Visions on the future of cyberspace clash at the UN

This week, the UK and EU agreed on a Brexit draft withdrawal plan. But somehow, the way forward looks as uncertain as ever. “It is easy to blame [Theresa] May and her bitterly divided Conservative Party,” writes Fintan O’Toole in The New York Review of Books. “But what makes that crisis all the more profound is that what we would usually expect in a parliamentary democracy…is patently not happening either."

From late 2016, American diplomats and spies — as well as Canadian diplomats — posted in Cuba began experiencing unexplained bursts of sound and pressure that left them dizzy and exhausted, with symptoms of concussion and brain injury. In The New Yorker, Adam Entous and Jon Lee Anderson unpack the mysterious condition known as “Havana syndrome,” or simply, “the Thing.”

Religious groups have long faced intimidation and control from authorities in Beijing, and Christians are no exception. The CBC’s Saša Petricic reports that in recent weeks, Protestant churches have been closed and their crosses torn down, and a controversial deal with the Vatican looks to give China power over its Catholic church leaders. Is the worst yet to come? 

For The Independent, Rachel Savage spends some time reporting on North America’s first Indigenous-owned rail company, Tshiuetin (which means “wind of the north” in Innu). Connecting Sept-Îles, Quebec to the town of Schefferville, 355 miles north, the journey can be as long as 24 hours, and its schedule can be unpredictable. But that doesn’t bother its conductor: “It’s a dream, every journey,” he says.