Media Relations Office

November 9th will mark the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, a 155 km-long concrete barrier that separated the city for almost three decades. While traces of the wall are still scattered around Berlin’s neighborhoods, the cold-war ideological divide between the Eastern and Western areas of the city has all but disappeared.

International

Arts and Sciences

Architecture, Art and Planning

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On Monday, Thailand’s King Vajiralongkorn stripped his royal consort – Sineenat Wongvajirapakdi – of her official ranks for “repeated disobedience and attempts to of interference with royal affairs.” The palace order comes three months after Sineenat – rumored to be the king’s longtime mistress – was given the official title of royal consort. Tamara Loos, professor of history and Thai studies at Cornell University, says the move is a sign of the King’s newfound absolutism.

International

Arts and Sciences

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On Thursday, teachers in Chicago went on a strike after their union (CTU) rejected a deal from the Chicago Public Schools (CPS). Lee Adler, an expert on education and collective bargaining at Cornell University’s ILR School, says that to the union’s decision not to take the city’s offer stems from a desire to fix more than just teachers’ salaries.   

Industrial and Labor Relations

Labor Relations & Human Resources

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Following pressure from China, Apple decided to pull HKmap.live from the App Store. The app allowed users to track police presence in Hong Kong, where antigovernment protesters have been demonstrating for months. The removal was announced shortly after Beijing criticized the tech giant in a strongly worded editorial on Wednesday.  Thomas Jungbauer, professor of economics in the SC Johnson College of Business at Cornell University, studies tech firms and high-skilled labor markets. He says that tech companies are walking a fine line as they attempt to develop their Chinese markets

Cornell SC Johnson College of Business

International

Economics and Business

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Environmental activists kicked off two weeks of protests on Monday in London, Berlin and other cities to demand that governments adopt a more radical approach to climate change.

International

Arts and Sciences

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The U.S. announced it is moving to impose tariffs imports from the European Union, following a ruling from the World Trade Organization (WTO) earlier on Wednesday that authorized Washington to go ahead with tariffs. Kate Bronfenbrenner, senior lecturer at Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations, says that the WTO’s decision gives Trump the option to use tariffs as a distraction from domestic issues at the expense of jobs beyond the airline industry - where the trade dispute originated.

Economics and Business

Industrial and Labor Relations

International

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Next week, Israelis will head to the polls in a snap election, where the incumbent Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will face off against Benny Gantz, leader of the centrist Blue and White alliance. Netanyahu, who has failed to form a coalition after a narrow electoral victory in April, has mounted an aggressive campaign ahead of next week’s vote including pledging to annex additional parts of the West Bank.   Uriel Abulof, visiting professor at Cornell University’s Government Department and a senior lecturer of politics at Tel-Aviv University, says that despite Netanyahu’s unlikely chances at the polls next week, his influence as a populist may reach beyond Israel.

International

Arts and Sciences

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Over the weekend Argentinian President Macri announced the imposition of capital controls in an effort to stabilize the country’s currency and avoid a deepening of the current financial crisis. Cornell University experts weigh in on what to expect as the Latin American country continues to tackle its debt crisis.

International

Arts and Sciences

Law and Policy

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Earlier this morning, the UK government suspended Parliament, following a request by Prime Minister Boris Johnson. The move is seen as an attempt from Johnson to push for a no-deal Brexit and even trigger a constitutional crisis. Alexandra Cirone, professor in Cornell University’s department of government and an expert in European politics, says that today’s developments leave the opposition scrambling for ways to challenge the move on legal grounds. 

Arts and Sciences

International

Law and Policy

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Ariel Ortiz-Bobea, assistant professor of applied economics and management and a fellow at Cornell’s Atkinson Center for a Sustainable Future, Sarah Evanega, director of the Cornell Alliance for Science and professor of plant breeding and genetics, and Daryl Nydam, professor in the Department of Population Medicine and Diagnostic Sciences and director of Quality Milk Production Services, comment on an upcoming IPCC report that calls for urgent food systems reforms.

Energy, Environment & Sustainability

Atkinson Center for a Sustainable Future

Dyson School of Applied Economics & Management

Food & Agriculture

Agriculture and Life Sciences

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