The European Union on December 17 announced it would be sanctioning several major Belarusian companies suspected of working with the Belarusian regime. This announcement comes on the back of months of increased pressure from the EU resulting in the sanctioning of 88 people and seven entities to date. In a
Why Are They “Still’’ Poor? If you were to ask someone ‘what keeps poor countries poor?’ you would be likely to receive a variety of responses. One word that is guaranteed to come up is ‘corruption.’ Corruption is seen—both my members of the public and powerful institutions—as one of the
‘A return to normality’ – a phrase repeated countless times by politicians, businesses and most of all the public. After such a severe crisis the ‘old world’ – despite all its caveats – is a tempting prospect. A return to employment for most if not all, the devolution of our
Lesbos, home to Europe’s largest refugee camp, was swamped by a fire on Tuesday, September 8th leaving 13,000 refugees without shelter. Among them were approximately 4,000 children. The Greek government has requested help from EU and non-EU nations to resettle those who have lost the little they had in the
The leader of Belarus, Alexksandr Lukashenko, has found himself facing the largest protests in the independent history of his country. The regimes violent response has left the government isolated and under increasing pressure from an outraged international community. Lukashenko has had no choice but to turn his powerful ally for
The historic protests witnessed in Belarus’ capital Minsk following the August 16th election were followed swiftly by a brutal crackdown. After initially failing to suppress the demonstrators, the regime’s position appeared to be improving towards the end of last week. Rumours of low morale amongst demonstrators combined with a drop
On August 25th, 1991, Belarus declared its independence from the Soviet Union and Alexander Lukashenko – a man not particularly well known to most people outside of the country until recently – became its first president. This was a time of hope and promise for the people of Belarus, a
A Japanese oil tanker struck a coral reef off the coast of Mauritius on July 25 and has since leaked approximately 1,000 tons of oil, setting back decades of work to restore wildlife surrounding the island. Pravind Jugnauth, the Mauritian Prime Minister, has warned that the ship could well form
Joseph Stiglitz, Noble Prize-winning economist, and Hamid Rashid, Chief of Global Economic Monitoring at the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, recently wrote a report detailing the ‘looming’ debt crisis facing 110 of the world’s poorest countries as a result of the economic fallout from the COVID-19 induced
A recent report by the Public Accountability Initiative has divulged information related to two critical issues in contemporary America: the broken policing system and the ever-increasing ability of corporations to buy influence within public bodies. The report reveals that some of the largest American corporations are leveraging their wealth to
In response to the end of the Cold War and the fall of the USSR, Francis Fukuyama stated famously that it was ‘The End Of History’. This pivotal moment, he believed, would be the beginning of a New World Order, one where the barriers -both physical and diplomatic – would
Just over a decade after the 2008 financial crisis, the U.K. faces a new economic crisis – this time emanating not from de-regulated financial institutions, but the severe economic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic. We stand on the precipice with an already fragile economy facing an economic contraction on a
President Donald Trump’s use of the World Health Organisation (WHO) to distract from his administration’s tragic handling of the COVID-19 pandemic has come to a head as the United States formally begins the one-year process of withdrawing from the multilateral organisation. Congress was notified by the administration on July 7th
At the next European Council meeting, an anomaly will be present: a country that can no longer be referred to as a democracy. The outbreak of COVID-19 allowed Viktor Orbán, Hungary’s Prime Minister, to further consolidate his position of power as a leader of a single-party country, resembling Putin more
The Croatian-Bosnian border has long been subject to criticism surrounding the often-chilling stories of severe human rights infringements inflicted upon refugees who have attempted the crossing. Recent findings from The Danish Refugee Council and The Guardian allude not only to a truly horrific infringement of human rights but also to
President Duterte of the Philippines was elected in June 2016 with the promise that he would do everything in his power to crack down on drug-related crime in the country. Now, four years on, the UN has released a detailed report documenting the extrajudicial killings of thousands of people at
