Nelson Mandela once said, “Education is the most powerful weapon for changing the world.” Literacy is a crucial measure of a population’s education. As compiled by Our Word In Data, literacy levels for the world population have increased in recent decades. Over the last 65 years, the global literacy rate increased by four percent every five years – from 42 percent in 1960 to 86 percent in 2015. While only 12 percent of the people in the world could read and write in 1820, today, this share has reversed: only 14 percent of the world population in 2016 remained illiterate.

As the graphs of Statista show, there is a notable imparity between regions, such that a 99 percent literacy rate has been reached in most developed countries across Europe and the former Commonwealth of Independent Nations as well as in Argentina and Uruguay. Developing countries, especially emerging markets, are catching up. In 2018, Brazilian literacy stood at 93 percent, compared with 97 percent in China and 74 percent in India. South Asia is growing, too, with an overall literacy rate of 74 percent, compared to the Middle East and North Africa at 80 percent. The pacific, East Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean have 96 percent and 94 percent literacy rates, respectively. 

However, some regions have not witnessed much growth.n Afghanistan, the literacy rate is 37 percent, and only 35 percent in South Sudan. In some places, literacy fell recently due to conflicts disrupting school education. In Mali, an already low literacy rate of 35 percent in 2018 dropped to only 31 percent in 2020. Sadly in regions with low literacy, women have the highest illiteracy rate. In 2020, only 87 percent of the world's women over the age of 15 could read while the rate was much higher for men, as 90 percent of them could read. In Sub-Saharan Africa, the gap was even more significant at 72 percent of males and only 59 percent of females reaching literacy.

According to Foreign Policy Magazine, the ongoing US-led campaign against the Islamic State (IS) was a situation in which the US did not want to get involved. As Jack Detsch writes for the magazine, Obama underestimated IS and did not view them as the same level of threat as he viewed Al-Qaeda. Such thinking stemmed from the US attempts to avoid involvement in a war that would lead to significant sacrifice. The knock-on effect was that when US troops went back to Iraq in 2014 to fight, IS was much more capable than previously thought.

When US troops went back into Iraq in 2014 to fight the IS, the terrorist group was more capable than they thought. The fight with IS was inevitable as it posed a great threat to the world's peace and security. IS became a foreign policy issue for the United States exactly when Washington was least concerned about tackling it. By September 2014, the US could no longer ignore the threat IS posed. The terrorist group IS beheaded two American reporters on camera in separate incidents.

The world was altered after the terrorist attack of September 11, 2001. Following the attack, Resolution 1373 was passed by the United Nations Security Council, marking a shift from zero cooperation in the fight against terrorism to extensive international collaboration. With this resolution, fighting terrorism became mandatory, and the creation of new defensive measures was necessary. US public opinion has shifted away from the war in Iraq because some Americans feel it is not their fight and that the lives of American soldiers are not worth losing. Opinion polls conducted in 2003 found that 72 percent of Americans supported the decision to go to war with Iraq. However, the percentage had dropped to 41 percent by early 2013.

By: Baniz Wasman

Iran and Russia have stood by each other for years, with their strong partnership coming from the shared experience of United States sanctions on Iran and US-Russia interactions.

A division has been noticed among Iranians regarding Iran-Russia relationships while they take steps earnestly to prevent a turn away from the West. According to a report from European Council on Foreign Relations by Faezeh Foroutan, Iranian leaders have been divided into two parts, the first seeking a solid relationship with Russia for the sake of the regime’s existence and being fully equipped against the United States. This group aims to balance the power of the US in the Middle East. Former Iranian president Hassan Rouhani is included in this group calling for de-escalation with the west.

Russia is a significant neighbor from the second group’s point of view, but they do not believe in putting efforts into Russia-Iran strategic ties. Instead, they prefer to open the door to the West. Ali Shamkhani, an Iranian general and the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council states “Forty years of experience has taught our people that relying on Western or Eastern powers will neither guarantee our rights nor our security.”

