Jair Bolsonaro gave a speech at the UN General Assembly last month. It was full of the usual misstatements and exaggerations for which the Brazilian leader has become notorious. But the most noteworthy part of the speech had nothing to do with its contents. It was Bolsonaro’s refusal to take a...
On the morning of May 12, unidentified perpetrators attacked four oil tankers off the Fujairah port in the Gulf of Oman. Two of the tankers belonged to Saudi Aramco, the national oil company of Saudi Arabia. The attacks occurred during Japanese Prime Minister Abe’s state visit to Tehran, which...
In a regional environment where the slightest miscalculated move on one side can trigger an equally miscalculated reaction from the other, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s actions on August 5 over Jammu and Kashmir are simply bizarre. Article 370 of the Indian Constitution had...
The US is falling short of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. In September 2015, the United States and 192 other nations adopted the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). These 17 goals and 169 targets set a development agenda for all countries, including the US,...
How can the body stand up for free expression when those freedoms are anathema to a sizeable part of its membership? In celebration of World Press Freedom Day in May, the United Nations (UN) released a statement extolling the virtues of an unrestricted press. A free media, it said, “can...
Inequality in education is at the forefront of the global wealth gap. Today the world is doing a lackluster job of finding sustainable solutions to global inequality. This crisis is evident in cities like Lima, Peru, where a “wall of shame” separates the wealthy neighborhoods from the poor...
Russia wants to restore its position as a world superpower. Last weekend, as Ukrainians commemorated over a hundred dead protesters, Russian troops entered the Crimean Peninsula in the Black Sea, taking advantage of the country's mourning. The international community, including the United...
Failure to reach an Israeli-Palestinian peace settlement could be catastrophic. In April 2013, US Secretary of State John Kerry made clear his opinion on the necessity of peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians, elucidating his dedication to the current negotiations. He...
Libya's elected parliament became a base where different factions manipulated other arms of the state. Of the proposals for dealing with the expiring mandate of the General National Congress (GNC) and rectifying the larger political problems which have...
US policy on Western Sahara constitutes nothing less than a rejection of international law. In November 2013, President Barack Obama met with Morocco’s King Mohammed VI in Washington for their first face-to-face meeting. The result was a bitter disappointment for supporters of human rights...
