While left-wing dissent may have a long history in the U.S., so too do the impulses of knee-jerk cynicism and contempt for such radical display. Much of the initial coverage of the Occupy Wall Street protests in Lower Manhattan — with the notable exception of some journalists, including my colleague Nate Rawlings — struggled to …
Human rights
Burma Announces a Mass Prisoner Amnesty— Is Real Reform Next?
Squeezed between booming India and equally booming China, Burma has long felt like a time capsule of repressive rule, economic mismanagement and military dominance. But is change finally coming to this strategic crossroads? On Oct. 11, in a state T.V. announcement emblazoned with a “breaking news” banner, the country’s …
Ivory Coast: Human Rights Watch Documents Massacres of Civilians
A terrific video for TIME by Peter di Campo shines a light on the massacres that took place in the Ivory Coast this past year, as competing militias loyal to sparring presidential candidates Laurent Gbagbo and Alassane Ouattara both wreaked havoc among the country’s civilian population. Ouattara, who was deemed to have won an …
From Europe With Love: U.S. ‘Indignados’ Occupy Wall Street
As the momentum surrounding the Occupy Wall Street protest grows, so too has the urge to frame it in the context of other struggles around the world. Already, Zuccotti Park, the patch of Lower Manhattan taken over for weeks now by the protesters, has been hailed as an American Tahrir Square, a font for a “U.S. autumn” as that …
Another Tibetan Monk Sets Himself Ablaze—and the Karmapa’s Take on the Fiery Protests
Kham is on fire. This year, five Tibetan monks have set themselves ablaze in the ethnically Tibetan-dominated region of China’s Sichuan province that is part of an area called Kham in Tibetan. The most recent self-immolation was on Oct. 3 in a market in the town of Aba (in Mandarin) or Ngaba (in Tibetan), according to exile Tibetan …
A Landmark Moment in Bangladesh’s Slow Crawl Toward Justice
In Dhaka, a war crimes tribunal charged its first suspect on some 20 counts, including crimes against humanity. Delwar Hossain Sayedee, a leading figure in the Jamaat-e-Islami, the country’s most important Islamist party, will now go to court Oct. 30. If you haven’t heard of the case, it’s not your fault — the 1971 genocide in …
From the Magazine: Tibet’s Next Incarnation
He has never been to Tibet, never breathed the thin air of the high plateau, nor spun a prayer wheel in the shadow of the great Buddhist monasteries. Yet on Aug. 8, 43-year-old Lobsang Sangay was sworn in as the head of the Tibetan government-in-exile. Born in a refugee camp in India and educated in the U.S., Sangay holds no passport or …
In a Rare Reversal, Burma’s Government Listens to Its People and Suspends a Dam
The Irrawaddy River is the lifeblood of Burma. Its waters spring from the Myitsone confluence of two rivers in the country’s northern Kachin state, a largely Christian ethnic minority territory whose rebel militia has over the decades battled the Burmese military. A few years ago when Burma’s ruling junta agreed to a $3.6 …
Will We Really Let 750,000 People Starve to Death?
Are we really about to let three-quarters of a million people starve to death? The U.N. thinks we might. Figures describing the famine in Somalia from the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) paint a consistent, horrifying picture. As of late September, hunger is besieging 12.4 million East Africans, with …
TIME Meets Embattled Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh
Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh doesn’t act like a man with his back to the wall. Despite an eight-month-long popular uprising, major military defections, international pressure to step down and an assassination attempt that nearly took his life in June, he has made it clear that he will relinquish power only on his own terms. His …
Burma: Could a Small, Peaceful Protest Signal Real Reform?
Four years ago, as columns of burgundy-robed monks marched peacefully through Burma’s commercial capital Rangoon, security forces opened fire, slaughtering at least 31 people, arresting thousands more and extinguishing hopes that the ruling junta was receptive to political reform. On September 26, dozens of Burmese again gathered …
Watching Abbas in Ramallah: A People Tired of Waiting
At one end of Ramallah, Israeli riot police line up behind barricades, stubby tear gas rifles leveled at shoulder height toward the few dozen young Palestinian men who reliably emerge from the Qalandia refugee camp when Israeli soldiers emerge from the checkpoint of the same name two blocks away. Camera crews set up between them, …
U.N. Security Council: Is It Time to Veto the Veto?
The fitful Palestinian approach to the U.N. Security Council will be, as all have known for a long time, stillborn. The near certainty of a U.S. veto in defense of Israeli interests has made the Palestinian gambit for statehood recognition more about ritual symbolism than any real process. This when, according to a BBC poll, the majority …