Category: Headlines

As more inhabitable land is swallowed by rising water due to climate change, the United Nations University (UNU) and Nansen Initiave have published a report warning governments to integrate considerations of people and populations displaced by climate change into national policy, or face conflict and insecurity. The report, “Integrating Human Mobility Issues within National Adaptation … Read more

In the war-ravaged though officially at peace Democratic Republic of Congo, 12 percent of the population has been raped. Nearly 50 women and girls are raped every hour. “It’s true that we raped here. We found women because they can’t escape. You see her, you catch her, you take her away and you have your way … Read more

Russia took over the chairmanship of the UN Security Council (UNSC) June 1, and Ugandan Minister of Foreign Affairs Sam Kutesa took over the Presidency of the UN General Assembly (UNGA) June 11. One of these nations is currently at the top of world headlines for aggression in Ukraine, and both have recently made headlines for passing … Read more

Russian parliamentary speaker and former Historical Truth Commission Chairman Sergei Naryshkin has made statements asserting that it was Ukraine–not Russia–that actually annexed Crimea, citing a 1991 Crimean referendum as evidence. Naryshkin made his statements to the Russian parliament Wednesday. RIA Novosti quotes Duma Speaker Sergei Naryshkin, “Back in January 1991, the Crimean region held a referendum, which disputed … Read more

Seeking “a cheap and effective way to eliminate malaria from entire regions,” a team at Imperial College London’s Department of Life Sciences have modified mosquitos to produce sperm that creates 95 percent male offspring, leading to hopes that Malaria–which still kills 627,000 people per year, according to World Health Organization estimates–will be completely eradicated. The … Read more

Researchers from NYU Langone Medical Center have found evidence that sleep promotes memory by strengthening dendritic spines that grow during learning tasks. The study, published this month, was led by Guang Yang, Cora Sau Wan Lai, Joseph Cichon, Lei Ma, Wei Li and Wen-Biao Ga set out to discover the means by which sleep helps … Read more

Stay-at-home dads have increased so sharply in recent years that the number of fathers who do not work outside the home has doubled since 1989, according to a Pew Research findings based on US Census Bureau data. Although high unemployment during the 2007-2009 Great Recession also contributed to the trend, Pew found that fathers were choosing … Read more

Telangana State, India–where approximately 5000 Indians have self immolated for the cause of an independent state–has unanimously elected its first Speaker of the Telangana Assembly Tuesday, unopposed, one week after the creation of India’s 29th state. Protests both for and against the formation of a separate Telangana state have often been fierce over the years. Approximately 5000 … Read more

Afghanistan produces 90 percent of the worlds opium–which becomes heroin–and, although the crop is illegal in the country, it remains the main product of agriculture in large regions, especially in the south. Production in 2013 surpassed its previous record, which was set in 2010. The UN estimates that Afghanistan has produced almost $3 billion worth of opium … Read more

Uganda’s Foreign Affairs Minister Sam Kutesa is set to become President of the UN’s General Assembly on June 11. The election of Kutesa has caused some criticism because the Ugandan government–for which Kutesa forms foreign policy–has been under the 28-year rule of President Yoweri Museveni, and has been accused and found guilty by international courts of international … Read more

“There was no need to change. It’s been around for 45 years,” said designer Massimo Vignelli, famous for his work on corporate identies in the 60s and 70s, who died May 27. The statement was made in response to the 2013 replacement of one of his most famous works, the logo for American Airlines–the red and blue … Read more

Bill HR4490, which has passed the House Foreign Affairs Committee with bipartisan support, would make Voice of America (VOA) officially a designated “public diplomacy” service, as well make additional changes in US international news communications–as a reaction against the alleged media manipulations of “countries like Russia.” VOA would be mandated to “provide a sharper focus on explaining the … Read more