Articles - JMJ

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Beneath the Skin of America’s Protest

Just a few short weeks after Ahmaud Arbery, 25, was killed while jogging near his home in Georgia, George Floyd’s death in Minnesota has sent shockwaves through an already grieving nation (CBS, 2020). After a week of national protests erupting around the nation in opposition to racism, police brutality, and widespread unrest over the treatment of unarmed civilians persecuted for their skin color, socio-political issues once stashed into the shadows have been thrust into the limelight. There are three dimensions of American society that George Floyd’s killing and the largescale reaction to his death have exposed: deep social divisions, complex civil-military relations, and withering press freedoms. This article was formally published by the Magazine, Modern Diplomacy (link below).

JMJ

04.06.2020

Press Freedom, George Floyd, Protest, Social Division, Civil Society, Civil-Military Relations

Special Feature

Crypto Price Volatility Surges with Bitcoin Halving 2020

The rise of cryptocurrency outside the traditional banking sector has undoubtedly created a new generation of millionaires throughout the world and many predict that new ranks of crypto-savvy individuals will soon join the ranks of the wealthy by these means. In preparation for the third Bitcoin Halving, Crypto enthusiasts throughout the world have been diversifying the portfolios, setting up wallets (such as CoolWallet S, Ledger), and glued to exchange platforms market statistics such as those provided by Coinbase, Blockchain.com, and KuCoin. The third halving is predicted to take place on the 11 of May 2020 and the individuals, economists, and governments alike await to see what happens next.

JMJ

11.05.2020

Economics, COVID-19, Cryptocurrency, digitalcurrency, bitcoin, BTC, blockchain, blockchain.com, Crisis, Halving, TheHalvening

Economics

Türkmen National News Mimic Mis-Reports Death of Famous Exiled Journalist, Ak Welsapar

Earlier this week, a news channel funded by the government of Türkmenistan reported that the Swedish-Turkmen writer and journalist, Ak Welsapar, had died. Welsapar is the leading journalist of the alternative Turkmen broadcast known as Erkin Türkmenistan. One can only imagine Welsapar’s thoughts at the moment when he--- alive and well in his home—joined the ranks of other famous figures, such as Mark Twain and Alfred Nobel, who also personally read the fake news of their own death.

JMJ

12.04.2020

Türkmenistan, Türkmenistan, Press Freedom, Ak Welsapar, Central Asia, Journalism

Report

US Export Restrictions Harm the Import of Vital Medical Equipment

Trump has announced that 3M producing masks intended to be exported to Canada and Latin America will not be distributed as planned according to contract (CNBC). N95 masks that have been touted as the ‘gold standard of protective gear’ are being treated as scarcely as gold itself, and ventilators these days are beyond priceless (NPR, 2020). Citing the Defense Production Act (DPA), President Trump is backing out on pre-negotiated trade deals with its neighbors and angering domestic industrial giants as he does so. While 3M and others gladly rose to the call for increased production in the midst of the crisis, they balked at orders from the top to “cease exporting made-in-the-USA respirators to Canada and to Latin America” (CNN).

JMJ

05.04.2020

Coronavirus, COVID-19, US Export Restrictions, Ventilators, N95, Mask, Trump

Report

COVID-19 Created an Economic Vacuum. How quickly can it be filled by Technology?

The COVID-19 pandemic has effectively dismantled the traditional ways in which many of our social institutions operate in just a few short months leaving open a vacuum for innovation and technology to fill. The question that we are faced with now concerns how we will decide to glue our social and economic institutions back together now that they’ve been shaken from the ground up: socially, economically, and technologically.

JMJ

04.04.2020

Coronavirus, COVID-19, Economy, Technology, Development, Pace, Digital Transformation

Special Feature

Turkish Politics Between a Rock and a Hard Place: Wedged in the middle of Fortress Europe and the Syrian Warzone

As more and more people rush into the arms of Turkey, she herself has been thrown against the cold stone wall of “Fortress Europe” with nowhere to go, politically or otherwise. The Russian airstrike in the earliest hours of the 28 of February 2020 cemented a reality that has been formulating since the Syrian conflict escalations following the US departure last fall: the third wave of the refugee crisis.

JMJ

28.03.2020

Migration, Idlib, Syria, Turkey, Europe, Greece, Turkish Foreign Policy, European Union, EU, Syrian War, Fortress Europe

Foreign Policy Analysis

45 Türkmen Die in Turkey Celebrating Nowruz, 9 More in Hospital

It is with great sadness that we report the loss of 45 Turkmen guest-workers in Turkey who died on the recent holiday of Nowruz last week. The holiday is perceived as the New Year because it symbolizes the arrival of spring and renewal. Nature is awakening, however this year, quarantines have dampened many of these simple joys. The societal spring has yet to come. These 45 persons died after consuming what they believed to be alcohol fit for consumption. What sets these deaths apart is that their consumption parallels rumors that exceptionally strong proof alcohols are protective against the Coronavirus. It is possible that their excess was in part for celebration and in part, fear-driven.

