Genocides continue to take place across the world with impunity, said United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. Hate speech, discrimination, and violence are frequently warning signs for genocides and other atrocity crimes. Proactively addressing these signs will help prevent horrible crimes from happening. “Genocide is the most heinous of crimes, encompassing all it touches in a tsunami of hate and destruction. It is an assault on our most fundamental shared values,” said UN Secretary-General Guterres in a message on the International Day of Commemoration and Dignity of the Victims of the Crime of Genocide.

More and more young, middle class and educated Muslim women are embracing veiling. For example, a recent survey reveals that more than 70 percent of Indonesian women wear a veil today than previous generations. The emergence of new economic opportunities is inspiring young women to abandon their domestic roles. Wearing a veil is a negotiation between the career traits of “autonomy, ambition, or disregard of traditional morality, which may conflict with social norms” and wanting to retain their reputation in society. “The religious headscarf could act as a liberating device that enables young women to navigate through certain gender norms while pursuing their aspiration to benefit from economic development.”

Ahead of November’s 2020 G20 Summit in Saudi Arabia, heads of youth movements and student unions challenged the wealthiest nations to correct their unequal global response to the COVID-19 pandemic by considering children’s plight. The 100 Million Campaign organization organized an online youth event titled A Fair Share for our Future. The organization is an initiative of Nobel Peace Laureate Kailash Satyarthi, which empowers young people and tackles child labor, poverty, access to education, and violence against children. “The richest governments have focused heavily on bailing out businesses and economies as part of the global COVID relief. While this must be done, it cannot be done at the expense of the world’s poorest and most marginalized children,” said Satyarthi.

The most powerful countries on earth claim that title because of their massive weapons arsenals. Those who have the most sophisticated fighter planes, drones, ballistic missiles, tanks, warships, and weapons of mass destruction (WMD) have the most power. However, COVID-19, the virus that has killed more than 1.8 million without firing a single shot, has proven to be a new deadly weapon. The world must now answer a long-feared question. Will firepower and WMDs “become obsolete if biological weapons, currently banned by a UN convention, are used in wars in a distant future?”