By Savannah Green (CMC ’20) In Europe, Germany was the first country to participate in Daylight Savings Time (DST). It was implemented in 1916 and rapidly spread to other countries throughout Europe and the rest of the world. It began as a way to maximize daylight hours for economic growth and allow people to enjoy more sunlight after work in the summer. The idea was first presented in a paper by...
By Rafael Santa Maria (PO ’20) Rodrigo Duterte, the current President of the Philippines, regularly garners controversy for his profane speech and uncompromising policies. From instigating a violent war on drugs to spurning the U.S. in favor of closer diplomatic ties with China, Duterte challenges the legal and political status quo of the Philippines with questionable justifications and a gung-ho...
By Savannah Green (CMC ’20) In April of 2016, the government of the Czech Republic approved and adopted ‘Czechia’ as the official English-language name of the country. This initiated the United Nations to update their database for official country names, and supposedly ended the century-long naming debate within the country. The English version has been up for debate since 1918 with various names...
By Savannah Green (CMC ’20) One of the more prominent topics in the news recently has been the current standing of the Brexit negotiations. Theresa May, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative (Tory) Party, has been the front woman for the negotiations on the British side. Unfortunately, she is quickly losing her credibility, as she nearly missed a vote of no...
By Kimberly Tuttle (CMC ’19) East Turkestan is an autonomous region of China, located in the heart of Asia. It is home to the indigenous group Uyghur, a Turkic-speaking Muslim minority, and other Central Asian groups like Tatars, Tajiks, and Kazaks. According to a Chinese consensus, the present Muslim population in East Turkestan exceeds 11 million people, with Uyghur making up eight and a...
By Kimberly Tuttle (CMC ’19) Central European University (CEU), one of the leading American accredited universities in Central Europe, is being forced out of Budapest, Hungary. In April 2017, the Hungarian Parliament changed the country’s higher education laws, making it illegal for some independent universities to operate. The new law requires universities registered outside of Hungary...
By Ciara Chow (PO ’22) Nearly four years after the onset of the civil war in Yemen, the United Nations continues to warn the world of the increasingly horrific situation. Most recent estimates expect 14 million people in Yemen to soon be completely dependent on humanitarian aid. In addition, the war is responsible for 6,660 civilian deaths. International pressure has been building for the...
By Alec Lei PO’21 On October 20, 2018, President Donald Trump announced at a campaign rally in Nevada that the United States would formally withdraw from the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF). This decision was later confirmed by his National Security Advisor, John Bolton, who had flown to Moscow earlier that week to discuss this matter with his Russian counterpart. Within...
By Katya Pollock (PO ’21) In 2014, the Chinese State Council announced that it would begin pursuing the establishment of an ambitious national credit scoring program. The “Social Credit System” aims to amalgamate previously fragmented data held by governmental agencies and private firms to establish a standardized credit score for individuals, businesses, nongovernmental organizations, and...
By Megan Rohn (PO ’18) In 1951, Australia, New Zealand and the US signed the Australia New Zealand United States Security Treaty (ANZUS), a military alliance and collective security agreement between the three nations.1 Included in this treaty was the agreement that Australia and New Zealand would not pursue nuclear weapons, in exchange for being under the US nuclear umbrella of extended...
