Blogs

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 […]

The emergence of the Coronavirus pandemic and a collapse in oil prices have inflicted acute socioeconomic shocks across Gulf Arab states, which now confront the unenviable prospect of managing prolonged economic downturns. Policymakers must consider controversial measures to cut government expenditures and generate needed revenues. Raising taxes – such as the value-added tax (VAT) and […]

Note: Journalist Veronica Camacho wrote this opinion piece just one day before she learned she lost her job as TV Host at Ecuavisa after working there 15 years. GPII’s Katie Coronado subsequently interviewed her about how it happened and what she will do now that she has been impacted directly by this pandemic. Her responses […]

“There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen.” How have the Isle of Man and other small states responded to those recent COVID-19 related weeks? The Isle of Man is an island of around 85,000 people and 227 square miles, located in the Irish Sea roughly midway between England, Scotland and Ireland. It is […]

As a frequent traveller to China, having been to several cities there in November and to Hong Kong in January, I nervously tracked news of the outbreak of a new viral disease in Wuhan as it emerged. With the number of cases of infection growing in the UK, I was surprised by the complacency of […]