocks have pushed them further into despair, forcing them to navigate a future as uncertain as the waters they depend on.
Martin, a fishworker from Kochi, Kerala, who smiled and invited me on his boat, has been fishing for over 25 years, reflecting on the mounting hardships. After a while explaining to me about the huge boat and the process of fishing, he said, “In these difficult times, when the government should be supporting us after generations of families have relied on fishing, we are left with nothing and are desperate for help. We purchase our tools and equipment for fishing, yet there’s no assistance from the government for education or healthcare.”
Fishworkers face uncertain future due to climate change and a lack of support from government. Credit: Aishwarya Bajpai/IPS
Martin continued, “Five to six people work on a boat, and money has to be given to the owner as well. We have started to rely on tourism now, where we invite tourists, especially foreigners, onto our boats (private property) to explain our craft and fishing process, for which we sometimes get compensated. Some are generous, and some are not! This used to be the only way of earning in the rough season (Monsoon Fishing Ban), but now, after the climate change, this has become the only source of income for us.”
Kochi, once known as Cochin, was a major global trading hub. It drew merchants from Arabia and China in the 1400s, and later the Portuguese established Cochin as their protectorate, making it the first capital of Portuguese India in 1530.
Today, the city’s rich architectural heritage, along with the iconic Cheenavala (Chinese fishing nets), are major tourist attractions. Fishermen here use these Chinese fishing nets as a traditional method of fishing.
Believed to have been introduced by the Chinese explorer Zheng He from the court of Kublai Khan, these iconic nets became a part of Kochi’s landscape between 1350 and 1450 AD. The technique, which is quite impressive to witness, involves large, shore-based nets that are suspended in the air by bamboo/teakwood supports and lowered into the water to catch fish without the need to venture out to sea. The entire structure is counterbalanced by heavy stones, making it an eco-friendly practice that preserves marine life and vegetation, relying solely on natural materials without harmful gadgets.
Once a vital tool for sustaining the livelihoods of Kochi’s fishworkers, the traditional Cheenavala fishing nets have now become a symbol of a deepening crisis. Climate change, particularly the warming of the Arabian Sea, has drastically reduced fish populations.
Ironically, the government profits from promoting this iconic symbol even as the seafood industry faces closures, with four export-oriented fish processing units shutting down in Kerela in recent months due to the shortage of fish. This stark contrast highlights the growing disconnect between tradition and survival in the face of climate change.
The walls of Kerala are adorned with graffiti advocating for fishworkers and marine biodiversity. In Kochi, a mural reads, “Save the largest fish on Earth,” calling attention to the need for conservation. Credit: Aishwarya Bajpai/IPS
Despite the Chinese fishing nets being a major tourist attraction, the government has shown little or no interest in preserving them. The process started in 2014 when a Chinese delegation, led by Hao Jia, a senior official of the Chinese embassy in India, met with Kochi’s then-mayor, Tony Chammany, to help renovate the nets and proposed constructing a pavement along Fort Kochi beach.
KJ Sohan, former mayor of Kochi and president of the Chinese Fishing Net Owners’ Association, expressed his support for the Chinese initiative to preserve the traditional fishing nets. He emphasized that such large nets, rooted in ancient techniques, are unique to this region. However, he also highlighted the significant governmental neglect of these nets. Insurance companies refuse to cover them, and they need to be replaced twice a year, which incurs substantial costs.
The Tourism Department later instructed the Kerala Industrial and Technology Consultancy Organisation (KITCO) to refurbish 11 of these nets and allotted 2.4 crore rupees (24 million), along with teakwood and Malabar for the repairs.
The authorities had initially refused to release funds directly, requiring the owners to start the refurbishment first, with promises of staggered payments. It has recently come to light that the boat owners, many of whom took out high-interest loans to begin the renovation, are now in financial distress as they have yet to receive the promised government funds, despite completing the work over a year ago.
A Chinese fishing net on the coast of Kochi, Kerala (India). Credit: Aishwarya Bajpai/IPS
Many took out loans and installed new coconut timber stumps, but even after nearly finishing the work, they are still waiting for the funds. This has left the fishworkers in debt while authorities cite GST-related issues for the delay. The owners argue they are exempt from the tax.
Fishworkers, both men and women, are often invisible in discussions about climate change, yet they are at the heart of food security, feeding millions while struggling to feed their own families. Their fight for survival is not just about tradition or livelihood—it’s about justice. If the government continues to turn a blind eye, Kerala’s fishworkers may have no choice but to seek support elsewhere, from international bodies, non-governmental organizations, or global climate finance mechanisms. Their struggles must be recognized, and their voices amplified in the push for climate justice.
Kerala’s fishworkers are not just battling the seas—they are fighting for their future. Without immediate action and meaningful support, we risk losing not only their livelihoods but an entire way of life. If the government cannot rise to the occasion, the world must step in to ensure that these communities do not slip into obscurity.
