Tag Archives: Ukraine

21Nov/25

Global Peace Index: Fragmentation and Conflict Escalation

Nov. 18, 2025 /Mpelembe Media/ — The report offers an extensive analysis of the current state of global peace, highlighting a deterioration in peacefulness for the sixth consecutive year, driven primarily by increases in Ongoing Conflict and Militarisation. It details rising geopolitical fragmentation, an increase in the number of internationalised conflicts, and a major jump in global military spending to a record $2.7 trillion in 2024. The report also examines the economic impact of violence, noting it reached $19.97 trillion and that developing countries are heavily burdened by debt, often spending more on servicing it than on public services, leading to increased domestic conflict risk in regions like Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East. Finally, the analysis identifies nine key factors that escalate conflict intensity and uses case studies—such as the Tigray War and the Kashmir conflict—to illustrate the risks of future large-scale violence. Continue reading

03May/25

Perfect storm of tech bros, foreign interference and disinformation is an urgent threat to press freedom

Tom Felle, University of Galway

Media freedom has long been essential to healthy democracy. It is the oxygen that fuels informed debate, exposes corruption and holds power to account. But around the world, that freedom is under sustained attack.

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04Jun/24

How is BRICS (Brazil, Russia,India,China,South Africa) bloc doing so far?

June 4, 2024 /Economy/ — The BRICS bloc has been in the news recently due to a significant development: it doubled its membership in January 2024. Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates were all invited to join Atlantic Council. This expansion has the potential to reshape the bloc’s influence, but it also comes with challenges. Continue reading

19Feb/24

History’s crisis detectives: how we’re using maths and data to reveal why societies collapse – and clues about the future

Daniel Hoyer, University of Toronto

American humorist and writer Mark Twain is believed to have once said, “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes.”

I’ve been working as a historian and complexity scientist for the better part of a decade, and I often think about this phrase as I follow different strands of the historical record and notice the same patterns over and over.

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11Nov/23

World News in Brief: ‘Outrage’ over Black Sea attack, funding pledge to alleviate El Niño, breast cancer alert

NEW YORK, 09 November 2023 /PRNewswire Policy/ — Humanitarian Coordinator Denise Brown said in a statement that Wednesday’s attack came on the heels of a series of assaults that killed and inured civilians, destroyed grain supplies and damaged the historic Fine Arts Museum in the Ukrainian port city. Continue reading

05Oct/23

Barrick Strengthens Zambia Partnership, Invests in Major Expansion of Lumwana Mine

LUSAKA, ZAMBIA – Barrick’s transformation of its Lumwana mine into a world-class producer will provide strong impetus for the government’s thrust to revive the country’s copper industry, president and chief executive Mark Bristow said yesterday after a meeting with Zambian President Hakainde Hichilema.
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29Aug/23

International ransomware gangs are evolving their techniques. The next generation of hackers will target weaknesses in cryptocurrencies

Alpesh Bhudia, Royal Holloway University of London; Anna Cartwright, Oxford Brookes University; Darren Hurley-Smith, Royal Holloway University of London, and Edward Cartwright, De Montfort University

In May 2023, the Dallas City Government was hugely disrupted by a ransomware attack. Ransomware attacks are so-called because the hackers behind them encrypt vital data and demand a ransom in order to get the information decrypted.

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26Aug/23

Yevgeny Prigozhin: Wagner Group boss joins long list of those who challenged Vladimir Putin and paid the price

Stefan Wolff, University of Birmingham

Two months after challenging Vladimir Putin’s leadership in an apparent but abortive “mutiny”, Yevgeny Prigozhin – the former owner of the mercenary private military company Wagner Group – has joined a long list of prominent Russians to die in mysterious circumstances.

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23Aug/23

Wagner group command team plane crash

Aug. 23, 2023 /War and Conflict/ — The reason why the Wagner group command team was traveling at the same time on a plane is not yet known. It is possible that they were all traveling to the same meeting or event. It is also possible that they were simply taking advantage of the convenience of traveling together. Continue reading

10Jul/23

China’s gallium and germanium controls: what they mean and what could happen next

Gavin D. J. Harper, University of Birmingham

From August, China is to restrict exports of gallium and germanium, two critical elements for making semiconductor chips. With China dominating the supply of both elements, exporters will now need special licences to get them out of the country. The move has the potential to harm a range of western tech manufacturers that use these elements to make their products.

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