JMJ

26.03.2020

Coronavirus, COVID-19, Türkmenistan, Peganum, üzarlik

Report

Vegetables vs. COVID-19? Türkmenistan's President Prescribes Peppers and Plants

As the Coronavirus pandemic accelerates throughout the world at alarming rates, the President of Turkmenistan has announced to his people that the Coronavirus can be combatted by burning herbs and eating a traditional noodle dish known as Unaş with a heavy-handed serving of spicy hot peppers. Until only recently, the president vehemently denied the presence of Coronavirus within Turkmenistan in spite of the country’s proximity to heavily infected countries such as China and Iran (Erkin Turkmenistan). One plant in particular which is favored amongst traditional Tebip healers has also caught the president’s attention: Peganum.

JMJ

25.03.2020

Coronavirus, COVID-19, Unaş, Peganum, Peganum harmala

Report

How Will Short-term Social Distancing Affect our Long-term Way of Life?

Since the outbreak of COVID-19, the proliferation of advisory articles written by professionals and non-professionals alike has been almost as infectious as the virus itself. The only thing that both these genuine medical insights and pithy palliative placebos have in common is that they both focus on short-term outcomes. However, the Coronavirus pandemic has not only provided us with (yet another) tangible reminder of our own fragile humanity. Wide-scale quarantines and social distancing tactics have also created an urgent demand for digital infrastructure that has never before existed. Will the technological solutions created to alleviate this crisis fundamentally change the way societies interact in future seasons beyond this Coronavirus winter?

JMJ

21.03.2020

Coronavirus, COVID-19, Social Distancing, Life, Humanity

Special Feature

Coronavirus "Banned" in Türkmenistan

Why does Turkmenistan have seven quarantines and zero officially diagnosed Coronavirus cases? Currently, there is a quarantine site in each of the 5 Provinces (Ahal, Balkan, Dashoguz, Lebap, and Mary) plus two additional sites within the capital province (Ahal). While Coronavirus (COVID-19) is undoubtedly present in Turkmenistan, the grave lack of documentation of the virus is concerning for a number of reasons. The most serious being that ...

JMJ

05.03.2020

Report

What the Midnight Wind Wrought: Airstrikes in Idlib, Syria

In Istanbul, the wind howls. If it could be said that the mere flapping of a butterfly’s wings can ripple through the world until it is felt on the other side of the globe, then the atmospheric hysteria of the night’s wails can be thought of as the abstraction of the air raids in Idlib that began in the early hours of 28 February 2020. The first announcements emerged around 12:26 IST: "Nine Turkish Soldiers killed in air raid in Syria’s Idlib: Turkey’s Erdogan holds extraordinary meeting after attack that killed at least nine Turkish troops in northwest Syria". These reports were soon replaced as the count increased.

JMJ

28.02.2020

Idlib, Syria, Turkey, Foreign Policy, Russia, United States

Report

What you Walk By: Barcelona's Blanket Businesses

In Spain, they’ve been assigned the alias, Los Manteros, the blanket people. They spread their livelihoods—namely counterfeit purses, tennis shoes, belts, bags, and other emblem-bearing items— on bedsheets laid out on the pavement. The sheets are tugged taught and set with care, presented for passerby’s to peruse through and pick over. When the sheets are stepped upon, it is almost always a conscientious dark hand that smooths their edges back into place. As the world they walked into walks by, they wait by their wares, ready to sell or dismantle quickly.

JMJ

25.01.2020

West Africa, LosManteros, Barcelona, Spain, Migration, Africa, Mediterranean, Refugee Crisis

Special Feature

When did the Discussion of "Fixed versus Floating Exchange Rates" Fall Out of Vogue

In spite of the esteemed exchange rate ethos that is whipped into economics students worldwide by instructors seeking to revive the relevance of the “Fixed versus Floating” deliberation, the actual contested aspects of the debate itself have fizzled into near irrelevance. Here's why:

JMJ

17.12.2019

Economics, Fixed Exchange Rates, Floating Exchange Rates

Economics

Pardon me Sen. Graham... Do You Take your Genocide with or without sugar?

A few short hours after a meeting with US President Trump, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and several US GOP Senators about Syria, South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham blocked a resolution acknowledging the Armenian Genocide. Graham objected on the grounds that we should not try to “sugarcoat history or try to rewrite it.”

JMJ

15.11.2019

Armenian Genocide, Donald Trump, Linsey Graham, US-TR Relations, House Resolution 296

Foreign Policy Analysis

The Persistence of Gulf War Syndrome in Young Soldiers... who were born after the Gulf War.

Nearly three decades after Operation Desert Shield and Desert Storm which occurred in the Persian Gulf War (1990-1991), the United States Veteran’s Administration (VA) continues to receive claims for those suffering from Gulf War Syndrome. These claims cover a cluster of symptoms such as Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Fibromyalgia, functional gastrointestinal disorders, among other lingering and/or undiagnosed illnesses. Quiet, chronic, and difficult to pinpoint, the illness is often relegated to the status of the latter: undiagnosed.

JMJ

11.09.2019

Gulf War Syndrome, Chronic Illness, Chronic Multi-symptom Illness, Veterans Administration, Persian Gulf, CMI

Special Feature