Roman Protasevich, 26, the dissident Belarusian journalist arrested on May 23rd, is feared to be experiencing torture and facing death at the hands of the Belarusian KGB. His mother, Natalia Protasevich, claims that bruises and strangulation marks on his body were covered by makeup in a recently released video. In
On October 30th, 2015, a fire in the Colectiv nightclub in Bucharest, Romania, immediately killed 27 people. Romanian citizens took to the streets, furious that the nightclub’s lack of fire exits did not meet fire safety regulations, but also because victims who had a good chance of survival were dying
Eyad al-Gharib, a former Syrian regime officer, was sentenced to four and a half years in prison in February for crimes against humanity. This case marks the first verdict against a Syrian official since the war started in 2011. The trial was held in the German city of Koblenz under
Migrants in northwest Bosnia and Herzegovina have spent the last few weeks freezing, after the Lipa camp was burned down on December 23. 1,000 people are living outside or in abandoned buildings, with only fires to keep them warm and food provided by aid organizations, according to Al Jazeera. They
The majority of Europe breathed a sigh of relief when Joe Biden was elected. During the four years of Trump’s presidency, Trump succeeded in alienating many European leaders by pulling the United States out of the Paris Climate Accord, denouncing the Iran nuclear deal, NATO, and the World Trade Organization,
After being criticized for his silence on human rights violations, specifically relating to the Uighur Muslim population in China, Pope Francis has finally acknowledged them in his new book, Let Us Dream: the Path to a Better Future. The 150-page book, available publicly this month, explains the Pope’s views on
Bartosz Staszewski has a developed a name for himself by hanging signs saying “LGBT-free zones” in Polish towns that have signed pledges opposing “acts of tolerance” towards the LGBTQ+ population. The signs are meant to physically represent the ideology of towns that have called themselves “LGBT-free zones.” 100 towns have
Azerbaijan’s shooting down of a Russian military helicopter near Nagorno-Karabakh left Armenians and Azerbaijanis questioning how Russia might determine the outcome of conflict in the region. A short but bloody conflict has been waged in Nagorno-Karabakh between Armenia and Azerbaijan, with the outcome finally being an Armenian concession to Azerbaijan
Macron’s defense of free speech after the murder of French teacher Samuel Paty, 47, has led to an explosion of protests in Muslim countries, primarily Bangladesh. Paty was beheaded by an 18-year-old man with a Chechen background, Abdoulakh A, after he showed cartoon caricatures of the Prophet Mohammad to students.
Japan’s Prime Minister, Yoshihide Suga, visited Vietnam on October 19 and made an agreement with Vietnam’s Prime Minister, Nguyen Xuan Phuc, to bolster security and economic ties in order to balance China’s power in the resource-rich South China Sea. Suga recently took office in September after Shinzo Abe stepped down
Mass protests in Belarus against President Alexander Lukashenko have left the international community wondering about the direction they may take. Protesters have been active since the August 9th election, when Lukashenko had a landslide victory against opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya. The protesters claim the election was rigged, shooing-in Lukashenko for
After 16 years as a social media platform, Facebook is taking more aggressive steps towards censoring content on its site. On October 12th, Facebook issued a ban on all content “denying or distorting the Holocaust,” according to NPR. Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Facebook, was under pressure by multiple
Russia’s interference in the eight-year-long Syrian Civil War has bolstered Bashar al-Assad’s grip on his crumbling country, at the cost of extensive human rights violations and thousands of civilian lives. In 2015, Russia started to establish its military presence in the region launching what was primarily an air campaign. At
Former President of Mali, Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, was held at gunpoint and forced to resign in a coup led by Mali’s military junta on August 18, leaving an interim government in his place. The coup followed months of civilian protests over Keita’s inability to end inter-ethnic violence and violence by
The EU-Mercosur free trade agreement, drafted in 2019, has been critiqued in both Europe and South America for its environmental implications. The Mercosur bloc includes Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay. The trade deal would remove trade tariffs between the EU and Mercosur, increase exports, and create a free trade market
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has privately supported a U.S. arms deal with the United Arab Emirates, despite publicly denouncing the deal. This is concurrent with the U.A.E. and Israel reaching an agreement through a phone call with the United States on August 13th for normalization of relations between Israel
