Blogs

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 […]

Sweden and Finland have applied for accession to NATO and are expected to become members by 2023. However, a major challenge they will have to overcome first is Turkey, who has stated that both nations, especially Sweden, need to meet a series of criteria before they accept their admission, becoming the only member of the […]

Russia and Ukraine have entered into their sixth month of armed conflict. After invading Ukraine on February 24th, 2022, Russia forced Ukrainian forces out of all of the Luhansk region and the majority of the Donbas region[i]. In March, Russia redefined its military objective to liberate the Luhansk and Donetsk provinces instead of the entirety […]

The unilateral severing of Algerian and Moroccan diplomatic relations in the summer of 2021 occurred days after the President of Algeria, Abdelmadjid Tebboune, declared that the diplomatic situation between the two countries would be under review (Rachidi). In reference to the declaration, Foreign Minister Ramdane Lamamra of Algeria said that the Moroccan Kingdom had been […]

Baltimore, Maryland, is a magnet for human trafficking due to the highways, hotels, casinos and airports that are in proximity. Additionally, the juxtaposition of severe poverty beside substantial wealth has fostered an environment allowing the human trafficking industry to prosper. A long history of racial, economic, and environmental inequality has negatively influenced Baltimore’s minority population. […]

In late August, the University of Central Florida’s Global Perspectives and International Initiatives and University of Central Florida’s Arts and Humanities hosted the event “Dances and Discussion: An Evening with the Ukrainian National Ballet.” Dancers from the Ukrainian National Ballet came to UCF to perform brief exhibitions of their show and provide the audience with […]

Desertification is the process by which fertile becomes desert. This land degradation is typically a result of drought, deforestation, or inappropriate human activities and agriculture. The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) regions are the most vulnerable places in the world to climate change, specifically desertification. Desertification plays a considerable toll on water scarcity, which […]

It is said that Rostam, among the greatest of Persian mythical heroes, was once challenged to complete seven dangerous tasks.  This effort can best be described as herculean since the similarities between the stories of Rostam and Hercules are unlikely to be mere literary coincidence; ultimately, Rostam’s adventures inspired the Persian adage “the seven labors […]