Education plays a vital role in the lives of refugee children. In an interview with CBS, David Miliband, the Chief Executive Officer of the International Rescue Committee (IRC), informs that only two percent of humanitarian aid goes to education and from that, an even smaller amount goes to educating young children.
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On November 3, shots were fired around the area of Seitenstettengasse Temple, one of Vienna’s main synagogues. Fejzulai Kujtim, the gunman, had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), who have since claimed responsibility for the attack. Local police believe that the gunman acted alone, although 14 individuals believed to have been involved in the attacks and having ties to Kujtim were taken into custody.
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On Tuesday, October 20, the United States and Russia edged closer to renewing the last major nuclear arms control treaty between the two nations. According to POLITICO, the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) is set to expire on February 5, 2021 and has been the subject of unpromising negotiations between the Trump administration and Putin government since the beginning of this year. This newfound cooperation and apparent will to renew New START is owed to a Russian verbal commitment to a one-year nuclear warhead freeze and a one-year extension of New START.
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Thousands of people in Poland are taking to the streets in protest over a new court ruling on abortion, reports the New York Times. The nation’s top court’s decision completely bans the practice except in cases of rape, incest, or health necessity.
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In response to a resurgence of COVID-19 cases, the Spanish government has declared a national state of emergency. As of October 30, the total number of cases in Spain reached 1,264,517 with 35,878 deaths reported. Among the new measures instituted to prevent another near-collapse of the country’s hospital capacity is an overnight curfew that will be in place for the next six months, reports the Associated Press.
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French officials unleashed a strict crackdown on many Muslim organizations on October 16 following the brutal murder of school teacher Samuel Paty for showing offensive caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad.
Read MoreOn October 15, the head of the World Health Organization in Europe called for restrictive measures after a major increase of coronavirus cases throughout the continent, reports The Associated Press.
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A total of nine people in France were arrested on suspicion of involvement in the brutal beheading of a teacher on Friday, October 16. The victim was 47-year-old Samuel Paty, a geography and history teacher at a school in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, a suburb of Paris. According to the Washington Post, the assailant was shot dead by French police and later identified as Abdoulakh A., an 18-year-old Moscow-born immigrant of Chechen descent.
Read MoreOn Monday, October 5, Nicolas Maduro’s Venezuelan government won its appeal in a lawsuit filed against the Bank of England concerning access to more than $1 billion in gold bullion. With this judgement, the England and Wales Court of Appeal has reversed a lower court’s decision to block Maduro’s government from accessing its gold bullion reserves housed at the Bank of England. The BBC reports that while this is an auspicious turn of events for the Maduro government, the verdict will only grant access to the bullion pending another review of the case.
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Turkish Cypriot Prime Minister Ersin Tatar unveiled his plan to reopen the infamous abandoned Varosha beach, just days before the 2020 Northern Cypriot presidential election, reports Al Jazeera. The plan was criticized by Tatar’s opponents, calling it an interference by Turkey to sustain his nationalist base in the Turkish-occupied zone of Cyprus.
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