Syria By: Alex Voisine News out of Syria throughout the course of the past week has been painfully grim; over 500 people have died following a bombing campaign by the Syrian government in the Damascus suburb of Eastern Ghouta. Eastern Ghouta is controlled primarily by rebels; groups fighting against the government of Syrian President Bashar […]

Brazil By Rachel Elliott While Carnival is a time of celebration and dance, this year, Brazilians used the parade to tackle injustice, corruption, and inequality. The festivities kicked off with a harsh criticism of President Michel Temer, whose approval rating is now in the single digits, and Rio de Janiero Mayor Marcelo Crivella. The mayor […]

RUSSIA By Rachel Elliott A plane carrying 71 people crashed just outside of Moscow on Sunday morning. No passengers or crew survived. The plane had been en route to the southern city of Orsk. Russian investigators are now searching for a cause for the crash, but combing the wreckage is proving a difficult task due […]

Syria By: Alex Voisine On Tuesday, Israeli warplanes fired missiles at a Syrian military outpost near the capital city of Damascus. Though a statement by the Syrian military claimed that the Syrian defense system blocked most of the missiles, it is believed that a chemical weapons facility was hit. Ever since accusations that the Syrian […]

Davos, Switzerland World leaders, politicians, and leaders of the business world gathered last week in Davos, Switzerland for the annual World Economic Forum, an event that is largely seen as a global vindication of free trade and international exchange. This year, Davos’ big players were China, France, India, and the United States, who all delivered […]

GERMANY At the beginning of last week, it looked like Germany was only days away from creating a coalition that would allow its government to continue running. The coalition was to consist of the center-left Social Democrats, the conservative Christian Social Union, and Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union. The Christian Social Union, which is […]

United States U.S. President Donald Trump faced harsh criticism last week after allegedly referring to Haiti, El Salvador and a number of African countries as “shithole” countries in a meeting with Democrats and Republicans about DACA, a U.S. program that grants temporary, renewable residency to the children of undocumented immigrants. President Trump then went on […]

CHINA By: Alex Voisine The waters were calm in the East China Sea off the coast of Shanghai on Saturday, until about 8pm, when a Panama-registered oil tanker collided with a Hong Kong-registered ship carrying food from the United States. The Panama-registered oil tanker, known as SANCHI, was over 900 feet in length and was […]

Dear This Week In The World Readers, We are back from winter break and are ready and excited to bring you a new year of international current events coverage! We launched this column last year because we at Freely believe that being attuned to all that is happening around the world is of the utmost […]

ISRAEL/PALESTINE By: Rachel Elliott Last week, President Trump issued a statement declaring that the US would recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and would also move the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to the ancient city. In his statement, the president cited the 1995 Jerusalem Embassy Act that outlines the move that no president […]

LIBYA Trump’s constant attacks on American journalists, accusing them of being biased and propagators of “Fake News,” have become so commonplace and oftentimes so ridiculous that many simply ignore the baseless claims (which are often in the form of tweets from the President’s infamous Twitter account). But recent news in Libya has suggested that Trump’s […]

LIBYA Protests in Paris, photo credit Zakaria Abdelkafi, Getty Images A CNN report this week documented the horrifying modern slave trade in Libya, prompting protests in Paris and Libya. With hidden cameras, CNN reporters witnessed and recorded dozens of Africans being auctioned off in the capital city of Tripoli. Though it is suspected that the slave […]

SOMALIA Another Bomb Attack Hits Mogadishu At least 23 people were killed and more than 30 people were injured on Saturday in a double car bombing in Mogadishu, the Somali capital. This occurred just two weeks after a truck bombing, one of the deadliest bomb attacks in the country’s history, claimed the lives of 358 […]

ZIMBABWE Critics Condemn Robert Mugabe’s WHO Appointment The appointment of Zimbabwe’s president Robert Mugabe as a World Health Organization Goodwill Ambassador Of Non-communicable Diseases across Africa has attracted criticism from several organizations including campaign groups and the opposition in Zimbabwe. Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the first African to head the WHO, had commended Zimbabwe’s dedication […]

KENYA Protesting has been banned in the Kenyan cities of Nairobi, Mombasa, and Kisumu. The ban follows weeks of protests that broke out after President Uhuru Kenyatta was announced the winner of the August 8 elections. Though the vote was annulled last month by Kenya’s supreme court, after findings of the election commission’s failure to […]

RUSSIA Following a series of accusations against Russia for meddling in the U.S. elections and contributing to the election of Donald Trump through the dissemination of falsified news stories, in September, lawmakers in the United States mandated that a Russian news network, called RT, must register with the U.S. government as a foreign agent. RT, […]

AFRICA The Zeitz Mocaa The Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa (Zeitz Mocaa), Africa’s largest contemporary art gallery, opened this past Friday in Cape Town, South Africa. The Museum, designed by English Architect Thomas Heatherwick, houses around 100 galleries and will feature 21st century work from Africa and the Diaspora. A rather large number of […]

This Week In The World In keeping with our mission of making Temple a more globally-conscious campus, Freely Magazine will post a global news update each week, covering the week’s biggest stories from all around the world. Be sure to check out our website each Sunday for your weekly dose of global news! Africa The […]

AFRICA New World Health Organization Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus holds a news conference May 24 in Geneva W.H.O appoints its first Director General from Africa For the first time in the World Health Organization’s history, an African national has been voted to head the agency. Ethiopia’s Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus was appointed as Director General of […]

Middle East [dropcap size=small]I[/dropcap]t was a devastating and violent week in the Middle East, following a chemical bombing in Syria that killed more than 80 people and severely injured many more. The attack allegedly involved sarin gas, a nerve agent that causes nausea, foaming at the mouth, and difficulty breathing, which can be extremely harmful, […]