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Editor’s Note: These are unprecedented times. A global pandemic has changed life as we know it. In recent months, Fair Observer has examined the crisis through political, economic and social lenses, publishing articles from around the world. The result is three 360° series that we urge you to...
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is grappling with COVID-19, an unresolved war in Yemen and collapsed oil prices. At the same time, recurrent purges of opponents of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) are harming the country’s foreign investment climate. Within this context, the ambitious Vision...
As the COVID-19 crisis is gradually slowing down, the world is bracing itself for a very likely second wave of the pandemic. While the shortcomings of the global response and the preparedness of individual countries will be open for debate and analysis for a long time to come, attempting to...
We may not like what President Donald Trump is saying about the World Health Organization (WHO), China and the world at large. In fact, we do not like it at all, but Trump has a point, and acknowledging it would empower us to address him in earnest, with honesty and efficiency. The world is led...
It was 1963 when the governor of Alabama, George Wallace, proclaimed, “Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever … the name of the greatest people that ever trod this earth,” referring to people with Western European ethnic ancestry. This and the ensuing pro-segregation...
With border closures, supply chain interruptions and loss of income due to lockdowns caused by COVID-19, the number of people facing acute hunger around the world is estimated to rise from 135 million to 265 million this year. This is particularly the case in sub-Saharan Africa, where before the...
On April 6, it was reported that the Commission on Human Rights was calling for stronger measures to tackle the increased rates of domestic violence incidents in the Philippines due to the lockdown measures that were implemented on March 16. The quarantine is worsening the problem of...
India has an abysmally low percentage of people with access to decent health care. About 300 million Indian citizens live below the poverty line and, for them, medicine is prohibitively expensive. For decades, serious medical conditions have pushed families into poverty and destitution. From 2000...
The news on May 14 that two Rohingya refugees have tested positive for the coronavirus in the densely-populated camps in Cox’s Bazaar, Bangladesh, is chilling for those who have been drawing attention to the vulnerability of refugees and other displaced people to the COVID-19 pandemic. It...
A dangerous cycle for immigrants has begun. On April 20, President Donald Trump announced that he would sign an executive order to temporarily halt immigration into the United States in order to curb the spread of COVID-19. As of April 1, 90% of the world's population already resided in a country...
Up until April, the COVID-19 outbreak in Singapore had largely been kept under control, to the extent that it was considered one of the best examples of pandemic response in the world. By speedily rolling out measures — including contact tracing, aggressive testing and isolating potential...
