February 21 marked the beginning of preliminary arguments at the International Court of Justice regarding the genocide of Rohingya Muslims in the Rakhine state of Myanmar, according to The Associated Press. Myanmar is currently being represented by military leaders, most of whom came into power after overthrowing the country’s previous leader, Aung San Suu Kyi.
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Women from across India are protesting the hijab ban which entered effect in Karnataka, a state in the southern region of the country governed by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The ban, which targets Muslim students, bars hijab-wearing women and girls from entering their respective schools. According to Al Jazeera, schools in Karnataka required women to remove their headscarves before they could be permitted to enter the building.
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On February 14, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan visited the United Arab Emirates for the first time in nearly a decade in an attempt to revive relations long strained by regional disputes, Barron’s reports. President Erdogan was welcomed in the capital Abu Dhabi by the de facto ruler of the UAE, Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, for the second meeting in three months between the Middle Eastern nations, after years of hostility over the role of Islamist groups in the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings.
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February 1marked one year since Myanmar’s military staged a coup to oust democratically elected leader Aung Sann Suu Kyi, less than a decade after its transition into a democratic nation. The U.N. Security Council released a statement regarding the one-year anniversary, calling for those still detained to abe released, including the country’s former president Win Myint, reports U.S. News. Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize winner and long-time supporter of democracy, remains detained as well.
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On January 30, North Korea launched what is thought to be the country’s longest-range missile tested since 2017, according to BBC News. states that the missile launched at a high trajectory with the apparent goal to avoid their neighbor’s territorial space, reaching a maximum altitude of 2,000 kilometers and traveling 800 kilometers.
Read MoreOn January 18, Indonesia’s parliament passed a bill to relocate the nation’s capital from Jakarta to the jungle island of Borneo, with the new city’s name to be Nusantara. The move, according to BBC News, will cost an estimated 466 trillion rupiah, or roughly $32.4 billion. The bill passed by approvals from eight factions, with one faction rejecting, according to Indonesian House Representative Puan Maharani.
Read MoreSalami tactics, or conquering an enemy piece-by-piece, is a well-known strategy in international relations used to overcome opposition and weaken enemy states. The People’s Republic of China and India faced tensions earlier this year in what was their second faceoff since 2020. In May 2020, a clash between the troops of both countries along the Sino-Indian border resulted from India’s infrastructure plan in the bordering region near Ladakh. Both the countries engaged in cross-border-firing on September 7, 2020, the first time in 45 years.
Read MoreBoth India and Pakistan have characterized the residents of Kashmir as pawns in their never-ending political and religious games of chess. Kashmiri women, in particular, bear the brunt of the conflict’s consequences. Among other things, they are subjected to sexual violence with little recourse for justice, and the battle for national and religious superiority in the region only worsens the physical impact on women.
Read MoreSince the fall of the Soviet Union, competing world orders and clashing national interests increasingly sparked fears of new conflicts erupting. The concept of ‘hybrid warfare’, or military actions existing in the liminal space between peace and war through various non-military strategies, has been consistently identified as a cause for tension since 2014.
Read MoreOn Monday, December 6, Russian President Vladimir Putin traveled to India to meet with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and discuss the maintenance and growth of relations between the two states. In just his second international trip since the global emergence of COVID-19, Putin’s arrival comes amid complex geopolitical developments throughout Asia.
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