Blogs

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 […]

On Saturday, the Brazilian Health Ministry removed the data from a website that offered information about the progression of the virus throughout the country (Reuters 1). Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro stated via Facebook that the cumulative data did not reflect Brazil’s current situation (BI). The page was taken down Friday and reloaded Saturday, reflecting only […]

There is currently a call to “defund” policing agencies to eliminate police brutality and/or use of excessive force. In a June 8, 2020 article, Patrisse Cullors, a co-founder of Black Lives Matter, is quoted as saying that, “It’s not just about taking money away from the police, it’s about reinvesting those dollars into black communities. […]

Protests rocked Mathare, a settlement in Nairobi, Kenya, after police killed a homeless man, James Mureithi, for violating the dusk-to-dawn curfew (AP News). Imposed on March 27th, Kenyan leaders introduced the curfew to prevent the spread of COVID-19 (Human Rights Watch). In the first ten days of the curfew alone, the police killed at least […]

Doctors in Nicaragua have warned of a looming crisis in the country as the result of the coronavirus pandemic (Al Jazeera). Victims’ families claim that the government is ordering “express burials” to suppress case numbers (Al Jazeera). These burials are held in the middle of the night, with few family members and within hours of […]

Protesters have marched in the United States for six consecutive nights over the death of George Floyd at the hands of a police officer (CNN World). Floyd, an unarmed black man, died o f suffocation after a white police officer knelt on his neck for eight minutes (Reuters). Thousands of people around the world have […]

The Botswana tourism sector faces many threats ranging from climate change, humanitarian crisis and health issues, the current Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) being a case in point. It does not come as a surprise that the sector has not escaped the brunt of the global pandemic considering that it involves interactions among people. The United […]

Societal sustainability rests on the three interconnected pillars of water, energy and food, the WEF Nexus. Supply and demand of each must be in balance with the other two or the three-legged stool either wobbles or falls over leading to social and political instability. The ultimate driver of the Nexus is economics, and WEF interactions […]

The election commission of Burundi announced Monday that the ruling party candidate, Evariste Ndayishimiye, won the 2020 presidential election (Al Jazeera). With an 87.7 percent voter turnout, Ndayishimiye of the National Council for the Defense of Democracy – Forces for the Defense of Democracy (CNDD-FDD) won 68.72 percent of the vote (Al Jazeera). Ndayishimiye ran […]

In trying to understand the potential effects of COVID-19 on society, some commentators have looked to the Black Death – the name given to the Yersinia Pestis plague that first ravaged Europe from 1347 to 1351. The Black Death started the Renaissance, caused the end of serfdom and “feudalism,” led to the Reformation and so […]