Last week, the U.S. Congress passed the first major revisions to the National Security Agency’s surveillance capabilities since revelations by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden brought its domestic data-gathering operations to light in June 2013. Snowden, who has been indicted for leaking the classified information, quickly took to the opinion pages of The New York Times for a victory lap. Calling Congress’s actions “a historic victory for the rights of every citizen,” Snowden declared that the end to the bulk collection of phone records by the NSA “is only the latest product of a change in global awareness” about mass [...]
Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto hosted his Brazilian counterpart, Dilma Rousseff, in Mexico City late last month, where the two leaders signed an economic accord aimed at doubling trade volumes by 2025. They also talked about Brazil’s scandal-ridden state-owned oil giant Petrobras partnering with the Mexican oil company Pemex, as Mexico’s liberalized energy market opens up to joint ventures. Pena Nieto and Rousseff, who have a history of cool personal ties, finally seemed to be coming together. But when it came to speaking about the state of relations between their two countries, they were not on the same page. Pena [...]
Tourism and travel are usually seen as what people do when taking time off from real life. An industry built on beach resorts and ski chalets, bus tours of the Eiffel Tower and African safaris doesn’t seem to rise to the same level of concern as burst oil pipelines or illegal logging in the Amazon. Yet considered as an industry, global travel and tourism is the world’s largest employer; would rank as the fifth-largest carbon emitter if it were a country; is second only to energy as the favored strategy for developing nations trying to rise out of poverty; is [...]
