On November 18, Chick-Fil-A, America’s most popular chicken sandwich restaurant chain, announced it would no longer support two charitable Christian organizations, The Salvation Army and the Fellowship of Christian Athletes (FCA), which have been criticized by LGBTQ+ rights activists for their opposition to same-sex marriage.
Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Indiana, walked into the fifth Democratic debate, held on November 19, with a significant rise in the Iowa and New Hampshire polls. This surge in popularity, slow but steady, seems to have bested the stability of the Warren and Biden campaigns in maintaining high numbers.
When Ursula von der Leyen, the incoming president of the European Commission, first announced her list of proposed commissioners in September, it did not include a British commissioner. She and her commission were scheduled to take office on November 1st, and the UK was scheduled to officially leave the EU on October 31st, so it didn’t seem necessary to appoint a British commissioner who would never serve.
The White House announced that on November 6, U.S. President Donald Trump had held diplomatic consultations with foreign ministers and other senior officials from Sudan, Egypt, and Ethiopia. The meeting was reportedly mainly focused on resolving the dispute over a new dam Ethiopia is building on the Nile River.
The US House of Representatives and Senate are as rife with bitter partisan division as any governmental system that exists in the world, yet decorum is sacrosanct. Members will politely address the chair to be recognized and are acknowledged with a sober, scripted response often read to the chair by the parliamentarian. The House of Commons in UK’s Parliament, however, is a different story.
On November 9, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and other European leaders gathered at the Berlin Wall memorial with roses to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the wall’s fall. On what is usually a day of celebration, Merkel cautioned: “The values on which Europe is founded — freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law, human rights — they are anything but self-evident and they have to be revitalized and defended time and time again.” German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier’s remarks reflected her cautionary words: “Liberal democracy is being challenged and questioned.”
The tide of public opinion has finally turned against Big Tech. After years of amassing a globalized oligopoly and unfettered dominance over cyberspace, the behemoth technology companies seem poised to be subjected to the strictest regulatory scrutiny since the dot-com bubble burst in 2000-2001.
A big point of debate in the race for the 2020 Democratic nomination has been healthcare, and more specifically, Medicare. Healthcare policy has been discussed by all Democratic presidential candidates, and they have taken a clear stance on this issue. However, not all candidates have decisively addressed their plans to combat climate change. To Americans, right now, healthcare is about premiums, insurance, coverage, and human rights. In a decade or so, healthcare may just be about environmental hazards, damage control, and survival.
It is undeniable that paid maternity leave has a multitude of positive health benefits for both the mother and child. Of the 195 countries recognized today, 187 have paid maternity leave and 90 have paid paternity leave.
At the start of the 20th Century, China and India were in the same economic positions: both nations have their own share of troubles trying to boost their respective national GDPs whilst trying to build a more robust system of accountability for their banks. The majority of banks in both nations are largely owned by the state.