On Wednesday, June 24th, the University of Central Florida’s Puerto Rico Research Hub hosted a virtual conference, “In Times of Crisis: Puerto Rican Activism in Orlando.” The event featured Julie Torres, Ph.D., a Scholar-in-Residence for the Hub. Crisis, Torres argued, is a phrase that can overshadow the people most badly affected because others suffer, too. […]
Posted June 29, 2020
Chilean Health Minister Dr. Jaime Mañalich resigned Saturday amid criticism over his handling of the coronavirus pandemic (NYT). Mañalich has come under fire over the Chilean Health Ministry’s inconsistent methodology for reporting the spread of COVID-19 (Al Jazeera). Mañalich’s resignation coincides with Cipher, an investigative website, reporting that virus deaths could be much higher in […]
Posted June 23, 2020
New Zealand’s Ministry of Health announced that the nation’s 24-day streak without new COVID-19 cases ended after confirming two new cases (NPR). On June 16th, Ashley Bloomfield, New Zealand’s director-general of health, announced the origin of the two cases (CNA). Bloomfield stated that two women arrived from the United Kingdom to Auckland and later tested […]
Posted June 23, 2020
Dominant Irish parties Fine Gael and Fianna Fail agreed to form a coalition to include the Green Party. The decision ends a political deadlock caused by inconclusive elections in February (Reuters). The February elections saw previous minority party Sinn Fein win the majority of the votes. The deal excluded Sinn Fein for its Irish unity […]
Posted June 23, 2020
Rohingya refugees, a Muslim minority group fleeing persecution in Myanmar, attempting to reach the shores of Malaysia are being held hostage by human traffickers (Reuters 1). Family members of these refugees living in Bangladesh say they have received calls from traffickers demanding money for the safe arrival of their loved ones (Reuters 1). Victims have […]
Posted June 22, 2020
Torrential downpours and poor weather have led to flooding and mudslides in South China. Over 230,000 people have been displaced by the floods (Channel News Asia). At least nine people have been killed, while five others are still missing (South China Morning Post). China’s worst floods in recent years happened in 1998 when more than […]
Posted June 18, 2020
My friend Shaimaa leaned across the table, tears streaming down her face, “You cannot go back to America, it is not safe there. Here in Egypt it is safe.” I didn’t have enough Arabic to explain my reasons for leaving, but events in late February and early March had made it clear that my options […]
Posted June 17, 2020
Officials from Sudan, Egypt and Ethiopia resumed talks on the Blue Nile hydropower dam after the failure of a Washington-led mediation effort earlier this year (Reuters). The three countries continue to be at odds over the filling and operation of the $4 billion Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) (Reuters). The GERD is under construction near […]
Posted June 17, 2020
The President of Russia, Vladimir Putin, declared a state of emergency on June 3, after 20,000 tons of oil products spilled in a region of northern Siberia (Reuters). A fuel tank, owned by the world’s leading nickel and palladium producer, Norilsk Nickel, lost pressure on May 29, 2020 (NYT). The accident was apparently triggered by […]
Posted June 15, 2020
Iranian courts sentenced Mahmoud Mousavi-Majd to death for spying on Commander Qassem Soleimani for the US and Israel (Reuters). Officials of the Iranian Justice Ministry clarified Mousavi-Majd was in prison for some time and his activities were discovered before the airstrike which killed Soleimani (DW). Judiciary spokesman Gholamhossein Esmaili stated on Tuesday “He gave the […]
Posted June 12, 2020
