South Sudan is the youngest country in the world in terms of its autonomous foundation. Once part of Sudan, it achieved semi-autonomy in 2005 after years of brutal civil war as part of its now northern neighbor. Eventually, under referendum, the people of South Sudan voted for absolute autonomy in 2011, legally breaking away from Sudan.
On 19 July 2025, the Kenyan activist Boniface Mwangi was arrested under suspicion of “facilitation of terrorist activities during the June 25, 2025, protests.” He was released on 21 July on a KSh 1m personal bond ($7,723). He was charged not for terrorism, but for possession of two tear gas canisters and a single blank 7.62 bullet. This is not the first time Mwangi was arrested by Kenyan authorities, nor the first time a Kenyan journalist or human rights activist was arrested by federal authorities for similar reasons.
Those who have a casual understanding of history or geopolitics may react agreeably to the concept: the greater abundance of natural resources a country has the more well-off the people of that country will be. Unfortunately, for Nigerians, the opposite is their reality. The abundance of oil in Nigeria, along with their colonial history, has resulted in a “resource curse,” a theory posited by contemporary international relations scholars. Nigeria now finds its economy reliant on the export of oil and renting their oil fields to multinational corporations (MNCs), leading to a commodity industry based on corruption and wealth centralization.
Across the world conflicts are raging, and in their paths leave levels of humanitarian crisis that reach peaks never seen in human history. One of these lesser reported upon conflict regions has the largest humanitarian crisis in recorded history: Sudan.
To the average westerner, and especially to Americans, the African continent seems to be politically and economically monolithic. One could recall instances where an interviewed passerby on Jay Leno or Jimmy Kimmel’s show would refer to Africa as a country. This point of view makes the western public less capable of discerning and debating foreign policy as it relates to Africa. Therefore, it is the mission of this brief to inform readers of an infamous armed group that has made headlines for its brutality and human rights abuses, but whose history and status remain vague in the casual reader’s news feed: M23.
On 22 April, Secretary of State Marco Rubio revealed plans to reorganize the State Department with the justification of increasing efficiency, rooting out ‘radical political ideology’, and delivering Trump’s foreign policy agenda. The details of the plan focus on reducing the size of the State Department and its budget over time: consolidating regional bureaus and embassies, shutting down redundant offices, and ending non-statutory programs that the administration determines to be irrelevant to American interests.
The current US administration has altered South Africa’s trajectory as a nation. On 7 February 2025, President Trump signed Executive Order 14204 titled, “Addressing Egregious Actions of The Republic of South Africa”. It outlines two reasons for its existence, first that South Africa’s Expropriation Act (2024) dismantles “equal opportunity” and fuels “disproportionate violence against racially disfavored landowners”. Secondly, the Order states that South Africa’s condemnation of Israel to the International Court of Justice, “poses national security threats to the US.” The provisions of the order also set two major policies that will reverberate across the international community. One is an immediate cut to United States aid to South Africa, second is the promotion of resettling Afrikaners, Dutch-descended South Africans, in the United States as refugees from racial discrimination.
It is no secret that the past two months of Trump’s second term have rattled both American and international societies to their core. Racing out of the gates, the administration has enacted executive orders and taken initial action against those who stand against its policy agenda; these actions are illegal and fundamentally violate the Constitution.
The Argentinian people have had enough. On 12 March 2025, the people of Buenos Aires took to the street to protests President Javier Milei’s policy of extreme austerity. The protesters showed anger at the weakness of their pension system exposed by these policies. In reaction, the government sent out police; senior citizens and soccer fans were then blasted with firehoses, teargassed, and shot with rubber bullets Ghastly images and videos have emerged of badly wounded protesters voicing their desperation to the riot police.
40% of the U.S. population line our coasts. That equates to approximately 130 million people residing in coastal counties. In addition to those who retire seaside, entire economies are integrated into the coastal industries of fishing, tourism, energy, shipbuilding, and recreation. Even a cursory glance using google maps shows how tightly clustered the built space is, all on only 10% of the total U.S. land mass. Shoreline communities have five times the population density as compared to the U.S. average.