“Peace is no longer an option. It’s the only option left for global survival.” – Dr. Meera Khanna At the #CSW59, Dr. Meera Khanna, Vice Chair of the Guild of Service, shared the suffering of women and widows in the Kashmir Conflict. She drew attention to the tragedies that women, particularly widows, face. The event…
Tag: conflict & security
Hapless Adventure
The schooners were exquisite, a banquet for any water or ship fanatic. The maritime activity in the port was worth braving the traffic for…. Later, hustled and stranded alone at the harbor, 2 hours from town, on the side of a busy street, I found myself unsuccessfully attempting to hail a ride in 90-degree heat to the shouts of amused men driving by.
Reintegrating Albanian and Serbian Youth
The New Bridge in Mitrovica symbolizes the split of the city into two adversarial sides. On the Albanian side, I stand with uncertainty looking over the river – those on the southern part warn of the dangers of crossing over to the Serbian side. The bridge today is patrolled by KFOR forces. Before the war, Serbs and Albanians used to lived as neighbors, speaking one another’s language, and even intermarrying. However, the conflict brought seemingly irreparable fissures between Serbs and Albanians.
Countering Extremism through Integration
When innocent lives pay the price for absurdity of disturbed individuals under twisted ideology, all of humanity loses – whether it be attacks in Orlando, Paris, Brussels, Turkey, or throughout the Middle East. With the recent horrific attacks by radicalized individuals, a good friend asked me what regular people every day can each do to make a difference and tackle this problem.
First Impression Snippets of Prishtina
Prishtina has the air of a serene and young city – due to its large youth population of university students, children, new infrastructure and architecture, and fast pace of growth and development. As an Albanian-American at UN Women, I am now in a curious in-between state: technically a foreigner, but closer to the people, which puts me in a unique position of trust and understanding with the warm Kosovars.
The photo that launched a gang intervention
As the men approached the bus, the monkeys jumped on and crawled all around it, with us inside. Thrilled at seeing monkeys for the first time in India , my colleagues and I were delighted. Then some of us made the grave mistake of taking out our cameras and photographing the monkeys… The psychological stress of being surrounded in such a predicament is high.
K-squared 