Street children exist in every nation on earth, yet despite their extraordinary prevalence, scope, and gravity, the issue doesn’t receive enough attention in the media and public discourse. They are between the ages of 5 and 20 and dwell outside stations, in vacant buildings, under bridges, and in sewers. They
During his state of the union address, South African president Cyril Ramaphosa has declared a state of disaster to address the longstanding energy crisis that has plagued the nation since 2007. State-owned power company Eskom has conducted “load-shedding,” scheduled blackout periods, every day in 2023 to prevent nationwide power collapse
While there are undoubtedly some people who decide to relocate due to the joy of migrating, it can be assumed that the majority choose to move because they believe that being somewhere else will improve their living situation. However, it would be inaccurate to describe all but the most privileged
Kiribati intends to rejoin the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) after a formal apology from the new Fijian Prime Minister – who is also the Chair of the Pacific Islands forum – Sitiveni Rabuka. During his recent visit, Rabuka performed a traditional practice of ‘boka,’ a ceremony that seeks forgiveness and
Indonesian President Joko Widodo’s recent acknowledgement that his government regrets past human rights violations is an important step in national healing. However, this will mean little if current attacks on human rights are not addressed. At a press conference in January, Widodo cited 12 “regrettable” events and stated that he
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has approved pardons for “tens of thousands” of prisoners, including members of recent anti-government protests, after receiving a letter from judiciary head Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei calling for “a number of convicts jailed following the recent riots” to be pardoned on the basis of being
The World Economic Forum’s final panel held its annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland this past month. The purpose of the annual meeting is to re-affirm the value of dialogue and public-private co-operation, not only to navigate the current crises but to drive long-term system-positive change. This year, the panel concluded
The world is experiencing a shift in the balance of power due to the weakening of the United States (US) led unipolar order, impacting the dynamic triangular relationship between the US, Taiwan and China. Since the beginning of 2023, there has been a significant uptick in attention to the extremely
Months of hostility between Armenia and Azerbaijan have reached the fore of the International Court of Justice (also known as the World Court), the United Nations’ premier judiciary which began public hearings over the ongoing border dispute at Nagorno-Karabakh on Monday. For seven weeks and counting, a blockade of the
Prince Harry’s memoir Spare provoked an avalanche of commentary. Newsrooms, who rarely questioned London and Washington’s occupation of Afghanistan in the first place, suddenly find it objectionable that an unpopular prince should confess to killing dozens of Taliban fighters. However, the Royal family’s overt or implicit collaboration with the arms
German Minister of Foreign Affairs Annalena Baerbock, called this past Monday for an international tribunal. The tribunal would aim to investigate and prosecute Russian officials for war crimes and the crime of aggression in the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian war. However, the International Criminal Court (ICC) is not currently able to intervene.
What initially began last month as a backlash against an entrenched “coal mafia” has snowballed into a trenchant critique of Mongolia’s inability (and unwillingness) to provide a better future for its country’s youth. Corruption revelations involving the state-owned Erdenes Tavan Tolgoi (E.T.T.) mining company have sparked enormous protests in the
Amid a Russian-declared ceasefire marking Orthodox Christmas, Yevgeny Prigozhin, founder of the Russian mercenary company Wagner Group, called for Russian and Wagner forces to capture the city of Bakhmut in Ukraine’s Donbas region because of the logistical benefits of its “underground cities.” The Wagner Group has contributed a significant number
Although academics have agreed on a common definition for the word “terrorism,” the term’s heightened political and emotional connotations have prevented a general agreement on what constitutes terrorist behaviour. International collaboration is the only way to combat international terrorism, according to scholar Alex P. Schmid, but governments around the world
Fiji finalized its prime ministerial elections on December 24th, with Al Jazeera reporting that Sitiveni Rabuka of the People’s Alliance Party (P.A.P.) has retaken the position for the first time since his election in 1992, allying with two other parties with small percentages of the vote to oust the FijiFirst
Remembrance Day was a solemn occasion decades ago, but it has since degenerated into a commercialised and hollow fashion statement, an empty ritual blindly enforced without conviction. Worst of all, since 2011 Red Poppy merchandise, owned by the Royal British Legion, is deployed to justify recruitment drives for Britain’s ongoing
Last Tuesday, the currently presiding Afghan government banned women from attending universities. After reviewing university curricula and environments, Minister of Higher Education Neda Mohammad stated that women’s enrollment would be officially placed on hold immediately until an “appropriate setting” could be assured. (One of the reasons the Ministry cited for
“The editing division is reviewing this article, and we kindly ask that it not be put back into pending review status until further notice.” Wagner Group is a private military security contractor known as a PMSC. The service provided by private military companies (PMCs) and private security companies (PSC),
On November 24th, 2022, a fire in the Uyghur majority town of Ürümqi, Xinjiang, killed ten people and injured nine others. This raised additional questions of China’s strong enforcement of its zero-COVID policy, which could have prevented residents or firefighters from attending to the disaster. Since February of 2022 China
China’s nuclear arsenal will more than triple to 1,500 warheads by 2035, the Pentagon said last month in its annual report on the country’s military developments. In 2020, the U.S. Department of Defence estimated that China held approximately 200 warheads and predicted the tally to double within a decade. Only
