Blogs

The Chinese government recently issued official statements that its population is shrinking. With a reported birth rate of 9.56 million and a death rate of 10.41 in 2022 (CNBC), the country’s population fell for the first time since the 1960s (Statista 1). The dependency ratio in 2021, which indicates the growing population that must be […]

In the last several decades, pornography has gone from being a shameful, taboo topic to one that is widely accepted as a viable career path. While porn can be financially beneficial to those involved (Glassdoor), if unchecked, it can also have negative effects on the lives of its subjects and “stars”. Many people who begin […]

The Sultanate of Oman is a politically stable nation, especially when compared to many of its neighbors. Since the conclusion of the Dhofar Rebellion in 1978, after all, it has not experienced widespread internal strife and has generally refrained from involving itself it armed conflicts abroad. The Dhofar conflict solidified Oman’s relations with a diverse […]

After two decades out of power, The Taliban has reinstated its control over Afghanistan, creating a motif of their past tyrannical policies implemented to marginalize religious minorities, women and girls. Around its initial inception, the Taliban is one of the biggest Sunni Islamist national movements in modern history (National Counterterrorism Center). They established the Islamic […]

With the culmination of the 2022 FIFA World Cup and events such as the 2023 World Baseball Classic and the 2024 Summer Olympics on the horizon, the use of sports as more than a game is becoming continuously more important. Soft Power, as defined by Joseph Nye, can be defined as “a nation’s ability to […]

The toll from the devastating earthquake which struck Turkey and Syria has already topped 50,000, and that figure will almost certainly climb in the coming days, weeks, and months. Some have described the scene as Armageddon. Tens of thousands remain missing, and hundreds of thousands of Turks and Syrians are without shelter, clothing, and food […]

On January 18th this year, the Tokyo High Court upheld the acquittal of three former Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) executives. Tepco Chairman Tsunehisa Katsumata, alongside former vice presidents Ichiro Takekuro and Sakae Muto were found not guilty of manslaughter or negligence as it relates to Japan’s “Triple Disaster” of 2011 (ABC). The Triple Disaster […]

Eight years after the initial onslaught, the Bundestag, Germany’s federal parliament, recognized the 2014 massacres against northern Iraq’s Yezidi community by the Islamic State, also known as Da’esh, as a genocide. Hosting the largest Yezidi diaspora outside of Iraq (150,000), Germany joins the 18 governments and international bodies that officially recognize the scale of the […]

Yesterday, southern Türkiye (Turkey) and northern Syria experienced one of the most significant earthquakes ever recorded in their respective histories. According to the US Geological Survey, the first tremor occurred at 04:17 a.m. local time near Gaziantep at a depth of 17.9 kilometers and measured 7.8 on the Richter scale (BBC). Around 1:24 p.m., twelve […]

Last February, Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine with the invent of subjugating Kiev. Russian President Vladimir Putin envisioned restoring some of the lost luster of the Soviet Union – and Russian Empire before it. He also saw it as a way of testing the resolve of Washington and its NATO allies, particularly in […]