Iran has benefited from the war in Ukraine giving them further opportunity to move forward in its relationship with Russia and the West by advancing its military partnership with Russia and providing its energy resources to the Western countries.

Iraqi politicians' failure to form a government has caused intense public frustration according to a report by European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR). The former leader Muqtada al-Sadr went from leading government formation efforts to calling for the overthrow of the political system. His supporters have led protests since July calling for new elections. Sadr’s opponents are calling for dialogue to prevent further escalation and persuade him to return to the political process. On Monday, Sadr announced his withdrawal from politics. In a televised address delivered today, Sadr set a one-hour deadline for his supporters to abandon their protests in the fortified Green Zone in central Baghdad. Sadr said, “Within 60 minutes, if the Sadrist movement does not withdraw, including from the sit-in at parliament, then even I will leave the movement”. The outcome of this situation seems to be most likely a snap election, but it is improbable that such a vote will provide a secure way forward.

Iraq’s constitution lays out a timeline for the formation of a government but has no mechanism in place for the holding of another election when the formation process fails. While snap elections are an appropriate mechanism for resolving a deadlock in many democracies, they cannot address the structural weaknesses of Iraq’s political system. In the October 2021 election, turnout was 43.54 percent overall, and just 33.88 percent of Baghdad’s illegible voters turned out. According to the author of the ECFR report, Hamzeh Hadad, another Iraqi parliamentary election will only destroy what's left of the Country’s democracy, especially if the election was held simply to placate Sadr. With the Iraqi public having; long since lost faith in political leaders, the international community must avoid condoning their blatant attempts to subvert the electoral process.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) reports that on August 5 and 6, 2022, security forces in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI) arrested dozens of journalists, activists, and politicians in expectation of upcoming demonstrations. The incident raises concerns about citizens' basic rights within the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, and questions have been raised regarding unlawful political interference of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG). Human Rights Watch's deputy Middle East director, Adam Coogle, said, "Using arbitrary repression to quell protests and intimidate activists and journalists is a recipe for spreading further grievance among KRI residents."

According to HRW, before the protests began, the Asayish (police) were already preparing to prevent the protesters from exercising their basic rights. According to journalists and activists, the Asayish opened fire on protesters and journalists as soon as the demonstration started, although witnesses reported an absence of any violence that would have warranted the use of teargas or the subsequent arrests. According to the HRW report, authorities at both the federal and KRI level have utilized a variety of defamation and incitement laws against critics, including journalists, activists, and other dissenting voices.

To protest according to KRG laws, organizers of the protest must receive permission prior to protesting from the Interior Ministry if the protest will be held in various areas of Kurdistan simultaneously. If a protest is due to take place within one city, permission from the governor of that city is required. Additionally, it is stated within the law that all protests must be peaceful.

This is not the first time journalists and activists have been wrongfully detained. According to the HWR, “A court in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq sentenced three journalists and two activists to six years in prison on February 16, 2021, in deeply flawed proceedings." HRW’s Deputy Director, Coogle, criticized the KRG, arguing that despite Kurdistan's relative stability compared to the rest of Iraq, the KRG should not condone the unlawful arrests of activists, journalists, and opposition journalists for planning or participating in peaceful protests.

By: Baniz Wasman

On Wednesday, Prime Minister Masrour Barzani announced and launched a new system of driving license registration that is completely digitized indicating a big step for the KRG toward reaching its digitization objectives. The Prime Minister demonstrated the process, renewing his driving license in less than twenty minutes.

The Prime Minister gave a brief on the new digital system and stated that “this system will be fundamental in the digitization process of KRG and helps  collect data on the region’s citizens which will assist the government in providing its services within a short period of time.”

The new driver’s license system is complete with the latest technologies and has 13 types of licenses.

KRG’s statement confirms that this is the first step in a series of forthcoming digitized services that have been prioritized by the Ninth Cabinet’s scheme. The cabinet’s agenda declares that “This cabinet will introduce digitization of government systems (E-Government), transforming citizens' interaction with government procedures and services. This will cut bureaucracy, reduce wastage of public wealth and time, and increase the overall quality of services.”