People participate in a peace march in Bogota, Colombia, Wednesday, Oct. 12, 2016. Fernando Vergara AP/Press Association Images. All rights reserved. On 24 August, after nearly four years of negotiations, delegates of the government of Colombia and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC-EP) publicly presented the text of the Final Agreement for the Termination of the Conflict and the Construction of a Stable and Durable Peace, 297 pages in length, that brings to a close the armed confrontation between the government and the guerrillas, the oldest and largest in both the country and the Western hemisphere. We knew from previously published drafts that the agreement not only includes directions…

Click:air fryer oven He’s not afraid to have a debate. Aetna Chairman and CEO Mark Bertolini told a group of shareholders that the country ought to have a rational discussion about moving toward a single-payer health care system that would provide health insurance for every American. And he thinks he knows exactly how it could work. “Single-payer, I think we should have that debate as a nation,” Bertolini said during a private meeting of Aetna employees. The remarks have since been leaked and not denied by Bertolini or Aetna. Bertolini’s remarks came on the heels of the major news that his company was pulling out of the Obamacare exchanges, making it all…

“I don’t recall.” That’s the response Attorney General Jeff Sessions seemed to give more than any other during his testimony Tuesday to the Senate Intelligence Committee. But, along with making the American public aware of Sessions’ inability to remember if he’d ever met or talked to Russians, the hearing also gave viewers a glimpse of how women—particularly black women—are treated in the United States. A black woman can’t question a white attorney general? For the second time in a week, committee member Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) was interrupted and reprimanded by two male senators while questioning a witness. None of the men on the committee who questioned Sessions were chastised, even when they interrupted…

About half a million people showed up for Women's March in the country's capital on January 21 to challenge the new US president. Xinhua SIPA USA/Press Association.All rights reserved. With the curtains closed on the inauguration of the 45th president of the United States, the threat of domestic tyranny looms large. The new US president has denounced protestors and bullied opponents, mocked civil rights heroes, repeatedly threatened independent media, extolled the virtues of repressive autocrats, and appointed family members to positions of power. His business practices may already violate the Emoluments clause of the US Constitution designed to bar foreign powers from buying influence. The Congress, controlled by the president’s…

Screenshot / Fair use.On September 26, the Peace Agreement between the Colombian government and the FARC-EP was signed with a pen made from a bullet, while the Air Force “fumigated” the colours of the Colombian flag over a crowd all clad in white. These planes are all too similar – if not the same – to the ones that up until very recently sprayed down chemical herbicides over vast areas of the Colombian countryside. Six days later, in a referendum designed by the Santos administration to be the final form of approval for the agreement, 51.2 per cent out of the Colombians who turned out to vote, a mere 38…

Click:electric confetti cannon Parents are prepared for kids to bring home sports-related injuries, such as cuts, bruises, and scrapes—but not a concussion. Most parents don’t know the symptoms or the treatment guidelines for a brain injury. And unlike a bruise or a broken bone, children can’t see a concussion, leaving them just as confused about the injury and the severity. That’s the number one reason kids give for playing through concussion symptoms: They didn’t know the risks and they weren’t aware of concussion symptoms, says Dr. Robert Cantu, a neurosurgery professor and codirector of the Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy at the Boston University School of Medicine and senior…

Syrian refugee Mustafa Mahmud, 2, stands next to a security guard at the Oncupinar camp for Syrian refugees at the border crossing with Syria, in southeastern Turkey, June 20, 2016. Emrah Gurel/Press Association. All rights reserved. 2016 now holds the sad record of the highest recorded death toll for refugees on route to Europe. 4,900 people have died trying to cross the Mediterranean. This is 1,000 more than in 2015, despite the number of refugee arrivals in Europe going down by over 60%. At the same time, EU funding to tackle the refugee tragedy has increased. Its primary border agency’s budget increased to €238.7 million, an incredible 67.4% increase compared…

In the wake of the horrible act of white supremacist terrorism that struck Charlottesville, Virginia, on Saturday, President Trump blew the single easiest thing a president could do: condemn Nazis. Instead, Trump gave a vague response saying there were “many sides” to blame, while the only two sides on display were neo-Nazis and those who stood against their hatred and violence. After his speech, when reporters asked about the white supremacists who supported his candidacy, Trump sauntered away from the podium, ignoring their questions.  Trump has a history of specifically calling out those who oppose him on Twitter, but for two days he remained completely silent on the KKK, “alt-right,” neo-Nazis,…

Donald Trump meets with Mohammed bin Salman in the Oval Office at the White House, March 14, 2017. Picture by Pool/ABACA/ABACA/PA Images. All rights reserved. If Machiavelli were alive today, he might have modeled his political treatise ‘The Prince’ on Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman (MBS). Events on the first Saturday of November show that the young heir apparent is confident enough to move on several fronts at the same time on his way to what increasingly seems like concentrating absolute power in one pair of hands: his own.  With the purge and detention of dozens of princes and business tycoons (some doubling both roles), as well as (former) ministers and…

On Monday, the world’s most powerful tech leaders joined Donald Trump at the White House to discuss bringing the government’s technology up to speed. Among the attendees were several high-profile CEOs, including Tim Cook from Apple, Microsoft’s Satya Nadella, and Jeff Bezos, the Amazon CEO who recently acquired Whole Foods. Missing from the meetings was Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, who dropped out of Trump’s advisory councils after he announced his decision to pull out of the Paris climate accord. In an opening statement for the tech summit, Trump said, “Our goal is to lead a sweeping transformation of the federal government’s technology that will deliver dramatically better services…