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…
Creating Safe, Sustainable Refugee Camps: The Beyond Firewood Initiative
BY FAITH MCCOLLISTER For a woman living in a refugee camp, whipping up a quick lunch for her family is anything but simple. The problem is not finding food — she probably already has a bag of rations stamped with…
He Walks the Line
In a city of fat cats and streetwise Area Boys, Lagos journalist Kirk Leigh performs a professional balancing act. Lagos, Nigeria—Lagos is famous for its Area Boys. They are not boys at all, but actually young men from the masses…
Down in Festac Town
Nigeria is clamping down on its infamous email scammers. But it is law enforcement enough? Lagos, Nigeria—Remember that Nigerian prince who contacted you a few months back, saying he needed assistance transferring his inheritance to the United States. If you…
Chatter Chatter
BY SHUBHA BALA Sweating upstairs in my private room, waiting for anything, waiting for 604800 seconds. An entire week. The autobiography of Gandhi, with its Indian pages, too thin and too smooth, sprawled out on the floor beside my bed. …
Afghan Deployment Questioned
BY SARA SCHONHARDT NEW YORK – President Barack Obama announced a changeover from one war to another Friday when he outlined his timetable for withdrawal from Iraq and committed an additional 17,000 troops to Afghanistan. The move comes weeks…
France Is Back
BY ANITA KIRPALANI Nicolas Sarkozy has struck again with his politics of reform. But this time, by deciding to bring France back into NATO’s military command, he swiped at the mythology of his own political family. It is too bad…
Should Sudan’s Leader Go On Trial?
BY EAMON KIRCHER-ALLEN Images in the Save Darfur Coalition’s television advertisements tug at the heart: a child who has been raped; a man with a bloody stump where his arm should be; another man, in tears, recalling the death of…
Saving Bashir
BY IVA SAVIC It was a Thursday, December 18th 2003, when 28 year-old Bashir Mutzolgov came back from a day trip to his native town of Karabulak in Ingushetia, one of Russia’s mountainous southern republics neighboring Chechnya. He visited his parents…
Whither Pakistan’s Policy?
BY ROZINA ALI After the death of 173 people in the Mumbai attacks, it was not only India but also Pakistan that feared for its safety. As Indian security forces recovered dead bodies from the November 26 carnage, a…