Global Initiative Sites Updates 2024

                                                                 June 19th - June 28th, 2024 Kenya Kenya shocked as protests over finance bill turn deadly in Nairobi Kenya is in a state of shock following unprecedented scenes that left parts of Parliament ablaze as protests over a finance bill recommending tax hikes turned deadly, prompting President William Ruto’s government to deploy the military.The mainly youth-led rallies began largely peacefully last week, with thousands of demonstrators marching in the capital, Nairobi, and across the country against the tax increases. Lawmakers voted to pass the contentious finance bill amid rising unrest over the cost-of-living crisis in the country. Tensions flared on Tuesday as police officers fired live rounds on crowds who later breached the Parliament buil...

                                                                   June 6th- June 14th, 2024 Lebanon Some Syrian refugees risk returning to opposition-held areas as hostility in host Lebanon grows For more than a decade, a steady flow of Syrians have crossed the border from their war-torn country into Lebanon. But anti-refugee sentiment is rising there, and in the past two months, hundreds of Syrian refugees have gone the other way. They’re taking a smugglers’ route home across remote mountainous terrain, on motorcycle or on foot, then traveling by car on a risky drive through government-held territory into opposition-held northwestern Syria, avoiding checkpoints or bribing their way through. Until this year, the numbers returning from Lebanon were so low that the local government in Idlib run by t...