Happy Sunday Everyone!
This is the last day of my favorite month of the year, although this year it did not turn out quite well for me, careerwise, especially. I am hopeful that the next month will bring on better things, though.
Here’s a brief collection of what I thought was important to read this week.
On world affairs:
Why Angelina Jolie Means So Much to the United Nations
This week Angelina Jolie addressed the UN Security Council’s special session on sexual violence in armed conflicts. This is a good one about what her star power means to the organization.
On the legal side:
How to Make It as an Asylum Seeker
This one’s really from last weekend. But it’s so good I had to include. Foreign Policy collected five rules based on asylum treaties for Edward Snowden to keep in mind. Or for anyone seeking political asylum.
Judicial decision of the week:
A home run but not a grand slam for gay-marriage advocates: In Plain English
There is a great selection of reports and analysis of this decision (and of course others) on SCOTUSblog, although I only chose one, I strongly recommend browsing among the rest.
Side note: on that very same day President Obama headed straight to Senegal, a country where homosexuality is considered a criminal act. Later on his African trip he took the chance to call on all countries to decriminalize homosexuality.
Standing of the week:
Standing up for an important issue, both in a literal and a metaphorical way. I usually don’t deal with American politics that much, although I do think that US issues are very often world issues, it is just not my expertise. But then again, I can’t leave this out. Apart from the obvious importance of the matter this is one of the most interesting ceremonial rules of US politics. Watch S02E17 or ‘The Stackhouse Filibuster’ of The West Wing for more. 🙂
Inspiring speech of the week:
I share this for the First Lady’s speech in the first few minutes, but the conversation afterwards was really good too and it also featured many bright youngsters from South Africa and the US, as well as John Legend and Victoria Justice.
