Blogs

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]