Current Affairs

The massacre of almost 50 Maidan protesters on February 20, 2014 was a turning point in Ukrainian politics and a tipping point in the conflict between the West and Russia over Ukraine. This mass killing of the protesters and the mass shooting of the police that preceded it led to the overthrow of the pro-Russian government of Viktor Yanukovych and gave a start to a civil war in Donbas in Eastern Ukraine, Russian military intervention in Crimea and Donbas, and an international conflict between the West and Russia over Ukraine. A conclusion promoted by the post-Yanukovych governments and the media in Ukraine that the massacre was perpetrated by government snipers and special police units on a Yanukovych order has been nearly universally accepted by the Western governments, the media, and many scholars. The Ukrainian government investigation identified members of the special company of Berkut as responsible for killings of the absolute majority of the protesters, but did not release any evidence in support, with the exception of videos of the massacre.
              The question is which side organized the “snipers’ massacre.” This paper is the first academic study of this crucial case of the mass killing. It uses a theory of rational choice and a Weberian theory of instrumental rationality to examine actions of major actors both from the Yanukovych government, specifically various police and security forces, and the Maidan opposition, specifically its far right and oligarchic elements, during the massacre.
          The paper analyzes a large amount of evidence from different publicly available sources concerning this massacre and killings of specifics protesters. Qualitative content analysis includes the following data: about 1,500 videos and recordings of live internet and TV broadcasts from mass media and social media in different countries(some 150 gigabytes), news reports and social media posts by more than 100 journalists covering the massacre from Kyiv, some 5,000 photos, and nearly 30 gigabytes of publicly available radio intercepts of snipers and commanders from the special Alfa unit of the Security Service of Ukraine and Internal Troops, and Maidan massacre trial recordings. This study also employs field research on site of the massacre, eyewitness reports by both Maidan protesters and government special units commanders, statements by both former and current government officials, estimates of approximate ballistic trajectories, bullets and weapons used, and types of wounds among both protesters and the police. This study establishes a precise timeline for various events of the massacre, the locations of both the shooters and the government snipers, and the specific timeline and locations of nearly 50 protesters’ deaths. It also briefly analyzes other major cases of violence during and after the “Euromaidan.” This study includes two video appendixes.
            This academic investigation concludes that the massacre was a false flag operation, which was rationally planned and carried out with a goal of the overthrow of the government and seizure of power. It found various evidence of the involvement of an alliance of the far right organizations, specifically the Right Sector and Svoboda, and oligarchic parties, such as Fatherland. Concealed shooters and spotters were located in at least 20 Maidan-controlled buildings or areas. The various evidence that the protesters were killed from these locations include some 70 testimonies, primarily by Maidan protesters, several videos of “snipers” targeting protesters from these buildings, comparisons of positions of the specific protesters at the time of their killing and their entry wounds, and bullet impact signs. The study uncovered various videos and photos of armed Maidan “snipers” and spotters in many of these buildings. The paper presents implications of these findings for understanding the nature of the change of the government in Ukraine, the civil war in Donbas, Russian military intervention in Crimea and Donbas, and an international conflict between the West and Russia over Ukraine.

Numerous contributions on the current war in Ukraine bring up the expansion of NATO as the principal factor that led to this calamity. While this article agrees with this view, it points out that these explanations still fall short. The decision to enlarge NATO almost three decades ago was extremely controversial. A large number of politicians, government officials, and experts opposed the proposal for expansion. Yet the proponents for expansion won. The article explains why the proposal for the enlargement of NATO eventually won the day. It takes a broad systemic perspective on this issue, bringing up other ancillary factors that affected the decision. The article argues that the need to organize the post-Cold War world order was the most important inspiration for the proponents of this solution. While the article agrees that the world needs new order, it sees the approach adopted by American policy makes is profoundly flawed and, for this reason, led to the current fragmentation and divisions in the world, rather than to its unification. The war in Ukraine is just one consequence of this flawed approach.

RESUMO O presente relato de experiência destina-se a apresentar o projeto Observatório Internacional, que tem por objetivo levar à comunidade, de maneira acessível e lúdica, as questões internacionais contemporâneas de maior relevância para a sociedade. O projeto está em seu segundo ano de desenvolvimento e tem como foco os estudantes da 3ª série do Ensino Médio das escolas da região de Tubarão-SC. Nas atividades do projeto, os estudantes das escolas visitadas têm a possibilidade de fazer indagações, reflexões, suposições e debates sobre as questões abordadas e, assim, construir e reconstruir o seu próprio conhecimento. Os resultados obtidos apontam que o projeto foi bem dimensionado, alcança os objetivos definidos e está se tornando um interessante mecanismo de ensino-aprendizagem.

