|
Pakistan's Pashtuns have for years been pushed from pillar to post. Now, it seems, many of them have had enough. Protests against the police killing of a 27-year-old shopkeeper have spread across the country, and have called new attention to the messy national and international politics that the country's second-largest ethnic group are forced to endure. Admir Skodo explains how Pakistan and Afghanistan have handled the problem over the years, and how far they still have to go.
There's one important issue that rarely gets covered during major sporting events like the Winter Olympics which is being held in PyeongChang in South Korea: language. Almost 80 million people speak Korean; it’s the world’s 13th-most-widely spoken language. Simone Smala discusses the language's history, linguistic differences between North and South Korea - and how athletes learning to understand each other is a form of soft diplomacy.
|
Fed up: a protest in Dera Ismail Khan, Pakistan.
EPA/Saood Rehman
Admir Skodo, Lund University
The movement known as the 'Pashtun Long March' and the 'Pashtun Spring' has emerged from a history of human rights abuses, regional politics and War on Terror policies.
|
Hosting sporting events to spark an interest in language and culture is known as ‘soft diplomacy’.
EPA/Vassil Donev
Simone Smala, The University of Queensland
For South Korea, hosting the Winter Olympics is a great opportunity to engage the world with Korean language and culture.
|
Health + Medicine
|
-
Henry Zakumumpa, Makerere University
Remarkable progress is being made on HIV treatment. But African countries need to work on sustainable ways to ensure the treatment programmes are not entirely dependent on foreign aid.
-
Derek Gatherer, Lancaster University
The audio version of a long read on the historical mistakes and cover ups that hampered the response to the devastating Ebola outbreak of 2014.
|
|
Cities
|
-
Asit K. Biswas, National University of Singapore; Cecilia Tortajada, National University of Singapore; Martin Stavenhagen, National University of Singapore
Urbanisation has been a well-established trend and for some countries will continue to be. But some others experience the opposite with pictures of abandoned infrastructure.
|
|
Politics + Society
|
-
Luis Gómez Romero, University of Wollongong
Exactly 234,966 people have died in Mexico's 11-year drug war. Now the government wants to deploy soldiers to criminal hot spots, a move many fear will just increase violence and weaken the police.
-
Brian Ward, Northumbria University, Newcastle
It's 200 years since the legendary African American abolitionist and ex-slave Frederick Douglass crossed the Atlantic and found freedom in northeast England.
|
|
Business + Economy
|
-
Dr. Melba K. Wasunna, Strathmore University
To realise Kenya's oil, gas and mining potential, the sector needs more people with the right skills to support it.
|
|
Education
|
-
Stefanie Blain-Moraes, McGill University
Imagine a collaboratively-designed smartphone app that could provide cues to an autistic individual -- about the emotional state of people they are communicating with.
|
|
