Earlier this week, the president of the country of Ecuador announced that government operations were being temporarily moved from the capital, Quito, to the southern port city of Guayaquil, in response to days of protests and rioting. Protests began last week over a move by President Lenín Moreno to end fuel subsidies, part of an unpopular package of austerity measures being taken to reduce the Ecuadorian national deficit. The government claims these subsidies cost over one billion US dollars to maintain per year, and they were lifted as part of…
Yesterday, thousands in Ukraine’s capital, Kiev, turned out to protest plans to hold elections in the eastern part of the country. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy was elected earlier this year, in part for his pledge to end the five-year conflict there with Russian-backed separatists that has killed more than 13,000 people. Last week, Zelenskiy’s gov signed a deal with Russia to hold elections in the rebel-held east and potentially give the region special status. Zelenskiy has cast the deal as an intermediate step needed to organize a summit with the…
Despite having declared victory over ISIS in 2017, Iraq is experiencing its worst violence since the war in the form of security forces cracking down on anti-government protests. With its infrastructure is still wrecked from wars with ISIS and with the US, Iraq’s economy is struggling despite record oil output. Last week, thousands of people turned out to protests over unemployment and corruption. Security forces attacked protestors with tear gas and live rounds, leading to more than 100 people being killed and more than 6,000 injured. The Iraqi government is…
Last week, details leaked about a phone conversation US President Trump had with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in July. This week, a rough transcript was released that shows Trump had urged Zelenskiy to investigate former VP Joe Biden for corruption, apparently over a Ukrainian company Biden’s son had ties to. The call happened while the Trump admin was withholding aid to Ukraine, causing some alarm over whether this combination of pressures was violating the law. Trump has said he was only withholding aid because he wanted Europe and others to…
On Tuesday, the EU’s top court ruled that Google isn’t required to apply the bloc’s “right to be forgotten” rules on a worldwide level. These rules require that an individual be able to ask a company to remove personal information from the internet, or in Google’s case, their search engine. In 2015, France’s privacy regulator CNIL demanded that the removal of information apply to Google’s global database, to prevent even those outside the EU from obtaining information on EU citizens. Google faced fines up to $100,000 for failing to comply…
The Golden Ray, a massive vehicle-transport ship, was spotted flipped on its side in the St. Simons Sounds off the coast of Georgia on Sunday morning. The Coast Guard was notified around 2 a.m., and responded to the ‘disabled ship’ which was listing over 45 degrees with its propeller out of the water. Twenty people were evacuated from the ship before rescue operations were delayed by a fire breaking out, leaving four crew unaccounted for. The Golden Ray, built in 2017, had departed from Brunswick, GA about an hour before…
A Chinese research team may have finally cracked the problem of repairing tooth enamel. Scientists at Zhejiang University have discovered a method by which its complex structure can be reproduced and the enamel essentially “grown” back. The team behind the research say the materials are cheap and can be prepared on a large scale. “After intensive discussion with dentists, we believe that this new method can be widely used in future,” said Dr Zhaoming Liu, co-author of the research. Currently, substitute materials such as resin, metal alloys, amalgams and ceramics…
Both major UK parties appear to be making preparations for a general election in the face of Boris Johnson’s controversial decision to suspend parliament last week. With little time now available to MPs to pass a bill that would prevent a no-deal Brexit, the opposition’s only alternative is a vote of no-confidence to overthrow Johnson’s government, in hopes that a new election would bring new leadership prior to October 31 and convince the EU to allow a further extension to the Brexit deadline. Within the Labour party, former leader Tony…
The Indonesian province of West Papua has entered a state of unrest following the arrest of student activists, resulting in a swelling independence movement and the Indonesian government imposing an internet blackout. West Papua is located on the island of New Guinea, and specifically the western peninsulas, separating it from the other Indonesian province simply called Papua and from the independent nation Papua New Guinea in the east. The province has been part of Indonesia since the Dutch withdrew from their colonial ambitions in the region, with a referendum in…
After a split between the two parties in Italy’s governing coalition earlier in the month, a deal has been struck for a new coalition that will oust the far-right League party from government. The previous coalition agreement between the League and the Five Star Movement (FSM) collapsed over disagreements regarding a railway project. The populist FSM held to its environmental concerns, while the League supported the project as a means to create jobs. The League, led by Matteo Salvini, tabled a no-confidence motion to dissolve the government, expecting a new…