Journal on World Affairs, UCLA
The imbalance between how much democracy young Africans want and how much they have is altering political dynamics. Almost 60% of Africa’s population were born in the 21st century, detached from the ideological motives that ground the repressive & corrupt nature of the old guard.
While there are numerous issues occurring in Ethiopia, the most dire one is the possibility of a humanitarian crisis. According to official reports by the UNHCR, a full-scale humanitarian crisis is quickly unfolding in the nation. Hundreds of people have died in the clashes between the two sides, and tens of thousands of people have been displaced.
Shortages of basic goods have prompted people to demand change. Caracas, the Venezuelan capital, has been flooded with people fighting to overthrow Nicolas Maduro, the current Venezuelan President. However, months have gone by and Maduro has not gone anywhere.
These protests lasted weeks and culminated in a night of tear gas, water cannons, and police clashes on November 26th, leading to the world’s largest general strike and a reigniting of India’s most left leaning political organizations
Known as the most violent dictator in South American history, Pinochet’s military orders were responsible for the deaths of more than three thousand Chileans (many of whom were college students), the disappearance of eleven hundred people, and sending over two hundred thousand Chileans into exile (2% of the Chilean population at the time).
On August 4th, at approximately 6:09 PM, Beirut, a treasured city in the Middle East, was ripped apart by a pair of explosions at the city’s port. Since then, young Lebanese citizens have been risking their lives to help put their country back together again, but many have also wondered if all their work and fervent hope is futile. The question on everyone’s mind is: can Lebanon ever be whole again?
As many as 300,000 people that once lived in the capital are now homeless or injured and are being forced to take shelter in homes of strangers or nearby hospitals, which are barely being held up. Considering the increasing rate of COVID-19 infections, Lebanese first responders worry of the compounding impact of devastation, which is expected to cost around $15 billion in repairs.
On the anniversary of the September 11th terror attacks, Americans remember the 2,977 innocent lives lost and the countless first responders who worked tirelessly on ground zero. It has been nineteen years, and the consequences of that fateful day remain ingrained in American society.
Unraveled by 20 years of faulty fiscal policies and political instability induced by the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), Venezuela now finds itself in one of the worst humanitarian crises in the Western Hemisphere. With a collapsed economy, suffering and devastation, and skyrocketing COVID-19 cases, the situation has displaced 5.3 million refugees as of March 2020.
On August 9, 2020, Alexander Lukashenko’s seventh presidential victory was announced to the people of Belarus. The news sparked outrage and protests erupted throughout the country’s capital of Minsk with hundreds of thousands of demonstrators flooding the streets claiming that the reelection of the Belarusian dictator was “neither free nor fair.”
Journal on World Affairs, UCLA