Lost among sweaty pictures of the Great Wall and Tiananmen Square, a Beijing of a past era still exists somewhere on my computer’s hard disk. At the naïve age of 12 years, my visit to China was about documenting what I saw rather than understanding it, taking photographs of people rather than connecting with them. … Read more
The United States is supporting, funding, and arming “terrorists.” Not through back channels, middlemen, Swiss bank accounts or CIA covert operations, but openly and publicly. The Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) was designated as a foreign terrorist organization on October 8, 1997 by the U.S. Department of State after thirteen years of insurgency, including bombing attacks … Read more
A grinning Churchill and FDR sit together, cementing the cooperation necessary to save democracy and the Western world as we know it. The romance of these now fading photographs inspired a “special relationship”, as Churchill called it, between the United States and the United Kingdom. Because of the strong cultural, historical, and linguistic ties between … Read more
One hundred and fifty years ago, Britain laid the tracks of China’s first railroad. Last month, Britain agreed to allow Chinese firms both to build and operate rail lines and to design, own, andoperate a nuclear power station in Britain as part of a $23.8 billion set of trade deals betweenthe two countries. The deals … Read more
[JERUSALEM, ISRAEL] When Qusay Muzassar was a teenager in East Jerusalem, growing up in the tense climate of the Second Intifada, he was regularly exposed to demonstrations and riots. Though he tried to avoid them himself, expressions of hatred and frustration by both Arabs and Jews were hard to escape. A few years ago, … Read more
Imagine, for a second, all of the 1.4 million cars in New York City were on the road. Given the 6,000 miles of road in the city, a back-of-the-envelope calculation shows they would barely be able to move. The unlikeliness of this scenario highlights the necessity of public transportation in modern cities. A few of … Read more
The signs are subtle, but it seems many have already forgotten the lessons of the Great Recession. These signs lie on both sides of the political aisle, in different branches of government, and in all parts of the country. Why exactly this has happened requires a much more extensive analysis, but one thing seems certain: … Read more
On Wednesday, July 16, Federal Judge Cormac J. Carney declared the California death penalty unconstitutional, finding that it violated the Eighth Amendment. He ruled that the state’s arbitrary delays in executing death row inmates render the act of execution itself cruel and unusual. Death penalty critics across the country applauded Judge Carney’s decision for … Read more
Rev. Al Sharpton is a civil rights activist and talk show host. Harvard Political Review: Rev. Sharpton, what is the significance of the Ferguson episode’s location – that is, in the middle of the country and in a suburb? Al Sharpton: I think the significance is that we’re dealing with the heartland of America. We’re … Read more
[BIL’IN, WEST BANK] Every Friday, locals of this run-down Palestinian village in the West Bank gather with international human rights activists and the rare Israeli to protest the wall built to separate Bil’in from the adjacent Jewish settlement of Modi’in Illit. A Swiss ambulance stands by to treat protesters hit with tear gas or rubber … Read more