THE SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT WATCH

October 31, 2019

Mass uprisings and protests spread throughout Chile after Prime Minister Piñera announced an increase in the price of subway tickets. In Ecuador, as well as in Argentina, citizens recently took to the streets to protest against the austerity packages adopted by the Government following suggestions by the IMF. In Haiti, protests have been going on for over a month demanding Prime Minister Moïse to resign after a corruption scandal was discovered. In Bolivia, many parts of the country are protesting for the alleged fraud of the last election. Yet mass protests are not only expanding throughout Latin American territory: Lebanon and Iraq are the latest examples of unrest caused by economic inequalities following austerity measures.

October 20, 2019

On Monday 14th of October, the Spanish Supreme Court finally announced its verdict on the two-year trial against the main Catalan leaders involved in the 2017 non-binding referendum and the unilateral declaration of independence, both of which were doomed unconstitutional. Instead of finding a solution to the inability of political leaders to establish a fruitful political dialogue, the Supreme Court’s lengthy sentences have served to revive the conflict, this time in the streets of Catalonia.

October 15, 2019

Trump's decision to withdraw U.S. troops from northeastern Syria to thus allow Turkish forces to intervene in the region has left Kurdish militia with no further protection but their own. By doing so, the U.S. has once again betrayed this discriminated people who has been fighting for its autonomy and freedom for decades. The intrusion of Erdogan's forces into Kurdish-held territory in Syria poses a threat not only for the self-established Rojava, a Kurdish autonomous region with a confederate democracy, but also for the thousands of civilians settled there.

September 16, 2019

A hundred days have passed since Hong Kongese protesters went out to the streets to show their repulsion to the extradition bill proposed by the Hong Kong government in February 2019, which would allow Hong Kong citizens to be extradited to other regions including mainland China, thus jeopardizing Hong Kong's autonomy and the civil liberties safeguarded for its citizens. The protests, which have continued and escalated during the summer, have become a fight for democratic values that both the Beijing government and the riot police are trying to contain by means of violence. What began with an extradition bill ended up with a claim for basic liberties and freedoms that China aims at reducing to dust.

August 24, 2019

The world's largest rainforest has been burning for almost 20 days. The situation has created shock and indignation for people around the world, but the real problem has been slowly increasing for the past 30 years due to a long and fast-moving deforestation phenomenon.

August 07, 2019

The latest El Paso (Texas) and Dayton (Ohio) massacres have just rekindled the never-ending debate on the use and legality of firearms in the United States. The 2nd Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which confers the right of all individuals to keep and bear arms, has become intrinsic to the U.S. American culture even though so far it has caused countless deaths. This article explores the facts and figures of the gun culture in a time when mass shootings in American public spaces have increased both in number and intensity.

July 15, 2019

Although cities amount for less than 2 per cent of the world surface, they consume 78% of global energy and generate more than 60% of total greenhouse gas emissions. Despite the reluctance of some political parties, the raising concerns on the relationship between a healthy environment and human health have led several cities around the world to implement a series of measures to reduce the high levels of air pollution.

July 04, 2019

The migrant crisis has reached such worrying levels in the EU that populist politicians such as Matteo Salvini have adopted laws sanctioning NGOs trying to save lives in the Mediterranean Sea. Aware of the risk, Sea-Watch 3 captain Carola Rackete recently decided to disobey Italian authorities in front of a silent Europe that has repeatedly failed to appropriately tackle a situation that so far has caused around 10,000 fatalities.

June 27, 2019

LGBTQI Pride Month, and in particular Pride Parade, is a time for big parties, celebrations, and love. However, it is important to remember the reasons behind Pride to understand why it is necessary to keep celebrating and fighting for the right to love in all forms.

June 17, 2019

The Khartoum massacre of June 2019 did not happen overnight: it is the result of decades of conflict that need to be understood as a whole in order to have a broader vision of all the factors that led to the current civilian revolution. Despite the communications blackout and the scarcity of media coverage on the massacre, SDWatch has gathered the most relevant facts of the modern history of Sudan to shed some light on the continuated human rights violations.