The Fate of Sriwijaya Air Flight 182: A Reminder of Aviation Safety
In early January 2021, yet another deadly airline accident captured the headlines — it was reported that Sriwijaya Air Flight 182 dropped by 10,000 sq. ft. in under a minute shortly after takeoff and then dropped off the radar, ultimately crashing in the Java Sea near Laki Island, killing all 62 onboard. The crash of [...]
Former Ohio police officer pleads not guilty to Andre Hill killing
Former Ohio police officer Adam Coy pleaded not guilty Friday to the killing of Andre Hill, an unarmed Black man. On December 22, Coy and another officer were responding to a nuisance call about car noise. As Coy approached the area where the vehicle was located, he encountered Andre Hill. Even though Hill was unarmed, [...]
The Fake Filibuster: A Clear and Present Danger to Democracy
Judging by much of the debate over the Senate filibuster rule, you’d think it was some honorable tradition worth keeping — “an elegant weapon of a more civilized age,” as Obi-Wan Kenobi described the lightsaber to Luke Skywalker in the original Star Wars. Not so. The filibuster is a dangerous relic with a deeply destructive [...]
Five people in Saudi Arabia who committed crimes as minors are still awaiting execution, despite the kingdom’s April announcement that juvenile offenders would no longer face the death penalty, rights groups said Monday. In April, Saudia Arabia’s government-operated Human Rights Commission (HRC) announced that a royal decree from King Salman had eliminated the death penalty [...]
The Gold Code Standard Revisited: The Danger Of Sole Presidential Authority Over Nuclear Weapons
On January 8, 2021, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) took the extraordinary step of publicly revealing she had talked with Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Mark A. Milley, about “available precautions for preventing an unstable President from initiating military hostilities or accessing the launch codes and ordering a nuclear strike.” [...]
“States shall not take….any measures which may be prejudicial to the international obligations they have assumed in regard to the detection, arrest, extradition and punishment of persons guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity.” – Principles of International Cooperation, General Assembly Resolution, 1973 “It’s not surprising that a criminal like Trump pardons other criminals, [...]
Judicial Stereotyping in India and the Need to Combat Institutional Gender Bias
On 22nd June 2020, the Indian High Court of the State of Karnataka while granting anticipatory bail to a person accused of rape, observed that it is “unbecoming of an Indian woman” to “fall asleep” after rape and that it is not the way “our women(Indian women) react” when they are “ravished”. The latter part [...]
A few months ago, the pharmaceutical company Gilead Sciences set a price tag on their drug remdesivir, the first medication shown to be effective for treating coronavirus. The price was set at $520 per vial or $3,120 per treatment course. Experts have called the price “not exorbitant,” and some expected a higher price tag. Yet, [...]
Unilateral Humanitarian Interventions and the Legitimate Use of Force Under American Interpretations
The death of Iranian major general Qasem Soleimani, on January 3, 2020, revived the discussions and interpretations regarding national security on the international scene, the “right to protect”, the legitimate defense and the legality of the attack that caused his death through the United States’ unilateral intervention. This is an old worldwide discussion, with countless [...]
What If Trump's Electoral Defeat Coincides with a Nuclear Crisis?
“The masses have followed the magicians again and again…Socrates and Plato were the first to take up the struggle against them in clear awareness of what was at stake.” – Karl Jaspers, Reason and Anti-Reason in our Time (1952) On absolutely all matters of existential survival, individual or collective, candor is indispensable. In connection with [...]
