The Indian newspaper The Hindu has published an absorbing, multi-story Wikileaks package today about 5,100 diplomatic cables covering everything from India-Pakistan relations after the November 2008 terror attacks to the end of the Sri Lankan civil war and influence-peddling in Nepal. There are also some revealing behind-the-scenes …
Unable to Defeat Gaddafi, Libyan Rebels Turn to the West
The problem with the West imposing a “no-fly zone” over Libya — and the problem of Libya’s revolution itself — was highlighted in Monday’s bizarre request by the rebel leadership for Western powers to assassinate Colonel Muammar Gaddafi. That demand, which rebel leaders in Benghazi said their representatives had made when meeting on …
Want To Help Quake-hit Japan? Be Careful Where You Send Your Money
Natural disasters set off a wave of charitable giving from all over the world: but just as inevitably, they bring out all manner of fraudsters looking to cash in on global sympathy.
How do you tell if the charity soliciting your dollars for Japan is on the level? The FBI has a timely press release with useful ways to avoid dodgy …
Japan’s People Power: Residents Help Each Other in Quake’s Aftermath
Tomeo Suguwara leans into the hill, carrying a large, empty straw basket. Behind him, a few houses are left where a neighborhood used to be. For the third day in a row, the farmer has been feeding a calf he found wandering around the detritus of people’s kitchens and bedrooms after the tsunami swept through this village in Kesennuma. …
How Japan Copes with Tragedy: A Lesson in the Art of Endurance
Japanese is one of those languages that is full of untranslatable words that define a unique culture. Gaman is one of them. It means something like the art of endurance, with a good dose of stoicism and resiliency mixed in. Gaman is what Japan in the wake of the killer earthquake and tsunami has displayed in abundance.
To riff on …
TIME Reporter Expelled from Yemen
The following comes from TIME’s News Director Howard Chua-Eoan
TIME’s reporter in Yemen Oliver Holmes phoned in to report that he and the reporters for the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times are being deported by the regime of President Ali Abdullah Saleh. The ostensible reason given by the government was that Holmes, Haley …
Why A Saudi Intervention into Bahrain Won’t End the Protests
Saudi troops in Bahrain? A month ago that was the worst case scenario, a threat put out there by the “sky is falling” extremists who were convinced that protesting in Bahrain would not go the way of peaceful demonstrations in Tunisia and Egypt. But the momentum of the movements sweeping the Middle East caught the imagination of young …
On a Mission with Japanese Soldiers in the Quake Zone
When Koji Haga looked toward the shore and saw the massive earthquake shuddering through his village of Akaushi on March 11, he knew what would come next. After all, every school child in the area is taught that roughly every 50 years, a seismic seizure triggers a giant wave that engulfs this tightknit fishing community. It had been a …
As Nuclear Emergency Worsens, Death Toll Jumps
Report from TIME’s Krista Mahr in Kesennuma:
There are few good places to be right now in what’s left of this savaged corner of Kesennuma, Japan. But the gymnasium at the Hibiki High School is the very last place anybody wants to have to visit. On a hilltop over the washed-out mud flats where houses stood this time last week, the …
Lagos, Nigeria: Blind in Africa’s Mega-City
Imagine being blind in Lagos. It is Africa’s megacity, an endless, dirty, malarial metropolis of somewhere between 10 and 17.5 million people – no one seems quite sure – a figure predicted to reach 25 million by 2015 and 35 million by 2025. It’s a place of constant gridlock and giant holes in the sidewalks. It is a nightmare to …
Global Briefing, Mar. 14, 2011: New Friends, Old Foes and Fresh Sorrow
Sorrow and Survival — In a moving dispatch from Sendai, Hannah Beech and Krista Mahr show, in words and pictures, the human toll of Friday’s quake; Michael Schuman assesses the economic outlook; NewsFeed has the latest on the nuke situation.
Let’s Do Lunch — In the latest installment of the FT’s series, Alec Russell has a drink …
Japan and the Quake: A Long History of Living with Disaster
The tremors of Japan’s monstrous March 11 earthquake are still being felt as state officials and rescue workers come to grips with the rising body count, a scare over a damaged nuclear plant and the prospect of more aftershocks. Concerns also deepen over the health of the Japanese economy, which has been in the doldrums for years. The …
Interview with a Fetish Priestess
We step into the fetish priestess’s yard and, improbably, there is a clap of thunder, a sudden gust of wind slams doors and windows, and knocks over several plastic chairs – and the lights go out. My guide, Boat, and I are shown to two seats in front of the priestess, sitting on her porch in the dark. We are each handed a small glass …
