Current President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi came into the presidency promising to clamp down on extremism, especially in the Sinai Peninsula. To that end, the regime has engaged in a series of drastic human rights abuses that includes mass arrests, torture, restrictions on free speech, and media blackouts. The Egyptian elections that are due to be held later this month appear to be neither free nor fair, with the current regime doing everything in its power to stifle political opposition and maintain its grip on the country.

The new focus in entertainment reflects the mission of Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, as he seeks to dramatically shift the country economically, socially and culturally. But while these changes are progressive and positive economic and social steps for a country that has often been criticized by the Western world, Salman’s actions are perceived by many in the Kingdom as naked power grabbing moves, and, as a result, may lead to instability in a country that has been an island of stability in a highly volatile Middle East.

November 21, 2017 marked the end of Robert Mugabe’s three-and-a-half-decade tenure as the Zimbabwean head of state. One of the most important questions surrounding the fall of Mugabe is how a man who was once seen and revered as a central figure in Zimbabwe’s independence movement came to be deposed by his own military.

Recent reports by the New York Times and the Washington Post have revealed that the Egyptian and Israeli governments have been secretly working together on counterterrorism efforts in the Sinai Peninsula.  The fact that the Egyptian and Israeli security apparatuses have been cooperating in recent years has never really been a secret, but the surprising thing about these reports is just how close that relationship has become.

While the rest of the developed world is gravitating away from the idea of an integrated global market, China is leaning into it. The Belt and Road Initiative is a call back to the age when China ran the world’s economy, an age the world may be about to witness again.

When jetting around the world, air travelers typically associate their journey with how long the security line was, or how bland the airplane food. But little do passengers know, the real battle is between airplane makers as they vie for market shares.

Among the silent ongoing conflicts in Southeast Asia, the Hmong problem in Laos remains as one of the longest unsolved crises in the region. Despite the magnitude of the bloodshed, the international community has not found a solution to the Hmong problem, and today many members of this ethnic are still struggling against governmental persecution.

Until recently, Hong Kong’s middle and upper classes lived in utopic ignorance regarding the welfare of foreign domestic helpers. However, news articles exposing the systematic abuse of foreign domestic workers published in recent years have opened Pandora’s Box.

The world has slowly descend back into a Cold War-era great power competition in cyberspace. The WannaCry attack is just one of the first consequences to be felt.

Unfortunately, terrorism has become one of the major transnational threats of our times. The rise and expansion of groups like Al-Qaeda or ISIS, and the international scope of their attacks have harmed multiple societies, regardless of their location. However, Southeast Asia has emerged as a significant bastion for terrorists, and most specifically jihadists. Today, their safest haven in the region has become The Philippines, a country whose recent history has been marked by the attacks of different terrorist groups. However, what is the reason behind this geostrategic choice of Asian jihadists? What role does terrorism play in the Philippines today?

Despite declaring that he will give brokering a peace deal “one hell of a shot,” Trump has instead almost surely erased any hope of finding a resolution to the Arab-Israeli conflict during his tenure.

Can the silence of the United Nations Security Council be attributed to its role in the events in Yemen?

Since the inception of the United Nations in 1945, the maintenance of international peace and security has been its top mission and central theme. However, recent history has proved that the organization, in its current form, is impotent at responding to massive abuses of human rights especially when it comes to genocides and ethnic cleansing.