Overview Republic Act No. 11293, or the Philippine Innovation Act, was signed into law by the Philippine President on April 17, 2019.  However, the Act was released to the public only on July 16, 2019. The Philippine Innovation Act aims to promote a culture of strategic planning and innovation in the country through improving innovation [...]

This past Saturday was the Fifth Anniversary of the latest Yazidi genocide perpetrated largely by ISIS, as other actors in the region looked the other way. Today Yazidis in the region remain in limbo. As Nadia Murad, Nobel Peace Laureate, stated last Friday: The situation remains dire. Presently there are approximately 350,000 internally displaced Yazidis [...]

In apparent response to US President Donald Trump’s unilateral American withdrawal from the July 2015 Iran Pact (JCPOA), the Islamic Republic has seemingly reinvigorated its active nuclear program. In turn, this has led to a more-or-less continuing cycle of threat and counter-threat between the two adversarial countries, and has been reinforced by both US Secretary [...]

In the wake of Special Counsel Mueller’s largely uneventful testimony Wednesday, no-one can envy House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s impeachment dilemma. Presented with ample evidence of offenses justifying President Trump’s removal (the appalling violations of immigrants’ human rights are sufficient on their own) she also knows that no matter what he has done and no matter [...]

Though rarely understood, there can be no greater form of power on this earth than power over death. Ominously, this always-preeminent form of power in world politics remains unrecognized by American foreign policy-makers. The perilous result is that this country’s counter-insurgent strategies will become less and less adequate. It’s not an enviable situation for the [...]

On the last day of its 2018-2019 Term, the Supreme Court decided in Department of Commerce v. New York that Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross could not add a question about citizenship to the 2020 Census solely on the basis of the “contrived” and “pretextual” reason he cited (the need to better enforce the Voting Rights [...]

Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz), a political party that has ruled the country off and on in the past three decades, has released an audio-video montage claiming that the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) judge, who convicted and sentenced former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif for owning unexplained properties in London, delivered his decision under coercion. The video [...]

On June 11, 2019, the Hellenic Republic published in the Government Gazette laws 4619 and 4620 that ratified respectively the new Criminal Code and Criminal Procedure Code. The provisions of these two new laws apply for all criminal court proceedings beginning July 1, 2019. There are many changes that create a new reality in the [...]

Pakistan and the People’s Republic of China concluded a boundary agreement in 1963 ceding a substantial territorial part of the state of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) to China. Pakistan also believes in the self-determination of the people of J&K, while India denies this and claims that the entire territory of the J&K is an integral [...]

“Any attack by Iran on anything American will be met with great and overwhelming force. In some areas, overwhelming will mean obliteration.”-US President Donald Trump, June 23, 2019 “The United States has great strength and patience, but if it  is forced to defend itself or its allies we will have no choice but to totally [...]