Recently, the Trump Administration decided against nominating Victor D. Cha as Ambassador to South Korea due to his opposition to the “bloody nose” strategy against North Korea advocated by the White House. On the heels of this report, U.S. disarmament ambassador Robert Wood declared that North Korea stands only months away from the ability to […]
Ever since the 2014 sham elections in Bangladesh, it was a huge question mark whether Sheikh Hasina could still be considered a ruler of a democratic country or not. However, recent events have demonstrated that Sheikh Hasina is in fact no democrat but rather is an emerging Asian dictator who is aligned with Turkish Prime […]
Not many may know that Ethiopia was among the first countries to join the International Monetary Fund (IMF) when the latter was formed on 27 December 1945. Nevertheless, it took another 72 years for Ethiopia to welcome its first visit from the IMF Managing Director, in this case, Christine Lagarde who in December 2017 visited Addis […]
Picture from City of Cape Town. (Source: Alberton Record) Cape Town, South Africa (a city of four million people) is at a dangerous inflection point. National Public Radio (NPR) reports that South Africa’s second main economic driver and Africa’s third main economic hub city could be the first major city in the developed world to […]
Trump’s State of the Union. Turkey intensifies operations in Syria. Merkel mends her coalition. All this in The Week Ahead. UNITED STATES: Trump’s State of the Union: President Trump will present his State of the Union Address to Congress this Tuesday, following a rough week that included a government shutdown, controversy in Davos, and revelations […]
A large policy discussion is taking place between the US government and the UN, refocusing, and in many cases slashing US contributions to UN agencies to adjust closer to current US foreign policy approaches. One example of an extensive refocus is with a new policy to put funding and attention towards religious minorities in Iraq. […]
According to the Bangladesh Jatiya Hindu Mojahote, an umbrella organization representing Hindus within Bangladesh, 107 Bangladeshi Hindu civilians were murdered, 31 Hindu victims disappeared, at least 25 Hindu women and girls were raped, 23 Hindus were forcefully converted and 235 Hindu temples and statues within Bangladesh were desecrated during the past year. These findings were […]
Joint Defence Facility Pine Gap, or “the base” as its known by locals of the surrounding township of Alice Springs in central Australia, was established in the late 1960s as a key site for US intelligence gathering. The largest part of its operations is to serve as a signals intelligence ground station for satellites in […]
The reality of conflict in this New Year is that there must be a reckoning to remember the forgotten from the last few years and honour those lost to human rights atrocities. What is worse than fake news, is no news, and with so little attention being paid to some of the most mutilated and […]
The violence committed by right-wing extremists against counter-protesters in Charlottesville, Virginia, drew the world’s attention to a seemingly new threat emerging in the United States.
The Trump administration has made it very clear that the United States is no longer interested in multilateral free trade agreements or policies. At the same time, the European Union, Japan, and China are forging ahead with multilateral deals. As the U.S. steps aside and other nations and blocs step up, the American economy will […]
In the past few weeks, forces fighting to completely liberate Syria and Iraq from ISIS have claimed that their mission is accomplished in ousting the fascist army from their countries.
= On December 2, 2017, the United States (US) mission to the United Nations (UN) informed Secretary-General Antonio Guterres that the US would end its participation in the process to develop the Global Compact on Migration. In its statement, the mission explained that the US decided to withdraw from the process because “…the New York […]
Between 2001 and 2011, a dramatic decrease in the Hindu population was recorded in Bangladesh. Since then, the plight of Hindus in the country has only gotten worse. As we speak, the plight of Hindus in Bangladesh is getting worse and worse. Between 2001 and 2011, an alarming decrease in the number of Hindus within […]
President Donald J. Trump’s tweets are striking and unhelpful, but they do not explain the essence of the current strategic situation surrounding North Korea. The underlying dynamics are more deeply rooted than any one day’s headline, even if the current U.S. president has done more than his share to exacerbate the situation. In terms of […]