On February 19, U.S. President Joe Biden reiterated his promise that the United States will work closely with its European partners to meet the range of shared challenges they all face, reports CNBC news.
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Haitian citizens have taken to the streets to protest, demanding the removal of President Jovenel Moïse, whose term some claim was supposed to end on February 7, 2021. Other opposition parties have accused Moïse of dictatorial actions, citing the dissolution of the parliament in 2020 and the recent removal of three Supreme Court Justices.
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On Saturday, February 20, Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s demand to be released from prison was rejected by a Moscow appeals court. According to Politico, Navalny has been jailed in Moscow since returning to Russia in January based on the supposition that he violated his parole agreement related to a previous conviction of embezzlement.
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On Monday, February 15, Iran announced it will block the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) access to its nuclear sites unless all U.S. sanctions were lifted, The Hill reports. Iran gave the United States one week to reverse all 1,600 sanctions before granting the IAEA continued inspection rights.
Read MoreAfrica’s COVID-19 death toll has exceeded 100,000 as a second wave of cases continues to sweep over the continent, reports Reuters. Additionally, Guinea reported a sudden growth in the number of cases of the Ebola virus on February 14, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
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In 2020, 26 journalists were imprisoned by the Egyptian government, the Committee to Protect Journalists reports. This past November, a prominent women’s rights activist was executed in broad-daylight in Benghazi, Libya, one of many targeted that year, Human Rights Watch adds. Just this month, a protestor was killed after Tunisian police, who were cracking down on protesters demanding social justice, fired tear gas.
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Hundreds of thousands of people have taken to the streets throughout Myanmar following a military coup that saw the country’s democratically-elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi removed from office and arrested. After seizing control of the government in Myanmar on February 1, the military, led by commander-in-chief Min Aung Hlain, has announced a year-long state of emergency. Citizens of Myanmar have expressed displeasure and disappointment over the coup, which ended Myanmar’s decade-long transition into democracy.
Read MoreUN officials, the High Commission for Refugees, the World Food Programme, and the Ethiopian government have agreed to expand access to humanitarian relief and ”scale up” efforts to reduce food insecurities in Ethiopia’s war-torn Tigray region, according to a statement by the World Food Programme (WFP). VOA reports that this agreement comes after the UN criticized Ethiopian authorities for blocking humanitarian aid from reaching the state’s rural population.
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Farmers in India began protesting the new farming regulations instituted under the Modi government in early November. Protests escalated in both size and scale in the months that followed, culminating in violent confrontations with police at Red Fort in New Delhi on January 26. Reuters reports that the protests continued February 5, with thousands of farmers across India blocking off roads with their tractors, tents, and boulders.
Read MoreTo protest a newly proposed media tax, dozens of independent media outlets in Poland decided to suspend new coverage and other programming on Wednesday, February 10, with various television screens, web portals, and front pages blank or blacked out for over 24 hours.
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