A Model for Fighting Amazonian Fires | Who Shapes Your Sense of Beauty - Women or Men?

Blazes across Indonesia in 2015 left Southeast Asia shrouded in a haze. Now, the country offers a global model of prevention.

The warning signs are visible on the Indonesian islands of Sumatra and Borneo. It’s the heart of the dry season, and drought — accentuated by a moderate El Niño — is sparking fears of a repeat of 2015, when the climate pattern that leads to above-normal sea-level temperatures contributed to devastating fires. The blazes charred 2.5 million hectares of land, emitted more daily carbon dioxide than the entire U.S. economy and left millions sick from a haze that spread across Southeast Asia. But this year there’s something different — something that Indonesia is counting on and that the world will closely watch.

Since 2015, Indonesian President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo has implemented policies aimed at addressing root causes of fires, such as deforestation and poor management of peatlands. This includes creating a peatland restoration agency, fining companies and individuals responsible for fires, extending a deforestation moratorium and strengthening local enforcement and firefighting capabilities.

At a one-of-a-kind town hall in Atlanta, Black women opened up about their perceptions of beauty.

Tune in to Black Women OWN the Conversation, an unprecedented “speak-easy” TV show produced by OZY and the Oprah Winfrey Network, on OWN each Saturday from August 24 to September 14 at 10 pm (9 pm CT), and catch 100 Black women discussing beauty, motherhood, love and mind, body and soul.

Angel feels beautiful today, but she didn’t always. Her mother, who showered her with material goods but not verbal affection, never talked to her about such “girlie” things as appearance — and it took Angel until her 20s to embrace her beauty.

Kayla grew up hating her dark black skin because her mom had. “I was bullied so hard, even by family members,” Kayla said, noting that as a mother to a fair-skinned child she feels a special responsibility. “I have to instill in my daughter that beauty inside,” she said. “I had to instill that in myself because I didn’t have that [growing up].”

It would be easy to laugh off President Trump’s diplomatic folly with Denmark. But it matters for the real row with China.

Greenland is used to cleaning up American messes.

The U.S. has had military facilities on the 836,000-square-mile icy expanse for decades. Thule Air Base is still humming, but others were abandoned long ago — with Americans not bothering to pick up the trash. Denmark is currently spending $29 million over six years to clean up crumbling buildings, abandoned vehicles and fuel barrels from World War II. And that doesn’t even include the planned under-ice nuclear missile launch facility abandoned in 1967 after the glaciers started moving faster than expected. Melting ice due to climate change could bring radioactive waste to the surface in the coming years.

Now Greenland must assess the fallout from the strangest diplomatic dispute of the Donald Trump presidency.