September 26th marks the International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons. Credit: International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN)Darren Ornitz
Opinion by Tariq Rauf (vienna, austria)
Inter Press Service
VIENNA, Austria, Oct 08 (IPS) – In recent years, the rhetoric, strategy and practice of nuclear deterrence has grown riskier, more urgent, more dangerous, less stable, and increasingly in the hands of deficient leaders and policymakers.
Playing Nuclear Games
The ten States that have manufactured and test detonated nuclear weapons since 1945, each have received and/or provided assistance to other States – no existing nuclear weapon development and acquisition programme is truly indigenous or independent.
Furthermore, all ten nuclear-armed States have in place policies to use their nuclear weapons in circumstances assessed by them as threatening their vital security interests, sovereignty and territorial integrity; and in this context, all of them at one time or another have made implicit or explicit threats to use nuclear weapons.
On 26th September this year, at the commencement of the United Nations General Assembly’s annual high-level commemoration of the International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons, Secretary-General António Guterres warned that, “We are heading in the wrong direction entirely. Not since the worst days of the cold war has the spectre of nuclear weapons cast such a dark shadow”. He noted that nuclear-armed States “must stop gambling with humanity’s future” and must honour their commitments and obligations for nuclear disarmament.
The President of the General Assembly, Philémon Yang (Cameroon), also warned that, “This is a time when nuclear blackmail has emerged, and some are recklessly threatening to unleash a nuclear catastrophe. This simply cannot continue. We must step back from the nuclear precipice, and we must act now”.
In this regard, let’s take a brief detour back into the early history of the nuclear age. Following the Trinity nuclear test detonation of 16th July 1945, nuclear scientist Leó Szilárd observed that, “Almost without exception, all the creative physicists had misgivings about the use of the bomb” and further that “Truman did not understand at all what was involved regarding nuclear weapons”.
Last year, the movie Oppenheimer had been the rage based on a noteworthy biography of Robert Oppenheimer entitled American Prometheus written by historians Kai Bird and Martin Sherwin. Though the movie spared its viewers the horrors of the atomic bombing of Japan, it did reflect the warnings of the early nuclear weapon scientists about the long-term or permanent dangers of a nuclear arms race and associated risks of further nuclear weapons use.
On the other hand, the film overlooked other historical works including A World Destroyed: Hiroshima and its Legacies also by Martin Sherwin, that disputes and negates the US government’s narrative about the necessity of using nuclear weapons twice over civilian targets in Japan and suggests that the decisions were driven mainly by geostrategic and prestige considerations – criteria still in operation today to justify continuing retention of nuclear weapons.
Leó Szilárd’s observation that I have cited above that President Truman did not understand at all what was involved regarding nuclear weapons, unfortunately still rings true nearly 80 years on when it comes to the leaders of today’s nuclear-weapon possessor States as well as of most of their diplomats and those of 30-plus countries in military defence and security arrangements underpinned by nuclear weapons.
Now, why do I say this? In addition to nuclear doctrines based on nuclear weapons use, the UN nuclear disarmament system is in disarray. The Conference on Disarmament in Geneva, the single multilateral arms control negotiating forum, has been stymied since 1996, unable to agree on a sustained programme of work on any of its “decalogue” of agenda items.
The Disarmament Commission as the specialized, deliberative subsidiary body of the General Assembly that allows for in-depth deliberations on specific disarmament issues, inter alia “Recommendations for achieving the objective of nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation of nuclear weapons”, also has been deadlocked.
The First Committee of the General Assembly deals with disarmament, global challenges and threats to peace that affect the international community and seeks out solutions to the challenges in the international security regime. Every year it adopts more than 60 resolutions on various aspects of disarmament, but with no practical results in recent years.
The 2015 and 2022 nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) review conferences failed to agree on any measures to reduce the risks of nuclear weapons and their elimination. As did the 2023 and 2024 preparatory sessions for the 2026 NPT review conference.
The UN Summit of the Future, held on 22-23 September this year, agreed on a Pact for the Future that regrettably was a big disappointment as it lacked any concrete actions, even though it paid lip service to the call that the “The time for the total elimination of nuclear weapons is now”. The document failed to reaffirm commitments to existing global nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation treaties, or to call for new ones to be negotiated.
Notably the late UN Secretary General Kofi Annan had referred to this state of affairs as “mutually assured paralysis“, and that the “disarmament machinery is rusting”.
It is unfortunate that the above-referenced developments and the current nuclear rhetoric demonstrates that knowledge of nuclear history is waning thin and diplomats, academics and the mainstream media pundits are caught up with the emotions, pressures and even confusion of challenging technological advances in weapons, an ongoing territorial war in the heart of Europe, a genocidal war against Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon, along with tensions in Northeast Asia and South Asia.