This newspaper article, published in "Der Tagesspiegel" (21 April, 2017, Berlin) discusses the reperpussions of Armenia's precarious geopolitical position at the cross-road of trade routes and strategic interests. The focus is on the 20th century and thei neighborhood of Azerbaijan, Turkey, Iran and Russia.

A second article in the same issue of "Berliner Tagesspiegel" is dedicated to the relationship of Armenia's Diasporas and the "homeland".

Humour has political currency. ​ The 'sense making' of politicians, or their mediation of reality, can be unmasked by the 'nonsense' making of satire. That is the power of the joke. In 2013 design studio Metahaven called upon artists and graphic designers to harness this 'joke power' as a weapon against neoliberalism. Fast forwarding three years, it was arguably the same joke power that got the neoconservative, at times even neo-fascist, cabinet of Donald Trump into power. His alt-right following effectively employed joke power in the form of internet memeing. This example shows that, when used against hegemonic power, it is a highly effective strategy to engage and influence a public. With nationalistic and marginalizing politics increasingly becoming the new hegemonic power, it is time to reappropriate joke power for progressive means. Art practices actively pursuing a more transnational, equal, and inclusive society, can disrupt the rise of derivative fascisms through humour that looks to dissensus. Three methods to put this into action are campaigning, memeing, or counter-trolling. For all of these strategies, satire is the most politically 'useful' form of humour. It is used to highlight a problem and offer constructive social critique, whilst aiming to enforce social change. Practical examples are the political campaign material produced by Keep it Clear-Make it Complex and Jeremy Deller, Daniel Keller positioning himself as the tactical counter-troll, and the satirical images made by Tala Madani and David Shrigley. These last two combine the type distanced satirical political commentary found in television or print media, with the potential found in the movement and viral upscaling of digital memes. This is identified as the most viable strategy for art practices seeking to disrupt the rise of derivative fascisms.

Adiyen - my humble self - has devised a novel way of reckoning significant numbers and the role they play in determining the general quality of a Subject's life. Applications involving impact on current events are also given. An essay which can enrich a Subject's knowledge about self and contemporary events.

It is generally believed that the youth form a larger part of the working population of any country and this speaks volume of the productivity level of any country. The youth play significant roles in the politics of any nation regardless of their political affiliation. It is not uncommon to have a youth wing in political parties all over the globe. This implies that youths are indispensable in politics. Moreover politics cannot be complete without the youths playing active roles therein.
The youth must be ready to empower themselves to gain relevance in the nation so as to be able to play their roles in resolving the challenges. As such, there is the need to always put youth inclusion in politics in perspective to maximize a nation’s human resources.
The vibrancy of youths makes them indispensable in politics. As such their inclusion in politics cannot be overemphasized. The energy of the youths if well channeled into politics will go a long way to affirm their relevance in the polity of the country in which they find themselves.

India has entered the new Millennium without the aura of the much-touted millennium. Indian democracy is shallower and hollower now than a decade ago. If India has to develop into a full-blown democracy, instead of merely gloating over sustaining democracy as its greatest achievement, India ought to strengthen its democratic structures and institutions and work overtime to offer, among other things, clean, efficient, secular and transparent and corruption-free governance; rapid expansion of civil space for rapid secularisation and democratisation of state and society with secular public institutions mediating between both; equip and energise the judiciary for expeditious justice delivery, especially for the masses who cannot afford to spend and cannot afford to wait; and protect and uplift the weaker sections from poverty, illiteracy, unemployment, and social oppression. As the nation has been caught between the two evils Congress and the BJP, making the hapless masses forlorn, team...

