by Harvey Morris | 22 Mar 2022 | Conflict, Decoders, Educators' Catalog, Ukraine, World
Three decades after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has revived dormant fears of a catastrophic nuclear war. Russian missile launchers, capable of firing nuclear warheads, in Red Square in Moscow, Russia, 9 May 2016 (AP...
The world’s optimists thought the era of Mutually Assured Destruction was over with the collapse of the Soviet Union, but Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has stirred fears of nuclear war – anxieties that many young people around the world have never experienced. Harvey Morris takes a horrific topic – what he calls “a suicide pact between the superpowers” – and examines the irony of the nuclear age: that to ensure there would be no nuclear war, the United States and the Soviet Union both had to have weapons of mass destruction. He offers a highly readable introduction to the harsh realities of the nuclear age – realities that all generations are compelled to live with.
Exercise: Ask your students to debate the resolution: “The best way to ensure there will never be nuclear war is to ensure adversaries have recourse to nuclear weapons.”
by Julian Nundy | 7 Mar 2022 | Asia, Conflict, Decoders, Educators' Catalog, Europe, Future of Democracy, Human Rights, Politics, Ukraine
Russian President Vladimir Putin has said the fall of the Soviet Union was a catastrophe. What was the USSR, and what does Putin really want? Russian communist party supporters commemorate the death anniversary of the founder of the former Soviet Union, Vladimir...
It’s next to impossible to fathom why Russia might have invaded Ukraine without understanding the Soviet Union and Vladimir Putin’s attachment to the notion of an empire led by Moscow. Few are better placed than Julian Nundy, whose links to Ukraine go back more than half a century, to explain the complex relationship between Russia and its western neighbor. In his decoder, Nundy takes the reader from the upheaval of the Russian revolution to the collapse of the USSR and, with it, Russia’s loss of buffer states – for Putin, an intolerable affront.
Exercise: Ask your students to choose a revolution – if their country had a revolution, then that should be their focus – and to assess the good that may have come out of it, and the bad.
by Natasha Comeau | 14 Feb 2022 | Conflict, Decoders, Europe, Ukraine
Neighbors Russia and Ukraine share a common history that looms over Europe’s deepest security crisis in decades. In this image released by the Russian Defense Ministry Press Service on 2 February 2022, Russian soldiers attend military training at the Yurginsky...
by Tiziana Barghini | 8 Feb 2022 | Decoders, Economy, Technology
Many experts think tech giants have grown too powerful. But they disagree over how best to regulate emerging technology without stifling innovation. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg at an antitrust hearing before the U.S. Congress in Washington, DC, 10 April 2018 (AP...
by Betty Wong | 19 Jan 2022 | Climate change, Decoders, Economy, Environment
Companies are paying greater heed to Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) matters — their social credit score. Does it make a difference? Business investment concept (Elnur/Canva) In 1970, prominent American economist Milton Friedman argued that the social...
by Deborah Charles | 5 Jan 2022 | Decoders, Economy, Politics, World
Sanctions have been a foreign policy tool since ancient Greece. Nations are increasingly using sanctions, even if they fail more than they succeed. Afghan protesters demand the unfreezing of central banks assets abroad, in Kabul, Afghanistan, 2 January 2022....
by Bernd Debusmann | 30 Dec 2021 | Culture, Decoders, Human Rights, Politics
The term “woke” is caught up in America’s divisive culture wars. Will citizens in other nations adopt the notion describing those alert to social injustice? A demonstrator holds a placard reading “I can’t breathe,” left, during a...
by Stuart Grudgings | 7 Dec 2021 | Decoders, Economy, Educators' Catalog, Environment, Technology
They can fluctuate wildly in value. They can be hard to spend. They devour energy. But crypto currencies are here to stay and will surely bring changes. Photo by STRF/STAR MAX/IPx 2021 1/21/21, courtesy of AP Photos In the past few weeks, an iconic Los Angeles sports...
News Decoder is committed to explaining, in simple terms, complicated stories that appear over and over on front pages and in news broadcasts. For lack of time, money and space, most mainstream news organizations don’t take the trouble to explain the background to complicated issues and assume readers and viewers understand why the story matters. How many of us say to ourselves when running across a story on crypto currencies: “I need to educate myself about these things because they are not going away.” In his decoder, Stuart Grudgings explains how crypto currencies emerged, how they work and why they are with us to stay.
Exercise: Ask students to debate whether crypto currencies will eventually replace traditional money.
by Gene Gibbons | 10 Sep 2021 | Decoders, Educators' Catalog, Islam, Personal Reflections, Politics, Terrorism, World
Primitive tribes helped topple the powerful Roman Empire. Did attacks on the U.S. by Islamist extremists 20 years ago augur the end of a superpower? The Statue of Liberty and New York City’s skyline as smoke rises from the ruins of the Twin Towers, four days...
We often hear that history repeats itself. A core tenet of News Decoder’s mission is to help students place current events in a broader historical context. Correspondent Gene Gibbons looks beyond today’s headlines all the way back to ancient Rome to show how pride, corruption, strategic overreach and other political mistakes have contributed to the decline of superpowers, then and now.
Exercise: Ask students to debate the question in the headline, providing evidence for their position.
by Sarah Edmonds | 8 Sep 2021 | Decoders, Economy, Educators' Catalog, World
Many nations’ economies are bouncing back from COVID-19, putting upward pressure on prices. The jury’s out on whether inflation is back to haunt us. Signs advertising jobs in Harmony, Pennsylvania, 21 May 2020. Increased economic growth in some economies...
Inflation can be a challenging topic to understand. What exactly is it, why is it important and is it really all that bad? Correspondent Sarah Edmonds brings her economics expertise to this decoder that unpacks the link between the prices of goods and services and the value of your money, and shows how consumer expectations as economies rebound could lead to an inflationary spiral.
Exercise: Ask students to compare the average price of goods in their city, such as food, gas or a new car, with average local wages since the pandemic began in March 2020. How have they changed (or not)?