In effect, those in control of nuclear weapons today, along with the echo chambers in allied States in defence arrangements underpinned by nuclear deterrence, are playing games tickling the tail of the Promethean nuclear fire dragon.
Tickling the Tail of the Promethean Nuclear Fire Dragon
All nuclear-armed States today have in place policies and doctrines to use their nuclear weapons. In order to constrain the further proliferation of nuclear-armed States, the five NPT recognized “nuclear-weapon States” each have advanced negative security assurances to non-nuclear-weapon States parties to the NPT and to nuclear-weapon-free zone treaties, on the non-use or threat of use of nuclear weapons.
China is the only nuclear-weapon State to assert that it would not use nuclear weapons against any non-nuclear-weapon State. The other four nuclear-weapon States – France, Russia, UK and US – each have attached conditions to their negative security assurances to the effect that such an assurance would not be honoured were it to be attacked by a non-nuclear-weapon State in collaboration or with the assistance of another nuclear-weapon State.
The nuclear weapons employment policy of the United States clearly posits that “using nuclear weapons could create conditions for decisive results and the restoration of strategic stability”. For its part, Russian military doctrine envisions the threat of nuclear escalation or even first use of nuclear weapons to “de-escalate” a conflict on terms favourable to Russia.
China’s evolving nuclear doctrine envisions a “strong military dream” based on military-civil-fusion to achieve by 2049 full spectrum power projection. In South Asia, both India and Pakistan have nuclear doctrines positing use of nuclear weapons including pre-emptive nuclear strikes.
In the current heated and volatile atmosphere in central Europe in the context of the Ukraine war, it is reported that Russia is re-asserting the conditions it has traditionally laid down in its negative security assurances to States parties to the NPT and to nuclear-weapon-free zones (NWFZ), which essentially are similar to that of the US, to the effect that: Russia will not attack or threaten to attack a non-nuclear-weapon State party to the NPT or NWFZ treaty with nuclear weapons, unless that non-nuclear-weapon State attacks Russia in collaboration with another nuclear-weapon State.
Now, since we’re in a proxy war involving France, UK and US (all three are nuclear-weapon States) that are considering material assistance to Ukraine to attack military sites inside the territorial borders of Russia; it is not surprising that Russia has retaliated by warning Ukraine and its NATO backers that long range fires against Russia targeting its strategic military bases could trigger a nuclear response by Russia.
Strategic nuclear bases are those housing strategic nuclear delivery systems (long- and medium-range bombers, road and rail mobile ballistic missiles), command and control centres, early warning radars, naval bases for submarines, etc.
It is never a good idea for a non-nuclear-weapon State to threaten to target or to target strategic military sites in a nuclear-weapon State and it would be foolhardy to set such a precedent or to carry out military strikes that could provoke a nuclear response.
Were Ukraine to strike strategic military sites inside Russia proper, that would be the first time that a non-nuclear-weapon State would strike the continental homeland of a nuclear-armed State; though one might add that Iran’s recent missile strikes against nuclear-armed Israel fall into the same category.
Should the US/NATO allow long range fires against strategic military sites in Russia from Ukraine, that would further compound the already unacceptably high risk of a central strategic war involving four nuclear-weapon States and thus would be highly irresponsible and indefensible.
Departing NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg made comments in Washington to the effect that long range fires from Ukraine into Russian territory is the only one way to hit military targets behind the Russian lines, on Russian territory.
And that NATO should not be deterred by Russia’s “nuclear threats and rhetoric”; this in a way is questioning the credibility of Russian nuclear doctrine which is tantamount to “tickling the tail of the nuclear dragon” and could result in a Promethean nuclear fire of a central strategic war.
The new NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte also has claimed that “targeting Russian fighter jets and missiles before they can be used against Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure can help save lives”.
A just and equitable peace arrangement must be sought urgently under UN auspices to end the Ukraine war with the restoration of Ukraine’s sovereignty and territory; and all sides must strive to avoid any further escalatory moves that could trigger a central strategic war.
Seek Peace, Not War!
It is highly reprehensible that these days the voices of war are prevalent over the voices seeking peace. The UN disarmament machinery has failed as has the Summit of the Future to curb nuclear risks. The architecture of nuclear disarmament and arms control is steadily crumbing with our eyes wide shut!
Unless we can mend our ways, it might be too late to avert a Promethean nuclear fire that consumes us all. We urgently must rethink how we manage nuclear risks; security based on nuclear deterrence is inherently flawed and risky and cannot continue on a long term basis.
A new international security system must be envisaged on the basic design principle that the effects of system failure cannot result to fundamentally disrupt or end civilization. We urgently need a new international security paradigm that can prevent an existential global nuclear catastrophe and keep the Promethean nuclear fire dragon firmly bottled up.
The views expressed in this article are personal comments by Tariq Rauf, former Head of Verification and Security Policy at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
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