——— History of Things ——— Any decent murder mystery should begin with a dead body in the woods. That’s how this one starts. In 1994, park scouts shot a man dead in the empty woodlands of North Luangwa National Park, a Zambian nature preserve about the size of Delaware. Squadrons wielded their rifles at the man and […]
Tag: corruption
Vietnam: Potential Ally or Headache?
The Socialist Republic of Vietnam: once a major battleground of the Cold War, it is now better known as a vacation destination for Westerners with cash to burn. In the new era of tension between China and the West, however, Vietnam has become an increasingly important player in the conflict. As one of the few […]
Misinformation: A Catch-22 For Facebook And Big Tech? Hint: The Future Is Not Meta
In today’s world, information is a valuable currency. While the age of social media has inarguably broadened our horizons and our accessibility to information, our society is facing a massive crisis of counterfeiting due to the flood of misinformation. Social media sites and big technology companies continue to grace headlines for their oversight or lack […]
Painful Memory of Sri Lankan Civil Not Forgotten: A Reckoning At Last?
On the fateful day of the 18th of May 2009, between 40,000 Tamils lost their lives in a Civil War that had embroiled the nation of Sri Lanka since the year 1983 in a long-fought insurrection between the majority-Buddhist Singhalese country and minority Tamils. This event has come to be known as the Mullivaikal Massacre. […]
Imprisonment of controversial dissenter sparks protests across Russia
Russian politician and activist Alexei Navalny returned to Moscow on January 17, after five months spent recovering in a German hospital from a near fatal poisoning, which he blames on Vladimir Putin. Navalny was immediately arrested upon his return, as the government threatened would happen, and has since been sentenced to a penal colony for […]
Violent protests continue in Peru over government corruption
On November 9th, 2020, the President of Peru, Martín Vizcarra, was ousted from office by the Peruvian Congress. Vizcarra was popular and supported by the majority of constituents due to his pledge to dismantle corruption by government officials. In his place, Congress appointed a little-known politician named Manuel Merino. Both the appointment and his Cabinet […]
The Art of State Engineering
Under the guise of development and democracy, state architecture is being used to conceal the centralization of power in both Malaysia and Singapore as leaders grapple with how to literally engineer the perfect, coordinated society. How does one engineer a harmonious state? Singapore’s People’s Action Party (P.A.P.) and Malaysia’s U.M.N.O. Party will argue that you […]
State Capture: Corruption Personified
Kevin Ramatsi, an 11th grader from South Africa, says corruption takes children away from schooling. “Gangsterism, violence and bullying is prevalent in schools. Kids are not protected. Some of the libraries and computer centres in our schools are not accessible. Now we are being told about the Fourth Industrial Revolution, but some of us we […]
Campaign Finance Remains Biggest Obstacle to Change— Why America Must Rid Itself of Money in Politics
Amidst the flurry of controversy and dissension of the recent Trump-Ukraine scandal came the news that NRA chief Wayne LaPierre offered to bankroll Trump in exchange for Trump halting any attempts to pass gun control reform. This report of a supposed direct quid pro quo for Trump’s legislative inaction came and went, lost in the […]
Corruption: The Gravedigger of Populism?
The surge in the success of right-wing populists has been one of the biggest political developments of this decade, as leaders like Viktor Orbán, Jair Bolsonaro and Donald Trump have all demonstrated the power of appealing to social divisions within society to gain power. Recently, however, another surprising trend has arisen: the implication of right-wing […]