International Affairs

The failure to effectively regulate the extraction of a country’s natural resources is a policy problem which has ignited and fueled numerous conflicts throughout history. To this day, failure of effective governance remains a major source of human rights abuses and environmental degradation. From Sierra Leone’s blood diamonds to...

Is there hope for Afghanistan? This is a question that has been asked innumerable times in the past 40 years: during Afghanistan’s war with the Soviet Union in the 1980s, during the Civil War from 1996 to 2001, during the NATO intervention, and more recently, with the increasing aggravation...

Following Donald Trump’s inauguration as President of the United States, George Orwell’s classic 1984 has skyrocketed to the top of many best-seller lists. The theory and fiction included in this reading list may shed some light on how the U.S. arrived at this point, how we can understand the divisive state of US...

On the 23rd of January 2017, the Iraqi Security forces entered the last neighborhood in the eastern part of Mosul, approaching the end of the almost 3-month long battle against Daesh for clearing the eastern half of the city. At the moment, the Iraqi security forces are preparing to...

Through a series of personal interviews and war footage that captures the response of selfless volunteers to rescue victims of daily bombings and attacks in Syria, The White Helmets (2016) inspires hope for humanity and aims to expose the dire need for humanitarian intervention. This 40-minute Netflix Original documentary,...

Afghanistan has been on the public eye for decades for the worst reasons. Widely considered to be one of the most dangerous countries to be a woman, the threat of the Taliban is now growing again, threatening the already precarious stability of the country. How many of us are...

Spain is home to an abundance of mind-blowing corruption cases. Consider, for example, the decade-long exchange of favors among wealthy businessman Francisco Correa and members of the ruling right-wing People’s Party. After a whistleblower’s evidence suggested that a certain group of companies had been receiving preferential treatment in the...

“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every...

A dictator who committed numerous human rights violations, or a hero for his country and the figurehead for social justice and armed struggles across the developing world. Between the Cubans who celebrated the death of a dictator and those who mourned a hero, the question is what will History...

The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has been witnessing unrest in the lead-up to presidential election, which the government of incumbent President Joseph Kabila has postponed from November 2016 to April 2018. The election could represent the first democratic transition of power after decades of civil war, political instability...

In what some will see as the latest step in the political ladder to Cold War version 2.0, Russia has been denied a place on the UN’s Human Rights Council after the UN General Assembly failed to vote for it as one of 14 new members. Brazil, China, Cuba,...

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 become increasingly perturbing....