Australia has rejected two proposed river mines because they would threaten the Great Barrier Reef.

Salafi Arabia is offering funds to "rebuild Iraq" in exchange for political influence.

If this helps Iraqi Sunnis get equal rights, it will be a step forward and might aid the cause of peace there. But Salafi Arabia will surely implant Salafi rigidism — just what Iraq doesn't need more of.

Iran is a repressive theocracy, but nowhere near as bad a repressive theocracy as Salafi Arabia.

Important internet companies are cutting off right-wing extremist groups.

If the result is that hardly anyone spreads right-wing lies and terrorism on the internet, that would be small loss. However, it is hard to confine effects to their intended targets. If all the major Internet communication companies (there are not so many of them, after all) combine to firmly censor right-wing extremism, that would amount to Chinese-style repression which could be turned against any form of dissent.

The CEO of Cloudflare decided to cut off its service to a particular Nazi site, but thinks that society needs to take up the question of what is allowed on the internet, rather than appoint major companies as censors by default.

Freedom of speech means respecting people's right to maintain views that we despise. It doesn't include the right to organize violence, but we have to make sure not to push the limits too tight. We must take care not to legitimize the kind of repression that inauguration protesters and pipeline protesters now face in the US.

Family farmers of Canada, Mexico and the US warn that the redesign of NAFTA seems intended to increase the power of corporations. The negotiations are secret again, as in the Treacherous Plutocratic Poison.

The fundamental nature of any "free trade treaty" that "works" too well is to increase the power of businesses over the state and the people.

Antiracists were arrested for toppling a statue of Robert E Lee, but no one has been arrested for beating up Deandre Harris in Charlottesville.