world
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Haiti: Life Beyond the Tent Cities
I’m standing on the balcony of Hotel Ibo Lele, enjoying an outdoor club in the hills of Haiti. It’s dark and my camera isn’t properly capturing the view of Port-au-Prince below, one that reminds me of the way Los Angeles looks from the poolside at the Mondrian on Sunset. Still, I keep snapping. I want…
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Haiti's Uncertain Future, 2 Years Later
Two years ago, at 4:53 p.m. on Jan. 12, 2010, the earth shrugged and added another chapter to the sequence of tragedies that define Haiti’s history. The 7.0-magnitude earthquake killed an estimated 300,000 people, destroyed 80 percent of the capital city of Port-au-Prince and left more than a million Haitians homeless. Nearly all public buildings…
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South Sudan Enters the World Stage
Written by Emily Wax It’s 9 p.m. and Sarah Chan’s high heels are clacking at top speed across this Woodley Park hotel lobby. She’s rushing hundreds of her South Sudanese brethren into cabs so they won’t miss President Salva Kiir, who’s speaking at a hotel a mile away. With the birth of a nation comes…
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Jamaica's First Female PM Elected Again
In a landslide victory, Jamaica’s first female prime minister yesterday reclaimed her office only four years after losing an election to the Jamaica Labour Party. Defying polls that predicted a close race, Portia Simpson-Miller’s People’s National Party surprised pundits after Thursday’s election and walked away with 41 seats in the House of Representatives to the…
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A Very Racist Christmas?
Zwarte Piet is Racisme — or “Black Peter is Racism” — might as well be Dutch for “shots fired.” Activist Quinsy Gario was recently beaten and arrested for publicly protesting — and using that highly charged slogan — at a Dutch Christmas celebration in an attempt to call attention to a very simple fact: The…
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There's a Funny Thing About Democracy
The Arab Spring became the Arab fall, and in this Arab winter the people’s voices are being heard at the ballot box. The Egyptian Revolution that began in January captured international attention, not just because of the nation’s historical significance as the great cradle of African civilization, but largely because of the fact that it…
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Ugandan, Gay and Brave
Frank Mugisha was only a teenager when he came out as gay to his family and classmates in Uganda, a country where that admission didn’t just subject him to possible bullying; it put his life at risk. Uganda is one of more than 70 countries worldwide that criminalize consensual gay conduct, and Mugisha says that…
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Kenya Lifts Itself Up by Its Tech Bootstraps
As many African countries struggle to achieve widespread economic growth and to escape from just being raw agricultural and mineral producers, change is occurring in Kenya, home to East Africa’s largest economy. There, information technology is being used as a springboard for growth. One aspect of that drive is Konza Technology City. The ground breaking…
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Qaddafi's Dead. Did You See the Photo?
Warning: Some of the links in the article are to images that may be disturbing to the reader. By the time word broke that Muammar Qaddafi had gone to wherever dead dictators go once they’re gone, they were plastering his lifeless face all over the news, apparent proof positive that the Libyan leader indeed had…
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Let's Not Forget Amanda Knox's Lie
Amanda Knox has returned to the United States wearing the halo of victimhood for a crime she presumably did not commit. But it should not be forgotten that in her long journey toward exculpation, she blamed an innocent black man for the murder for which she was accused. Diya “Patrick” Lumumba — a Congolese-born resident…