Front and Center: Long Stories Short

After a powerful blizzard, nearly 700 displaced Yazidi families have been surrounded by snow and are without supplies and services. Urgent relief is required. Due to the heavy snow that fell on Mount Sinjar this past week, and the very cold climatic conditions that are afflicting the region, hundreds of Yazidi families who live in Sardashti on the mountain are struggling without access to services.. read more

The longevity of the pandemic is impacting resources and goods — from primary ones to those more complex, such as antigen tests. In the United States, the scarcity hit the country so hard that people could no longer take tests on an elective basis, but only if symptoms showed up. Luckily, from the 19th of January all Americans will be given four antigen tests for free. read more

The Sinjar district faces a critical situation, with likely conflict coming between Iraqi army forces and the Kurdish PKK. The Yezidi people are afraid of what may lie ahead. read more

The recent large-scale buildup of Russian troops near Ukraine’s border has the West considering options for deterring a potential large-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine. A week of intense round-the-clock diplomacy in Geneva between US and Russian negotiators has led nowhere. The New York Times reported that while both sides remain in talks, they are far from agreement on security concerns laid out by American and Russian negotiators. read more

Much of the world awakened on January 2, 2022 to widespread protests in Kazakhstan, an oil-rich former Soviet state in Central Asia that borders both Russia and China. read more

As the pandemic progresses at the beginning of the new year, experts are now considering the possible evolution of the Omicron variant, and Covid in general, in becoming an endemic disease. That is, the Omicron variant may well become a disease of low severity, and widespread as the flu. read more

In early December, the Washington Post reported a massive troop buildup by Russian forces within miles of Ukraine’s borders. According to their report, US intelligence indicated that the Kremlin is preparing 175,000 troops for a "multi-front offensive" as soon as early 2022. This aggression from Russia creates yet more tension in a region that has been tangled in conflict since Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, and it triggers fears of armed conflict on European soil. read more

On December 10, 2021, Bloomberg reported that the United States Department of Justice had opened an extensive criminal probe into short selling by hedge funds and researchers. The DOJ fraud department, in cooperation with federal prosecutors in Los Angeles, are looking for evidence that some hedge funds coordinated bets on stock declines with research firms that publish negative reports on certain stocks, in order to depress the stock price and then cash in. read more

Variants have characterized the new phase of the pandemic waves in 2021, though many have been present since 2020. The WHO has classified variants in two different categories: VoI and VoC, or Variants of Interest and Variants of Concern. read more

Climate scientists last week issued one of the most urgent and dire warnings yet about the impending risks facing the world from global heating. Some of Antarctica’s most massive glaciers are moving toward collapse into the sea. read more

America is in the midst of a racial reckoning. Despite the country being seen by many around the world as a model democracy, it has a troubled history when it comes to civil rights for people of color. America leads the world in its rate of incarceration, with more than 2 million Americans in jail, and a black American man 6 times more likely to be incarcerated than a white man. read more

In 2014, the terrorist group ISIS attacked the city of Shingal/Sinjar in northern Iraq, killing or kidnapping nearly 10,000 Yezidi inhabitants. Many of the thousands of girls and women that ISIS took into sex slavery are still missing. Why did no one come to the aid of Yezidis in 2014, and why is no one helping them now? read more

The Philippines will have a new President in 2022. Rodrigo Duterte will leave office, as the Constitution of the Philippines does not allow consecutive presidential terms. This would have left him exposed to an investigation by the International Criminal Court for a bloody war on drugs that has killed tens of thousands of Filipinos. He has, however, announced his run for senator, and if elected could be protected from ICC prosecution. What’s more, the ICC investigation has been temporarily suspended, responding to a deferral request from the Philippine government, which outraged rights groups. read more

Europe is facing a new, fourth wave of Coronavirus infections. On the other side of the globe, Asia prepares to face the newly-emerged Omicron variant. The World Health Organisation (WHO) issued a warning on 3 December to countries in the East, urging them to increase and optimise their health and structural capacities as much as possible. The governments of China and India appear to be the primary targets of the warning. Despite a new decline in intercontinental travel and transit due to the Omicron variant, New Delhi and Beijing remain fixed points of contact and exchange with the western world. read more

In early July 2021, Aleksandr Lukashenko, president of Belarus, began a coldblooded campaign to strong-arm the EU into relaxing its sanctions. Those sanctions had been placed on Belarusian officials and entities for what the EU called “violence, repression, and election fraud.” Lukashenko’s 2020 “reelection” was widely seen as fraudulent, his crackdown on the popular protests that followed was brutal, and he forced down a Ryanair Flight 4978 in order to arrest leading opposition journalist Roman Protasevich who was a passenger. read more