Early in the day on March 7, a large explosion ripped through blocks of Bata, the largest city in Equatorial Guinea. The death toll continues to rise, with official reports hovering around a death toll of nearly 100 and an injured count close to 1,000, according to Reuters.
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The Diplomatic Envoy recently joined Professor Ann Marie Murphy for a riveting discussion about her professional career in the field of diplomacy and developments within the School of Diplomacy’s Center for Foreign Policy Studies.
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Mexico is positioned to become the world’s largest legal marijuana market in the world. On March 11, 2020, the lower house of Mexico’s Congress passed a bill legalizing recreational marijuana. This bill would “let users with a permit carry up to 28g and grow as many as eight plants at home for personal use,” according to BBC News. Currently, it is illegal to carry more than five grams in Mexico. This promising bill does not come without warning though, as it fails to address the violent history of Mexico’s cartel-led market.
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The global effort against COVID-19 is intensifying as countries race to vaccinate their populations and use vaccine diplomacy to improve relations with foreign nations. Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine now has emergency authorization in more than 30 countries and a peer-reviewed efficacy rate of 91.6 percent in Phase 3 trials, reports the New York Times Vaccine Tracker. Researchers are currently working on a single-dose version of Sputnik V, which would be called “Sputnik Light.”
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Switzerland joined several other European countries in banning burqas, niqabs, and other face coverings in public. This so-called “burqa ban” and those that came before it are highly controversial and inspired debate over religious freedoms and secularism, all of course, complicated by the COVID-19 pandemic.
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As the first half of President Joe Biden’s 100 days passes by, many are now beginning to analyze the trajectory of his term. The most recent airstrikes in Syria on February 25, 2021 against Iranian backed militias, have seemingly set the tone for his Middle Eastern policy. Many Americans and foreign policy analysts now wonder where the Biden Administration will go moving forward.
Read MoreSince the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, developing countries faced long delays obtaining access to vaccines due to vaccine nationalism and hoarding by rich countries. To fill the gap, India has emerged as a ‘vaccine superpower’ and source of hope to poorer countries, which are unable to access vaccines due to their high cost and unavailability. India is offering governments in developing nations both the locally-manufactured British AstraZeneca vaccine and its own home-grown vaccine, Covaxin.
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Israel stands tall on the international stage with its success in vaccination distribution, while Palestinians under Israeli occupation await access to vaccines. According to Al Jazeera, “[Israel] has already supplied vaccine doses to more than half of its 9.3 million people in just less than two months, making it the world leader in the vaccination drive to inoculate populations.” However, recently, Israel has been criticized for shipping vaccines overseas as Palestinians remain unvaccinated.
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Facebook announced on March 2 that the company will lift its ban on Australians viewing and sharing news on the platform after the company struck a deal with the government regarding proposed legislation that would make tech companies pay for journalism shared on their platforms, the Associated Press reports.
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An unclassified report released by the Biden Administration on February 26 concludes that the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed Bin Salman (MBS), directly ordered the killing of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018, according to CNN.
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