At the 76th session of the United Nations General Assembly, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned governments of a growing intergenerational divide. Young people, he said, will “inherit the consequences” of decisions made by today’s world leaders. Those leaders are now failing not only young people, but also future generations—the 10 billion people who are likely to be born by the end of the century. Guterres is right that divisions between generations are growing. In older, richer countries, we are seeing a historic reversal of a longstanding trend: Rather than enjoying upward mobility, young people are now often worse off than their parents. And as populations in these [...]
Up until the spring, the pro-democracy movement in Myanmar was mainly expressing its opposition to the military junta that seized power in February through peaceful protests. But over the summer, in reaction to the junta’s violent and often lethal response, hundreds of small, armed, civilian resistance groups popped up and begun to carry out ambushes on military convoys around the country. As Betcy Jose and Peace Medie have shown, this is typical of how civilians begin to protect themselves with force when faced with violence from their own government, and in the absence of adequate outside help. And when peaceful protesters begin to [...]
Editor’s Note: This is the web version of our subscriber-only Weekly Wrap-Up newsletter, which gives a rundown of the week’s top stories on WPR. Subscribe to receive it by email every Saturday. If you’re already a subscriber, adjust your newsletter settings to receive it directly to your email inbox. This week, Frances Haugen, a former Facebook data scientist, went public as the whistleblower behind the leaked cache of internal company documents known as the “Facebook Files.” Initially published in The Wall Street Journal, the documents allegedly prove that the company’s internal research had demonstrated the negative effects of Facebook and Instagram on [...]
