Day: May 16, 2011

Refugees in a Refugee Nation

BY NICOLE SCHILIT The 100 men packed tightly in the barren room suffered from different degrees of malnourishment, a visible marker that distinguished how long each had spent in the prison.  The worst off had been jailed up to four…

Marching to Competency

BY MICHAEL LARSON Staff Sergeant Joseph Pratt arrived at Forward Operating Base Tiger in the middle of August 2005 for an inglorious assignment but one on which America’s exit strategy from Afghanistan hinged: for two weeks, he would train Afghan…

Risks for Afghan Journalists Grow

BY ANNA KORDUNSKY Sangar Rahimi, an Afghan reporter who works for The New York Times in Kabul, likes to be the first to arrive on the scene. In early October 2001, long before he even became a journalist, he and…

Amateur Aid Causes Trouble in Haiti

By REBECCA WEXLER The small American church group that arrived at the Port au Prince airport just days after the devastating 7.0 magnitude January earthquake had nothing but the best intentions—literally. Armed with the healing power of God and the…

Vets at Columbia, Then and Now

BY LAUREN SCHULZ In 1968, the Vietnam War was raging and so was Columbia University.  Anti-war students ransacked the ROTC barracks and a year later, the program was banned from campus.  Fights broke out on campus over the war.  Students…

Mexicans Speak Up — on Twitter — About Drug War

BY MONICA ADAME Denise, a powerful television anchorwoman, heard her smart phone beeped. It was April 10. “HELP, the town of Uruachi in Chihuahua is under siege by 150 hit men,” read the tweet. She quickly retweeted the information and…