The Philippines has been under a heavy spotlight in the past few months. Unfortunately, the attention does not correlate with positive news. Since Rodrigo Duterte assumed the presidency on 30 June 2016, politics and the lack of rule of law and justice in the Philippines have...
Venezuela is currently mired in arguably the most severe economic, social, and political crises in the country’s recent history. The food crisis in particular, has had the country on knife’s edge for nearly 3 years now. Ever since global oil prices took a downward turn in...
Jorge Mario Bergoglio, better known as Pope Francis, has been serving his role as the 266th pope - and the first ever Latin American and Jesuit pope - of the Roman Catholic Church for 3 years now. In a 2015 interview, Pope Francis reflected on his...
Brazil, better known as the ‘B’ in the BRICS - a group of major emerging market economies that also includes Russia, India, China, and South Africa - has been grabbing a lot of headlines recently. However, the news has hardly been encouraging. Instead of hearing much...
Over the weekend, the Chinese government issued its second “red alert” for smog in the northern part of China, which includes the capital city, Beijing. The National Meteorological Center predicted that visibility in the worst affected areas such as Beijing would fall to less than 1...
On Sunday, October 25th, Argentina turned over a new leaf. Presidential and congressional elections marked the end of two consecutive terms of government under President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, the wife of the late Argentine President Néstor Kirchner. This election season, which began with primaries in...
The ongoing debate about immigration policy in Europe has produced a tense political and social atmosphere in countries like Germany and Italy. According to Max Jacobson, Europe needs immigrants, but the Europeans do not want them (Koivukangas, 2002: 2). Apart from the Western European countries, the...
Most of the world sees the city of Barcelona as a paradise of architectural wonders, cutting-edge cuisine, kilometers of postcard-perfect beaches, and more. While there is no denying this reality, there is also another reality - the Catalan narrative, which is being subsumed by the massive...
Two weeks ago, U.S. sailors raced across the Florida Straits to participate in the first ever Havana Challenge regatta. The last regatta of this kind could not be held with formal permission due to U.S. restrictions on pleasure craft traveling to Cuba. The reunion of the...
For years, China´s “Great Firewall” has embodied the Chinese government´s ultimate project to restrict Chinese citizens´ access to information. The Great Firewall is powered by a massive computer system that prevents citizens from accessing Western news websites, blogs, or any content considered a threat by the...
Earlier this week, National Public Radio (NPR) reported that an estimated 1.6 billion people pay bribes for essential health services, which is nearly a quarter of the world population. The finding is based on surveys and interviews involving more than 250,000 people in 119 countries, which...
The mysterious death of Argentine prosecutor Alberto Nisman, who was found dead in his apartment the day before testifying before Congress for accusing the government of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner of covering up the 1994 bombing of the Argentine Jewish Mutual Aid Association (AMIA) in Buenos...
