BY REBECCA WEXLER NEW YORK—Seeking new ways to speed the withdrawal of U.S. troops in Afghanistan, General Petraeus recently announced a massive expansion of the Afghan Local Police, a community policing initiative touted as the “new way forward” in winning…
Roma On Her Own Terms
BY REBECCA WEXLER NEW YORK—With the exception of the delicate gold rings on nearly all of her fingers, Petra Gelbart does not look stereotypically Roma. Her fair skin and small hazel eyes suggest her father’s Czech and Eastern European roots…
ROTC at Columbia?
BY LAUREN SCHULZ New York – Short black hair, petite build, arms at her side, wearing a pressed white shirt and long skirt, Edith Parks, from the School of Continuing Education, stepped up to the microphone after waiting her turn…
Lunchtime Hazards of Drug War
BY MONICA ADAME Cristina wore her usual workplace two-piece suit, her hair in a ponytail. She had no glamorous event planned for the day. As an official at the Ministry of Governance, in Mexico City, her work consisted on touring…
Iranian Students Mobilize in the US to Change Single-Entry Visa Law
BY MICHELE MOGHTADER Nasim Sabounchi, a 21year-old Iranian was ecstatic when she received her acceptance letter to Virginia Tech’s PhD program in 2002. Nasim’s excitement soon turned to worry as she thought of how she had to be away from…
To Live and Die in Cairo
BY DOTUN AKINTOYE With any revolution comes reaction, or to be more precise, the language of reaction. The counterrevolution in Egypt is couched in words like stability. A word which, if there remains any meaning in it, can only mean…
Israel Struggles to Absorb Africa Refugees
BY NICOLE SCHILIT Johannes (name has been changed) is a twenty five year old refugee from Eritrea who came to Israel four months ago through Sudan and then Egypt. He lives not far from South Tel Aviv Bus Terminal, an…
Foreign Aid Sustains Fragile Afghan Media
BY ANNA KORDUNSKY Bashir Ahmad Gwakh, 28, a journalist from Afghanistan, credits the training he received in 2003 at a US-funded skill-building program with starting his career. Born in the village of Khwaizi in the Goshta district, Gwakh fled Afghanistan…
UAE Pressures War Allies for Economic Favors
BY KARA SUNDBY Canadians travelling to the United Arab Emirates will face substantially higher travel costs in 2011 following the Gulf nation’s decision to impose a costly visa on all Canadian citizens. The visa requirement is the latest strike…
Tibet Economy Leaves Exiles Behind
BY KARA SUNDBY Sonam Choezom has never set foot in Lhasa’s bustling Barkhor Street market or turned the prayer wheels at its Jokhang Temple. She has never made the pilgrimage to Mount Kailash to join Hindus, Jains and other Buddhists…
The Music Man of Grozny
BY MATT LUCAS Somewhere in the lost alleyways of Grozny, if you know the right place to go, you can hear Ruslan play his old records from before the wars. Zeppelin, Hendrix, Marley, the great jazzmen, the blues. According to…
Silencing the Sindicalistas
BY WHITNEY EULICH On an April night ten years ago, Luz Ortiz took the bus home from the local university after wrapping up a union meeting. It was 10:30 p.m., and the streets of Cali, Colombia were quiet, dark. When…
Off the Derech
BY JEFFREY BERMAN I walked into his Bushwick duplex a little earlier than most of the other guests. My host apologized that everyone was running late. Still, he said, hopefully we would start soon. I wasn’t offered a drink on…
Taxi Power
BY ALEX VILLARINO Last time I visited Mexico City I noticed something different in the streets. Instead of the traditional green, beaten-up VW beetles, taxicabs were brand new Nissan Tsuru models painted gold and red. In 2008 those green taxicabs…
El Parche: Art to Change Colombia
BY STIG ARILD PETTERSEN The smiling face of a tanned young woman with short black hair suddenly peeps out of the apartment door next to the bell I’ve just rung. She’s Olga and I’m Stig and we’re both happy to…
In Colombia the price of a life is $770
BY STIG ARILD PETTERSEN Luz Marina Bernal straightens the sheet on the top of the bunk bed in the narrow, florescent-lit room. “This is where I last saw my son alive,” she says calmly. “When the rest of us came…
The Lost Boys Vote
BY STEPHEN GRAY The gunfire, explosions and screams coming from his village convinced Peter it was time to flee. Concealed by the falling dusk, he escaped into the woods, leaving his family, his village in Southern Sudan, and his childhood…
Forensics of Darfur
BY SABRINA MONDSCHEIN What Mohammed Ahmed did in Darfur did not sound revolutionary, but it may have cost him the chance to return home. One by one, he and a handful of colleagues at their Nyala clinic documented each case…
Exiled From Iran
BY JEFFREY BERMAN Behzad Yaghmaian, an Iranian author and economist living in New York City, last visited Iran in 1998. Unlike previous trips home, this time Yaghmaian knew this time that returning to Iran again would be difficult, perhaps impossible.…
Caught in the Crossfire
BY NATHANIEL PARISH FLANNERY In the thick yellow light of early evening, standing on the bluff next to the high school in the small Texas town of Roma, you can look out over the Rio Grande River and see into…
Uninvited Guests
BY MATTHEW LUCAS The soldiers beating on the thick iron door yelled for Isa Sakaev to surrender. Two of his sisters, Khutmat and Lursa, barefoot and in the clothes they had slept in, stood outside, surrounded by Federal and pro-government…
An Accidental Career Helping in Chechnya
BY MATTHEW LUCAS Gistam Sakaeva’s career in humanitarian work began, in 1995, “by accident” in the refugee camps of Dagestan during the First Chechen War. Sakaeva, an unassuming single mother of two young children, is a Chechen humanitarian aid worker…
From Beirut to Beer
BY WHITNEY EULICH One month before the birth of his first child, Steve Hindy was kidnapped by the Southern Lebanon Army (SLA). He was an Associated Press foreign correspondent covering an Irish battalion of UN Peacekeeping forces. This was the…
Jam and Famine
BY WHITNEY EULICH Moodie was 12 years old, when Germany invaded France. As World War II engulfed Europe, her father sent Moodie and her three sisters and mother to live in the family’s summer home in Chamonix, near the Swiss…
The Mustache Brothers
BY STEPHEN GRAY Lu Maw is in pain. A toothache has robbed him of food, sleep and sanity; only a health professional can bring relief. Summoning the last of his strength he escapes across the Burmese border to Thailand, hoping…