Jawaharlal Nehru was the architecture of modern India after its independence in 1947.Apart from handling the domestic situation, Nehru’s major contribution lies in the area of external relations as he kept foreign affairs under his strict control over seventeen years and made all the major foreign policy decisions himself merely getting consultation from his advisers and aides. Constructing the conceptual frame work of foreign policy, Nehru abrogated to himself the role of the sole arbiter of Indian foreign policy. His policies were characterized by ideological perspective including Panchsheel, nonalignment, colonialism and racism. Formulating the foreign policy, Nehru not only considered the other states’ foreign policies but also observed the trends in contemporary world politics. These two traditionally discrete realms known as inter-domestic politics increasingly influenced the Indian foreign policy jointly highlighting the need for the leader to integrate his domestic and foreign policies. All activities occurring beyond India’s borders structured the choices of Nehru’s policy-making. He wanted India to have an identity without overt commitment to either power bloc; the USA and the Soviet Union. The paper is to analyze the internationalist approach of Nehru in foreign policy-making, which led him to find solution in non-alignment and Punjsheel. Despite these peaceful looking policy, the question is Indian clash with its neighbors; Pakistan over Kashmir and China over the border. Keeping in view, these two opposite direction, Nehru’s foreign policy has been analyzed discussing different issues and occasions.
Key Words: Non-alignment, border war, security, bloc, communism, domestic policies, foreign affairs, wars, peace, colonialism.

Based on reports by the U.S. Department of Defense, the Open Nuclear Network (ONN) and other open source intelligence,  here are 10 things you need to know about the North Korea missile program and the latest North Korean missile test:

With a flight duration of 71 minutes, the March 24, 2022 test, assumed to be a Hwasong-17 missile test, was the longest duration flight by a North Korean ICBM. The missile reached an estimated altitude of 3730 miles (6,000 km) and 3850 miles (6,200 km) according to respective reports from Japan and South Korea. The launch was nearly vertical, ranging only 730 miles (1,180 km) to fall into the Sea of Japan, but if the missile had been launched on a standard ballistic missile trajectory, the estimated range would reach across the continental United States. (download to read more)

The aim of this research is to understand children`s involvement
with the news, and the impact of general issues on these audiences.
In 2014, with the participation of 42 Portuguese children in
six focus groups, the research concluded that the nature of children’s
involvement with the news is contextualised within the
following variables: gender; preferences; life experiences; skills to
process issues; forms of exposure and media coverage of events;
and family mediation. The data reveal that children frequently
watch the news and get involved and excited about these topics.
But, the results also reveal that children may feel disturbed when
viewing certain problematic events to which they direct their
attention mainly as a result of permanent media coverage of
such events via shocking images. The latter phenomenon arises
even more frequently during moments of crisis and terrorism,
imposing the need to focus on media literacy.

《信仰“我们的民族是上帝”：中国新天命》是以《圣经》为基础信仰, 强调一种先进、世俗、普遍的价值观。作为潜在的一种神学信仰，它从犹太--基督教的现实中被发现挖掘出来，而它的授权来自以色列。这部著作是一次重要的神学思想更新，也是《圣经》对社会现实所进行的一次极具魅力的解释。已有的经文、摄影图像和其他证据证明，在1963年里“暗夜之贼”屈服性的第二次降临，已经宣告耶稣血液覆盖时代的绝对结束。在现在的空间里，上帝有了一个崭新的、充满《圣经》思想的新名字。它代表的结论是，由于上帝始终不断向西行进，在当前的历史“空白期”里，世界统治权正在从美国转向中国。对于中国来说，直到有一种新的精神基础出现，它的复兴才能真正实现，而“信仰‘我们的民族是上帝'：中国的新天命”，则是中华民族爱国主义的一次实际应用，也是上帝给予中国的一次机遇。

What a sad day it is for authoritarians, dictators, communist, Marxist socialist, and others aligned in actionable beliefs that inherently desire to deny and remove from individual citizenry and residents of free societies-through a wide array of variable means and measures-their personal rights, freedoms, liberties, and intrinsic autonomy as humans to exist as free entities on this planet in the capacity of life that they freely choose. Without threat of violence or coercion to their autonomy, as those inherently free beings that we were all created to be from birthregardless of race, creed, gender, religion, color, or natural human attributes bestowed. The myth of a zero-sum reality among totalitarian authoritarians is incredibly strong as with many ideological beliefs and cults of controlled conformity as essential aspects within the associated enablers producing the advertised "benefits" of those ideologies. Benefits to their dedicated devotees as well as to those prospects for recruitment, indoctrination, and utility of use that they propagate to draw in as newly minted followers for their "movements" of teaching required modes in "us versus them" politics and other ultimatum exclusivities, to create the necessary "others" that their doctrines desperately need to exist.

