‘The Origins of Myanmar’ This series of three articles concerning the Republic of the Union of Myanmar aims to provide the audience with an understanding of a fascinating country that has kept to the shadows for the majority of the past century. Only recently has the nation emerged from the
We are in the midst of a global humanitarian crisis. On June 18th in Geneva, the UNHCR released its annual Global Trends Report. The statistics that were unleashed were staggering, but not completely unexpected. Worldwide displacement is at its highest level ever recorded in history. Numerous wars, polarizing conflict,
Around 10:00 am on Wednesday June 1st, police were called to investigate multiple gunshots fired on UCLA campus. The Los Angeles Police Department have since confirmed that two males were found who have suffered gun shot wounds. “A homicide and a suicide occurred,” Beck told reporters near the scene. “It
A United States Treasury Department official says Lebanese officials who are members of the resistance movement Hezbollah could be heavily sanctioned under a new US law. Daniel Glaser, the US Treasury’s Assistant Secretary for Terrorist Financing, made the announcement. When asked in an interview with channel LBC if the law
The United States of America has recently rejected the offer proposed by the Russians to carry out joint air strikes against the numerous armed opposition groups currently pitted in warfare on Syrian soil. Russia had proposed to the US coalition that they stage joint air strikes on Syrian rebels,
Mustafa Amine Badreddine, Hezbollah’s top military commander in Syria, was reportedly killed in artillery fire by jihadists, according to the Shi’a Islamist militant group and political party based in Lebanon. Thousands of people have gathered to mourn Badraddine’s passing at his funeral in Beirut, Lebanon’s capital. Images from the funeral
On Friday, one of Egypt’s most prominent rights lawyers and activists was arrested for ‘inciting protests’ against a recently signed border demarcation agreement between Egypt and Saudi Arabia. The agreement requires the Egyptian government to hand over sovereignty of two strategic Red Sea Islands to Saudi Arabia. Malek Adly’s
On Saturday morning, a university professor was hacked to death on his way to work in north-western Bangladesh. The attack was similar to other brutal killings by suspected Muslim militants. According to Deputy Commissioner, Nahidal Islam, Rezaul Karim Siddique, aged 58, was a professor at the state-run Rajshahi University where
Just one day after Aung San Suu Kyi pledged that the release of activists and political prisoners would be the first priority of her new government, a court in Myanmar has dropped charges against almost 200 political prisoners. In November, Suu Kyi guided the NLD to a landslide victory, with
Tens of thousands of documents containing approximately 22,000 names of possible ISIS recruits from all over the world has now fallen into the hands of British, US, German and Australian authorities. These documents were stolen by a former Free Syrian Army member who had converted to the jihadist militant IS
The Australian government said today that the refugee baby being treated in a Brisbane hospital for serious burns will not be immediately sent to an offshore prison or detention centre on the remote island of Nauru. This statement comes after the Australian government’s offshore detention policy came under heavy public
New-Zealanders who have lived and worked in Australia for more than five years will now have an easier time obtaining an Australian citizenship following a deal made between Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and New Zealand leader John Key in Sydney. This pathway is only available to Special Category
Over a thousand women a year are killed in Pakistan in the name of honour. Saba Qaiser was only nineteen years old when her father and uncle took her to a spot along-side a riverbank and beat her. Her uncle then held her captive whilst her own father pointed a
Just twenty years old, Mahmoud Mohamed Hussein has been imprisoned without trial for exactly two years. Somehow, he is yet to be formally tried or charged for any offences. He was arrested when he was 18 years old on 25th January, 2014, while walking home from a peaceful demonstration
More than 400,000 civilians in Syria are living under siege, in fifteen areas across the war-torn country, according to the United Nations. Starvation is now wielded as a weapon in the ongoing civil war between Syria’s government forces and rebel groups. Civilians in towns along the Syria-Lebanon border are struggling
China’s most prominent human rights lawyer and free speech advocate Pu Zhiqiang was put on trial on the morning of Monday December 14, after 19 months in detention. He appeared in court on two charges of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble” and “inciting ethnic hatred” stemming from a series of Weibo posts
Air raids and rocket attacks launched by the Syrian government and Russian forces have killed dozens of civilians in Syria’s capital city of Damascus. These fatalities are the latest, but certainly not final, casualties in a bloody civil conflict between Syrian government forces, rebel fighting groups and many other factions
More than 100 members of Syria’s political and armed opposition groups gathered in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia for a three-day conference in an attempt to unite the factions against the Syrian government. At the end of the conference, members agreed to set up a united body to prepare for
The war against ISIS has been brutally forced to the front of the world’s consciousness in light of the recent events, particularly the November 13 Paris attacks which killed at least 130 people. French president Francois Hollande declared France at war with ISIS, who quickly claimed responsibility for the attacks
