Author: TheConversation

By Sung-Yoon Lee, Professor in Korean Studies, Tufts University By the grim metric of fatalities in the first 10 years of a dictator’s rule, Kim Jong Un has yet to match the records set by his grandfather, Kim Il Sung, or father, Kim Jong Il – the two tyrants who reigned by terror in North Korea before him. For now, the number of people Kim Jong Un has personally ordered killed – such as his uncle in 2013 and half-brother in 2017 – is likely to number in the hundreds. But his decade in power, which began after his...

By K. Hazel Kwon, Associate Professor of Journalism and Digital Audiences, Arizona State University Disinformation, the practice of blending real and fake information with the goal of duping a government or influencing public opinion, has its origins in the Soviet Union. But disinformation is no longer the exclusive domain of government intelligence agencies. Today’s disinformation scene has evolved into a marketplace in which services are contracted, laborers are paid and shameless opinions and fake readers are bought and sold. This industry is emerging around the world. Some of the private-sector players are driven by political motives, some by profit...

By Maureen Ferran, Associate Professor of Biology, Rochester Institute of Technology The world now has a new COVID-19 vaccine in its arsenal, and at a fraction of the cost per dose. Two years into the COVID-19 pandemic, the world has seen over 314 million infections and over 5.5 million deaths worldwide. Approximately 60% of the world population has received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. But there is still a glaring and alarming gap in global access to these vaccines. As a virologist who has followed this pandemic closely, I contend that this vaccine inequity should be...

By Jennifer Rich, Professor of Sociology, Rowan University Each year on January 27, the anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp complex in Poland, an International Day of Commemoration memorializes the victims of the Holocaust. This somber day focuses on the destruction the Nazis and their collaborators inflicted on Jewish communities throughout Europe. But there is another way to honor those 6 million murdered: remembering the ways they lived, not only the ways they died. I am a sociologist who focuses on Holocaust memory and education. My interest is both professional and personal – my grandparents were Holocaust...