Ed. Note: Happy New Year to all PineTreeRepublic citizens! As a brief personal aside, I want to thank everyone who has taken the time to read, like, share, and perhaps even comment on the posts that have appeared on this blog over the past year. I started this project just under a year ago out of…
In a previous post, I examined three trends in global terrorism statistics that should give pause to policymakers proposing the typical policy package in response to terrorist incidents, including more bombing of terrorist groups, restricted immigration, and increased government surveillance. Specifically, these statistics demonstrated that (1) terrorist incidents in Western countries have actually declined since the…
As chance would have it, two weeks ago I began working on a review of the book ISIS: The State of Terror, by Jessica Stern and J.M. Berger. The main theme of my review was that, while the book provided some interesting context on the rise of the Islamic State and the evolution of global terrorism, it…
[Ed. Note]: For this guest post, I invited fellow international relations blogger Sarah Bruso to help break down this month’s United Nations General Assembly meetings. Sarah and I met through a recent WordPress Blogging 201 course, and I really admired her ability to break down complex international negotiations into fun, relatable skits that distill countries into distinct…
Ed. Note: Last week, we began a three-part series exploring one Syrian’s experience immigrating to Canada. Canada’s role in the refugee crisis has become the subject of a national conversation since the photos of three-year old Alan Kurdi emerged, as it was later revealed that his aunt had attempted to bring the family to Canada.…
Ed. Note: On Wednesday, Sept. 2, the world woke up to a startling image of a three-year old Syrian boy, lying face down and lifeless on the Turkish shore near the town of Bodrum. Over the next day, we learned that Alan Kurdi’s father attempted to bring his family to Greece through a perilous five-kilometer…
The Story As Major League Baseball reached its annual deadline for trading players last week, exchanges with much more far-reaching consequences were taking place in the Greater Middle East. On July 23, the United States signed an agreement with Turkey, Syria’s northern neighbour, to use the Turkish air base of Incirlik to launch air strikes against Islamic…
The 20th Anniversary of Srebrenica Saturday, July 11, marked the 20th anniversary of the Srebrenica Massacre – widely considered the most horrifying instance of mass murder during the Balkan Wars, and one of the starkest examples of attempted genocide since World War II. (Note: The use of the term “genocide” is still highly debated among governments in the region;…
[Ed. Note: In this inaugural “The View From” post, I’ve invited my friend Benjamin, originally from Paris, to write a guest post breaking down a recent current event from a French perspective. He and his partner Aida have a blog called Feuille d’érable et sables bitumineux – a highly entertaining and informative account of life in Alberta as seen…
As we turn the page on the first half of 2015 and the first four months of PineTreeRepublic, we take a look at some of the top news articles of 2015 so far. Each of the journalists in these articles provided an important perspective on some of the year’s most significant developments, and helped further our understanding on the…
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