By Urvashi Bundel This weeks marks the fifth anniversary of the outbreak of Syria’s civil war. Since March 2011, so much has been swept away including respect for basic human rights. Now the world needs to work on restoring respect for those rights around the...
There are walls, fences, trenches and berms. In Iraq, Israel, Morocco, China and elsewhere. They are admissions of the breakdown of diplomacy and destined to fail. An Iraqi street vendor stands beside a concrete wall in Baghdad, 11 February 2016(EPA/Ali Abbas)...
The United States and Russia have brokered a truce in Syria in hopes of resuming United Nations-backed peace talks on March 9. Today News-Decoder correspondent Rashad Mammadov looks at what Russia hopes to gain in the five-year-old conflict. By Rashad Mammadov Once...
This is the latest article by a student from one of 11 academic institutions participating in News-Decoder’s pilot program. By Greg Venizelos As the United States ponders military intervention in Libya, it should reflect on how previous actions brought that...
There have been many failures in Syria, and youth need to find solutions to future conflicts, two women helping refugees tell a News-Decoder panel. Two Middle Eastern women helping Syrian refugees decried the failure of international institutions and governments to...
Mainstream media depicts conflict as a violent struggle between good and bad. A Danish professor suggests a different way of thinking about conflict. Syrian refugee children in Lebanon (Wikimedia Commons/Trócaire/Eoghan Rice) Do you find it difficult to understand...
Fighting rages in Syria despite international efforts to impose a ceasefire and advance a peace plan. How remote are the prospects for peace in Syria? A hospital destroyed in northern Syria, 15 February 2016 (EPA/Sam Taylor/Médecins Sans Frontières handout) Fighting...
By Rashad Mammadov Once again, diplomatic efforts to find a peaceful solution to the Syrian conflict have stalled. Only two days after opening in Geneva, talks between the government, rebel forces and both sides’ international backers were suspended last week until...
Are Arab nations doing enough to help Middle Eastern refugees, especially from Syria? Should Europe be doing more? Syrian refugee Bissan Alabdullah, almost 3, near the Syrian border in Jordan, 20 January 2016(AP Photo/Muhammed Muheisen, File) Are Arab nations doing...
Russia’s economic woes seem to make it an easy target, but the West runs a risk in trying to paint Vladimir Putin into a corner. Archbishop Clement of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church walks past a pro-Russian armored vehicle and soldiers outside a Ukrainian...