Overt nuclearization by India and Pakistan in May 1998 threw up doctrinal challenges for the strategist communities of the two countries 2 , which had until then been conveniently swept under the carpet. International pressures with regard to non-proliferation as well as safety and security of nuclear warheads and other nuclear facilities, especially after 9/11, restricted the space for free though process available to the strategists of both the countries. The doctrines that have so far emerged reflect more of apologists' standpoints with respect to international concerns, rather than offering robust doctrinal statements focused at operational intent. Having preponderance in conventional arms, India subscribed to 'No First Use' concept but, soon after, started diluting it by attaching conditionalities to it 3 ; and having un-matching. http://www.idsa-india.org/an-feb-1.01.htm, (accessed on November 11, 2015). " India's "minimum credible nuclear deterrence" doctrine and "no first use" policy are based on the concept of deterrence by denial, rather than deterrence by punishment. Should deterrence ever break down, India will have to pay an enormous price for a nuclear first strike by an adversary before launching massive punitive retaliation. Nuclear doctrine has to be ultimately tested in the crucible of operational reality. Across the entire spectrum of conventional conflict, the first use of nuclear weapons by India does not make sound strategic sense. The real distinguishing feature of India's nuclear doctrine is that it is anchored in India's continued commitment to global, verifiable and non-discriminating nuclear disarmament " .

Introduction is the first part that deals with the conceptual premises of Juvenile Justice and attempts to deal with the nomenclature of the terms related to it. This section of the paper explains the concept of Juvenile Justice.

The second part of the paper provides a brief history of the laws related to Juvenile Justice in India, important case laws and Protection of Children, this part also analyses Juvenile Justice and attempt is made to critique the Juvenile Justice System.

The third part consists of conclusion and the suggestion.

This document unearths a plethora of endogenous and exogenous factors that spearheaded the horrendous and nightmarish depreciation of the value of Zimbabwean dollar against the US dollar. Though Zimbabwe witnessed sporadic droughts, for example recurrent droughts of 1983, 1987, 1992, 1999, 2002 and 2008, amongst other exogenous shocks. Yes, on normal case, this cannot be denied that exogenous impulses have an impact to spectacular deterioration of currencies, but in this case deducing drought and sanctions as mainly responsible for depreciation of the Zimbabwe dollar becomes a preposterous fallacy. Exogenous circumstances like sanctions and droughts were just presented by the Robert Mugabe's government and sympathisers of his government as propaganda utterances to obfuscate facts. It is the contention of this research to substantiate that causes for depreciation of the Zimbabwe dollar were not exogenic or were not beyond government’s capacity to unravel as propagated by Zimbabwean government, hence they could have been controlled, and to a logical extent be avoided. On this document, endogenous causes like the wantonly chosen Marxist-Leninist socialist policy during the Cold War era, payment for gratuity of war veterans, expenditures in the excursion of DRC war, lack of basic budgetary housekeeping practice, excessive running of money printing machine and post-2000 ZANU PF policy
gyrations such as the land reform policy and Look East Policy are root-causes for the globally striking depreciation of Zimbabwe dollar. This study arrives at a rationale conclusion that these endogenous factors, than the role of exogenous factors depreciated the value of Zimbabwe dollar from rating more than 1 US dollar in 1980, to a value of less than a paper it had been printed on by 2009. Then this depreciation eventually led to the loss of Zimbabwe sovereignty currency in less than thirty years of independence uncommon to any African country except Zimbabwe to adopt a multi-currency regime that was effectuated from the 12th of April, 2009.

A democratic system gives people the ability to participate in the decision making (directly or indirectly) and that too without any pressure or influence. There have been different perspectives for the evolution of Democracy. One of them which is well known was that democracy came into existence after the cold war between USSR and America. The widest differentiation that intellectuals make between democracies is based on the nature of the representative government. The two main types of democracies are Direct Democracy and Indirect Democracy. Direct democracy means all legislative power lies in the hands of people. This kind of Government although sounds like an ideal form of government but is very difficult to implement especially in a country with a huge population. Indirect democracy has a bit different arrangement, in this democracy through the electoral process, one person or a group of people are elected and assigned the task of lawmaking decisions on behalf of the people who have chosen that person or group of people. Therefore, we can see that there are similarities between the two different systems of democracy but when we examine both of them closely, it can be easily marked that they are very different from each other. Direct democracy gives full power to its people whereas in an indirect democracy people have the right to choose their representative but can't interfere in the lawmaking the process as the representative's work on law-making on behalf of people. Thus, both the democracies have their own positive and negative effects and there are certain conditions under which they can be implemented.

