by Alistair Lyon | 6 Jun 2025 | Israel-Palestine, Middle East, Politics
Standing by while a whole people gets massacred doesn’t absolve countries of their responsibility in that. There is complicity in silence. A Palestinian woman holds the body of her 8-year-old daughter who was killed in an Israeli military strike on Gaza, at...
by Daniel Warner | 24 May 2024 | Decoders, Human Rights, Israel-Palestine, Middle East, Politics, Russia, United States
The rule of law applies when enemies commit crimes. For national allies, the same crime isn’t necessarily a crime. Vladimir Putin and Benjamin Netanyahu against a backdrop of a court. (Illustration by News Decoder) Is there a rule of law for the United States...
by Bryson Hull | 9 Aug 2022 | Decoders, Educators' Catalog, Europe, Politics, Ukraine, World
A conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan is heating up as the war in Ukraine prompts geopolitical realignments, with implications for outside powers including the West and Russia. Azerbaijani soldiers carry portraits of soldiers killed during fighting over...
“It is easy to pay little attention or to even ignore regional conflicts, but they can hold the key to understanding larger political currents in the world.” Correspondent Bryson Hull’s words remind us of why a simmering conflict in the Caucuses between Armenia and Azerbaijan has potential implications for all of us. News Decoder is premised on the notion that young people know a great deal, through headlines on their screens, about what is happening in the world but, because they are young, can have difficulty connecting the dots and understanding why far-away events matter to them. Hull offers a clear explanation of why fighting over Nagorno-Karabakh appears periodically in those headlines, and then disappears, only to reappear some day, like so many other intractable conflicts in distant places.
Exercise: Ask your students to identify a regional conflict that became a proxy for armed competition involving stronger powers.
by Jean Bosco Sibomana | 5 Nov 2021 | Africa, Culture, Kepler, Personal Reflections
“Working hard should matter. Do not be afraid of hardships.” A Rwandan reflects on being challenged and on change. (Photo by: SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY via AP Images) Below is a poem by Jean Bosco Sibomana, who works at News Decoder partner Kepler in Rwanda....
by Barry Moody | 28 Sep 2021 | Africa, Human Rights, Politics
A civil war in Ethiopia and mounting criticism of Rwanda’s leader are increasingly imperiling U.S. strategy in volatile eastern Africa. Rwandan President Paul Kagame (C-R), Prime Minister of Belgium Charles Michel (C) and Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed...