Four months ago, on May 10, 2024, the global Uyghur movement received a massive shock by serious allegations of sexual harassment involving two of its prominent leaders: Dolkun Isa, Executive President of the World Uyghur Congress (WUC) headquartered in Munich, Germany, and Nury Turkel, Chair of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom and Board Member of the Uyghur Human Rights Project (UHRP). The scandal has laid bare many truths - severe organizational failures, systemic corruption, and a blatant disregard for victims' (women's) rights.

In the 1850s, upon receiving the first telegraph messages, the flummoxed British Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary, Lord Palmerston, famously exclaimed, "My God, this is the end of diplomacy!" His reaction reflected the skepticism and surprise that often accompany shifts in public diplomacy. As technology continues to evolve, it increasingly overshadows traditional forms of diplomacy, which are now often viewed as relics of the past.

The World Uyghur Congress (WUC), a global umbrella organisation of the Uyghur people headquartered in Munich (Germany), completed two decades of its creation in April 2024.

Every summer, news of people dying due to the scorching rays of the unforgiving sun circulates in popular media. Though the size of the published articles keeps decreasing in width and breadth as the season goes by, do not mistake its miniature manifestations as a sign of reduced importance. Instead, it is a sign of India's growing complacency with the extreme climatic conditions, also more fondly known as 'Summer.'

Do we have the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment? One of the most obvious questions, even the cycle of heat waves engulfing India this summer, has been missing during the largest democratic practices as 834 million Indians are voting in the 2024 General Elections. Ironically, the election manifestos of both national and regional political parties have failed to commit to ensuring the right to a healthy environment for all Indians if they are elected to power on June 4, 2024. At best, environmental well-being is a non-issue in this General Election.

No one would have wildly imagined that a few stunning pictures of a coastal island could trigger cascading diplomatic short-fuse between two asymmetrical neighbouring countries. The truth is that both governments and social media of India and Maldives have been engaged in a severe tug of words and diplomatic row respectively for whose coastlines are better after the Indian Prime Minister visited the Indian archipelago Lakshadweep and shared a series of scenic pictures on January 4. Was it a calculated strategic move by India to expose the months-old pro-China government in Maldives?

Animesh Roul, Executive Director, Society for the Study of Peace and Conflict, New Delhi, engaged in a conversation with Priti Patnaik, the Founding Editor of Geneva Health Files (GHF). The discussion centred around the proposed pandemic treaty and the principal challenges that lie ahead for this treaty.

"I do not think a pandemic treaty is a good response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Nothing in the WHO-sponsored negotiation process so far has changed my perspective," says global health expert David P. Fidler, Senior Fellow at Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) and the author of "A New U.S.