On December 28, The United Nations and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons announced that the December 31 deadline for complete destruction of Syria’s chemical weapons will not be met. Citing “a number of external factors,” the announcement by the UN and the OPCW signals a failure of the international community to meet a … Read more
If you’ve been living under a rock (in terms of Asian-American issues, at least) for the past three days, check out the #NotYourAsianSidekick feed on Twitter. Twenty-three year-old freelance writer Suey Park started it (never imagining that it would blow up into a nationwide trend) with an aspiration to create a new feminism that embraces human … Read more
Last night Beyoncé released a new album simply titled “Beyoncé”, unbeknownst to the general public and without any type of promotion. The album, directly available through iTunes, has 14 songs and 17 videos featuring artists like Drake, Jay-Z, Frank Ocean, and her daughter Blue Ivy Carter. She appropriately calls this a “visual album” because she … Read more
In 1998, Nelson Mandela received the third honorary degree ever awarded by Harvard outside of a commencement ceremony or a university anniversary. (The first two recipients being George Washington and Winston Churchill.) In his acceptance speech below, Mandela reflects with wit and humor on the role of intellectuals, and of Harvard in particular, in the … Read more
Eight major technology companies just rolled out a website demanding reform of government surveillance policies. The website, titled “Reform Government Surveillance”, is a response to the series of scandals of the past summer surrounding NSA surveillance tactics and reach. The dramatic launch of the page is already receiving attention from the press, but the long-term strategy of … Read more
Detroit is one step closer to dealing with the scrum of creditors trying to wrest away the city’s few resources. Federal Judge Steven Rhodes’s ruling allows the city to proceed in Chapter Nine bankruptcy, meaning a resolution to the financial tug-of-war is on the horizon. The designation protects the city from other suits. The eventual payouts … Read more
On Thursday, George Osborne, Chancellor of the Exchequer, will take to the floor of Britain’s House of Commons to reveal his Autumn Statement: a half-yearly budget review. He is expected to announce that Britain has gone from one of the slowest to one of the fastest growing economies in the G7, and that GDP growth … Read more
On the 150th anniversary of the Gettysburg Address, President Obama hand-wrote a short remark on the impact of the speech. Though the significance of the president taking the time to turn to pen and paper cannot be overlooked, it is also important to consider his gentle nod at Lincoln himself. Obama has certainly drawn from … Read more
“Remember the firemen are rarely necessary. The public stopped reading of its own accord.” Ray Bradbury’s dystopian novel, Fahrenheit 451, eerily resembles the most recent instance of censorship in Pakistan. The All Pakistan Private Schools Federation has banned Malala Yousafzai’s bestselling memoir, I Am Malala, from private schools across Pakistan. The Federation’s president, Mirza Kashif, … Read more
According to NBC News’ investigative reporting division (which exists, first of all…), one of Barack Obama’s favorite tag lines about the Affordable Care Act was a lie. Namely, that individuals who bought insurance on their own-and actually liked that insurance-wouldn’t lose it when the ACA went into effect. Apparently, people are losing their insurance, as healthcare providers send letters across the … Read more