Articles by Steven Gilchrist

The nuclear armed nations of Pakistan and India have been locked in a contentious border dispute since 1947. In that year, India and Pakistan gained independence from Great Britain. Since achieving independence, India and Pakistan have fought three wars in 1947, 1965, and 1999. The most recent chapter in the ongoing dispute occurred in February 2019 when an Indian Air Force pilot was shot down and captured by the Pakistani military. The pilot’s MiG-21 jet was shot down while flying in the disputed Kashmir region (which is located to the north of India and to the east of Pakistan).   The Indian Air Force’s response stemmed from a suicide bombing attack on February 14, 2019. The attack took place in the Indian controlled section of Kashmir. More than 40 Indian troops were killed when a suicide bomber drove a car full of explosives into a group of Indian soldiers. The Pakistani government denied any involvement in the attack. Nonetheless, the Indian government retaliated by conduc...

World-wide debt reached an all-time record high of $253 trillion as of the end of September 2019, according to research from the financial advocacy and research group the Institute of International Finance (IIF). In the IIF report it states: “Spurred by low interest rates and loose financial conditions, we estimate that total global debt will exceed $257 trillion in the first quarter of 2020, driven mainly by non-financial sector debt.” Economists believe that the drastic world-wide debt increase can be attributed to record-low interest rates in nations across the globe. The historically low interest rates have caused consumers, corporations, and governments to borrow more – which leads to increased debt levels. The report also noted that the governments of the United States and Australia hit all-time debt highs in the 3 rd quarter of 2019. The IIF report also shows that the global-debt-to-global-GDP ratio reached an all-time high of 322% as of the 3 rd quarter of 2019. Sources...

Blithewold Manor                        Bristol, RI.  – Situated along the Narragansett Bay, the Blithewold Mansion, Gardens & Arboretum is a 33-acre estate. In 1896 the estate was purchased by coal baron Augustus Van Wickle and his Bessie Van Wickle McKee. The Blithewold estate served as the summer retreat from their home in Hazleton, Pennsylvania. Bessie was involved in planti ng most of the gardens, structures, and trees on the estate. The Blithewold man sion is a 1908 English style  45-room ma nor. Marjorie Lyon, the daughter of Augustus and Bessie, inherited the Blith ewold estate. Marjorie continued her mother’s preservation of the estate. In 1976, Lyon bequeathed the estate to the general public for educationa l purposes. On November 13, 1911, John DeWolf, Blithewold’s landscape architect,  planted one of a dozen sequoia t rees on the estate. Today, this tree is the tallest sequoia tree ...

From 1932 – 1933 a famine occurred in the Ukraine. Also known as the Holodomor, the famine resulted in the deaths of millions of Ukrainians. Holodomor means to “kill by starvation” or “death by hunger.” The Holodomor was part of the wider Soviet famine of 1932 – 1933. The number of people who died in the Ukrainian famine is not completely known. The causes of the famine continue to be debated by historians. Arthur Koestler, a Hungarian-British journalist, described the Holodomor with the following quote: “At every train station there was a crowd of peasants in rags, offering icons and linen in exchange against a loaf of bread. The women were lifting up their infants to the compartment windows – infants pitiful and terrifying with limbs like sticks, puffed bellies, big cadaverous heads lolling on thin necks.” On November 10, 2003, at a United Nations convention, 25 countries signed a joint statement on the 70 th anniversary of the Holodomor. The preamble of this statement reads: “I...

  In a report that was released in January 2019, the U.S. Public Interest Research Group (PIRG) Education Fund found that food recalls had increased 10% in the United States between 2013 – 2018.   During this five-year period, meat and poultry recalls increased 67%. Processed food and produce recalls increased by 2%. Researchers were not able to identify the reasons for the increase in the food recalls. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention approximately 48 million people become ill, 128,000 are hospitalized, and 3,000 die from foodborne contaminates each year in the United States.    In 2018, there were 703 food recalls in the U.S. During the five-year period of 2013 – 2018, the highest number of annual food recalls occurred in 2016, when 905 food recalls were documented. During this five-year period poultry had the most recalls (168), followed by beef (137), and pork (128). As a result of the food recall study, PIRG is recommending ...

In February 2020, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York announced that U.S. household debt surpassed $14 trillion for the first time in American history. As of the end of 2019, national consumer debt is approximately $1.5 trillion higher than the previous high mark which was set in 2008. The Federal Reserve Bank’s quarterly household credit and debt report indicated that Americans have increased their rates of borrowing for 22 consecutive quarters. According to the Federal Reserve, total household debt balances rose $601 billion in 2019. Roughly $667 billion of the overall national debt is delinquent, including $424 billion that is seriously delinquent – meaning the debt is at least 90 days late. Americans have the majority of their debt contained within 4 sectors: automotive, credit cards, housing, and student loans. Mortgage borrowing totaled $9.56 trillion, up $120 billion from the previous year.   Mortgage loans for young adults are at the highest level since 2007. Th...

According to Mexican government officials, approximately 61,637 people have been reported as disappeared and have not been found in Mexico since the 1960s. Although the cases involving disappeared individuals go back for decades, government records indicate that over 97% of the people were reported as missing since 2006. In that year, Mexico’s government initiated a strategy to reduce drug trafficking and criminal enterprises. The current situation in Mexico is one the worst crises of “the disappeared” in Latin American history. Approximately 40,000 people went missing during Guatemala’s 36-year civil war. An estimated 30,000 people disappeared from 1976 to 1983 during Argentina’s “dirty war.” In 2017, Mexican officials recorded the more than 7,000 cases. In 2019, between 5,000 to 9,000 people disappeared and were not found, according to Mexico’s National Search Commission. According to officials, there are various reasons for the forced disappearances. In certain cases, nar...