Mexico is one step closer to legalizing marijuana, which would make the country the world’s largest legal cannabis market, ostensibly put new pressure on drug cartels, and possibly influence larger economies like the U.S. to legalize the drug under federal law. Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador vowed in 2018 when he was elected president,...
Ten protesters from Hong Kong, whom Chinese officials say were captured attempting to flee the city, were sentenced to up to three years in a mainland China prison, according to a report last week in the Financial Times. The ten were attempting to escape prosecution over their alleged involvement in last year’s anti-government protests. The judgment...
As China’s power and influence over the world’s economy continue to grow, European leaders are willing to open markets with Beijing while claiming to maintain some degrees of caution and suspicion, as reported in last week’s Wall Street Journal. The report pointed to a Pew Research Center survey conducted in October showing global distrust of...
Last week, the Wall Street Journal pointed to a document from Beijing, released in November, that said, “Patriotism is the most natural and simple emotion of the Chinese. We must insist on starting from when they are babies, focusing on consolidating the roots, concentrating on the soul.” The report said the younger Chinese generation is...
We have been reporting since mid-November that hundreds of thousands of farmers began protesting on the outskirts of Delhi in response to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s push for deregulations they fear will sink them deeper into poverty. Farmers have blocked major roads and burned their crops, contending that deregulation will lead to small farms becoming...
As we have been reporting, for nearly three weeks, hundreds of thousands of farmers began protesting on the outskirts of Delhi in response to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s push for deregulations they fear will sink them deeper into poverty. Yesterday, leaders of Indian farmers’ unions held a hunger strike in hopes of pressure on the...
Last month, we reported that gunfire erupted between Moroccan forces and a pro-independence group in Western Sahara, ending nearly 30 years of peace in the area. The Moroccan military clashed with fighters from the Polisario Front in several locations. Brahim Ghali, the Secretary-General of the Polisario Front, announced in a decree the beginning of the...
The Honduran government worked quickly to disperse a caravan with hundreds of migrants who were headed to the U.S. after the country was hit by two enormous hurricanes. The Wall Street Journal reported the caravan was broken up last Thursday after officers from Honduras spotted the migrants, many of whom were lacking basic identification cards and no...
Fierce clashes broke out last week in the semi-autonomous Kurdistan region, which attracted Iraqi authorities and resulted in at least eight fatalities, according to a report. The Financial Times reported last Thursday there is growing public anger over government corruption on top of owed salaries. The Washington Post reported the government worked quickly to shut down the internet and...
As we have been reporting in the Trends Journal, last month, in an effort to consolidate his power, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed launched an offensive against the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, which threatens stability across the broader Horn of Africa. The conflict has sent over 50,000 Ethiopians fleeing across the border into Sudan, and...