Recently there was a controversy over the transfer of the Chief Justice of the Madras High Court, Justice Vijaya Kamlesh Tahilramani, to the Meghalaya High Court. Justice Tahilramani submitted her resignation after her request for reconsideration of the transfer was rejected by the Collegium headed by the Chief Justice of India (CJI), Ranjan Gogoi, and four senior-most judges of the Supreme Court.

This article compares recent political developments in two seemingly different countries: Turkey and Thailand. The similarities between the trajectories of Turkey and Thailand date back to their similar manner of incorporation into the modern international system in the late nineteenth century. In recent years, the rise of new societal groups based upon urbanized villagers has produced charismatic populist leaders who preach democracy, but practise electoralism. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Thaksin Shinawatra are locked in parallel confrontations with traditionally interventionist military/bureaucratic elites. A comparison between Thailand and Turkey provides insights that are generally applicable to our understanding of democratization outside the West.

One alternative could be a true US solution for the accountability gap of Russia’s complicity in the disaster. If the US Congress was to qualify the rebel groups as terrorist organizations then this would make Russia a state sponsor of terrorism and as such subject to US federal jurisdiction in a terrorism civil litigation case brought under the Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA-18 USC Sections 2331-2338) as an amendment to the Alien Torts Statute (ATS/ATCA - 28 USC Section 1350). The so called “State Sponsors of Terrorism” exception to the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA Exception-28 USC Section 1605 (a) (7), which allows lawsuit against so called state sponsors of terrorism. The Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA) Exception of 1996 limits the defense of state immunity in cases of state sponsored terrorism and can be seen as a direct judicial response to the growing threat of acts of international state sponsored terrorism directed against the USA and her citizens abroad, as exemplified in the case of  Flatow v. Islamic Republic of Iran (76 F. Supp. 2d 28 (D.D.C. 1999)) (http://journals.sas.ac.uk/amicus/article/view/1530). Utilising US law to bring a civil litigation case against Russia as a designated state sponsor of international terrorism would certainly set a strong signal and message to Putin; it remains to be seen whether the US call for stronger unified sanctions against Russia will translate into such unilateral action.

The 10th Congress of the Lao People’s Revolutionary Party (LPRP) concluded in January 2016 with a reshuffle of the Politburo. The new leadership confirmed a «steady-as-you-go» policy continuing to base its political legitimacy both on economic growth cum social equity and the fight against the spread of corruption, and on its strategic ability in the international arena. Laos, as temporary chairman of ASEAN, acted as guardian of its autonomy vis-à-vis Beijing’s undue influence. This latter approach also aimed at ensuring the party-state good relations with the international community and, consequently, the steady flow of official development assistance (ODA) and foreign direct investments (FDI).
Barack Obama’s visit (in September), the first one to Laos of a sitting US President, contributed to highlight the impressive economic growth achieved by the country in the last decade, strengthening the PLRP’s political legitimation.

The study takes an helicopter view of Covid-19, with close focuses on the virus itself, the history of viral pandemics, and the various responses of us humans. The latter cover the detailed actions of the country of origin, and by the world community. Besides inter-governmental and private-public partnerships, the latter include the outstanding collaboration of the scientific, medical, humanitarian and philanthropic communities .It examines the GOF/Leak Allegations in depth. It ends with Concluding Observations and recommendations for Direction of Change.

(a) Part One, Summarises the current state of knowledge of viruses
(b) Part Two, Focuses on the past Lesser Pandemics, followed by the past Major Pandemics,
(c) Part Three, Deals with the Covid-19: its origin, the country of origin and its initial actions; WHO’s first responses, its mobilisation of the global communities, and its Three Pillars Strategy – Diagnostics, Therapeutics and Vaccines
(d) Part Four, Recounts our Human Defenses and Medical Defenses
(e) Part Five, Sizes up where we are under Score Lines, and the road ahead
(f) Part Six, Captures the international communities that rallied together to battle the pandemic
Part Seven, includes the Concluding Observations and Directions of Change
(285 pages)