“It was late evening when K. arrived. The village lay deep in snow. There was nothing to be seen of Castle Mount, for mist and darkness surrounded it, and not the faintest glimmer of light showed where the great castle lay. K. stood on the wooden bridge leading from the road to the village for…
Exactly 40 years ago, in 1978, Deng Xiaoping took China by the reins and led it on a path of mass economic reform; dismantling the agriculture sector and encouraging foreign investment which revived an advanced economic system that had been stagnating and declining for nearly five centuries. Of course, such a rapid growth was in-part…
Tourism in Southeast Asia has expanded and changed dramatically in recent years. Independent travel is booming, as are new forms of tourism including ecotourism, homestays, volunteer tourism that are allowing travelers to access previously isolated areas. The increasing ease and decreasing cost of travel are also contributing to the movement of significant numbers of tourists…
They call themselves army and come from Latin America. They are the pandillas (from Spanish bande), gangs of latinos, terrorising the streets of many cities, where they are installed, from America to Europe. Milano, for example, has been invaded by Latin-American gangs as reported by the British newspaper The Independent. Without any doubt, La Mara Salvatrucha or…
In the south-eastern Idlib countryside, fierce battles are raging between the forces of the regime and the militias supporting them on the one hand, and the fighters of the “Sham Liberation” and the opposition factions on the other hand. More than 95 civilians have been killed and more than 200 wounded in three weeks of intense air…
Tuesday, January 3, 2018: the commander of the Iranian Pasdaran (Guards of the Revolution), Mohammad Ali Jafari, broke the news: “The revolt in Iran has been defeated”. This week of protests, clashes, violence and arrests will leave a long trace, marking the present and the future of the country. In the last week in Iran tens…
A referendum was held on 1 October 2017 to decide whether Catalonia, an autonomous region of northeastern Spain, should declare itself an independent country. This was declared illegal and incompatible by the Spanish Constitution. An extensive police report delivered to the Court on December 15 concluded that the independence movement had systematically encouraged “hatred” of…
After the Free Army factions gained control of Aleppo and its closeby towns in June 2012, there was a need of security management in the area. This resulted into the Free Army to directed dissident some police officers, to establish dispersed entities which however failed in managing and organizing their duties and operations. Preparations for the…
A group of kids lands on a desert island. They understand the need for cooperation in order to survive. They hold free elections, under the guidance of chief Ralph they collectively engage in the construction of a rudimental, dreamlike civil society. Yet things start to go wrong. Rumours of a beast living in the island…
The Rohingya people are an Islamic ethnic group mainly concentrated in the Burmese state whose population is predominantly Buddhist from Rakhine, on the border with Bangladesh. They are not recognized as a minority and Myanmar does not even ensure them the basic rights of citizenship. Persecuted and victims of violence and discrimination in the homeland…
