Turkey’s crisis has reached unexpected levels in the last year as the lira first crossed the psychological barrier of US$1 to 10 liras, then 15 liras, and now just over 18 liras. That means savings in Turkish currency are now worth less than half of what they were in 2021. The massive downturn has pushed the hopeless and mostly young citizens into extreme and desperate action.

The 2022 Living Planet report is out and it does not bring good news. Since 1970, scientists find that the population of fresh water species has plunged by 83 percent, while the population of wildlife species has fallen 69 percent. There has been virtual extinction-level loss in Latin America, where the population abundance of wildlife species plummeted by 94 percent.

Given the current crisis of politics, agency, history, and memory, educators need a new political and pedagogical language for addressing the changing contexts and issues facing a world in which anti-democratic forces draw upon an unprecedented convergence of resources to exercise powerful and diverse forms of control.

Haitians’ are right to be angry at Canada. In the last two decades alone Canada helped destabilize Haiti’s elected government, planned a coup, and participated in an invasion to topple a president. Ottawa also trained and financed a highly repressive police force, enabling a litany of politically motivated arrests and killings.

This October, the United Nations Security Council is holding meetings to discuss the conflict in Western Sahara. Numerous African countries including South Sudan, Algeria, and Namibia have been vocal in their support for the implementation of a solution to the conflict, including through “a free and fair referendum,” but Western countries have mostly remained silent.

The engine driving the lynching of Julian is not here on Pennsylvania Avenue. It is in Langley, Virginia, located at a complex we will never be allowed to surround. It is driven by a secretive inner state, one where we do not count in the mad pursuit of empire and ruthless exploitation. Because the machine of this modern leviathan was exposed by Julian and WikiLeaks, the machine demands revenge.

Canadian society is generally uncomfortable acknowledging the state’s historic responsibility for acts of genocide perpetrated against Indigenous peoples. Yet, with a resurgent nationalist right and forms of residential school denialism undermining truth and reconciliation efforts, the need for a rigorous process of self-reflection is perhaps more important than ever.

Shock doctrine was the term used by Naomi Klein to describe the destruction of public services and the welfare state by governments from the 1980s. Now the major central banks are applying their own ‘shock therapy’ to the world economy, intent on driving up interest rates in order to control inflation, despite the growing evidence that this will lead to a global recession next year.

The OECD estimates that, under a “business-as-usual” scenario, plastic waste will triple globally by 2060. Until policymakers, voters, and consumers exercise their muscle to reduce plastic pollution at the source, the petrochemical industry will continue feeding the global plastic dependence regardless of the consequences for public health and planetary well-being.

The challenges facing Lula, and Brazilians in general, are the same ones we all face: how do we prioritize people’s needs over corporate greed, and how do we elevate the rights of human beings, of women, people of colour, Indigenous communities, and the environment, in the face of a rising fascism that deploys organized disinformation so effectively?