BY NICOLE SCHILIT Maya Paley’s cell phone rings frequently but when she answers the call the person on the other line will immediately hang up. Instead of getting annoyed Maya calls the person right back. “It’s usually only the refugees…
Month: April 2011
Once a Marine
BY LAUREN SCHULZ NEW YORK – I met Allen Striffler for the first time on the steps of the New York Athletic Club in the fall of 2009. We had both just left a gala where Allen was being honored. …
Srinagar Spring
BY ASHOKA MUKPO In the exquisite Kashmiri city of Srinagar, Himalayan snow peaks tower over glacial lakes, and at night the Islamic call to prayer drifts lazily through luxurious gardens cultivated by Mughal emperors. It is not hyperbole to suggest…
An IED on MSR Tampa
BY ASHOKA MUKPO In the summer of 2006, Army Sergeant Devin F. Muir departed from his base near Al-Hillah for a patrol in the sweltering heat of central Iraq. A year earlier, being involved in the war had not been…
Imperfect Marriage: Amnesty and Cageprisoners
SARIKA BANSAL Finding the perfect organizational partner can be tricky. Human rights groups are no exception to this. To be effective, they often must work with other groups, including NGOs, for-profit companies, and even autocratic governments. Some partnerships work beautifully,…
Indian Independence Was Academic to Him
By Sarika Bansal Cramped in a sweltering college dormitory in South India, Dr. Vemuri Venkat Ramanadham—then known as “Lecturer Ramanadham”—and fervently debated the Indian independence movement with more than 50 students. Was non-violence the best way to get the British…
Mexico’s Latest Poet-Diplomat
By Mónica Adame I met Gaspar Orozco during my first event as public relations coordinator for the Mexican Consul General in New York almost three years ago. Our boss, the head of the Consulate, invited Mexican artists living in the…
Ending Violence against Women in Zimbabwe
By Mónica Adame “I had been at the base for about two days when a group of three men instructed me to enter a room. They forced me to lie on the ground and stripped off all of my clothes.…
Outpacing Violence one Tweet at a Time
By Mónica Adame The first time armed gang members threatened Daniela Azpilcueta, 27, a resident of Monterrey, in the Northern state of Nuevo Leon, Mexico, she immediately tuned to Twitter. “I saw the gun on the right window and just…
Flight from Stalingrad
By ANNA KORDUNSKY Galya and her family had been living in the bomb shelter under the ruins of her apartment building for two weeks when unexpected visitors came down the stairs: five Soviet soldiers, three of them wounded in street…