When I arrived in Berlin in 1982, I was writing a dissertation on Kant’s conception of reason. It was thrilling to learn that the apartment I’d sublet turned out to be located near Kantstrasse, though at the time I wondered in frustration: Why was there no James Street — Henry or William — in the […]
Read More
Britain’s Conservative government hopes to pass the Safety of Rwanda Bill on Wednesday, after a prolonged back and forth through the two houses of Parliament in which the legislation has come under sustained criticism. The bill is intended to clear the way for the government to put some asylum seekers on one-way flights to Rwanda, […]
Read More
Europe’s top human rights court said in a landmark ruling on Tuesday that the Swiss government had violated its citizens’ human rights by not doing enough to stop climate change. But the court rejected climate-related cases brought by the former mayor of a coastal town in France and a group of young people in Portugal […]
Read More
First came containers loaded with equipment for a secluded property under renovation on the edge of the forest. It had housed a horseback riding academy and a cafe, but was being reconfigured for a mysterious enterprise. Then muscular young men appeared, jogging through the trees at strange hours and speaking to one another in English. […]
Read More
Blood coursed through the streets of Rwanda’s capital, Kigali, in April 1994 as machete-wielding militiamen began a campaign of genocide that killed as many as 800,000 people, one of the great horrors of the late 20th century. Thirty years later, Kigali is the envy of Africa. Smooth streets curl past gleaming towers that hold banks, […]
Read More
Thousands of innocent people killed. Tens of thousands more pro-democracy protesters locked up. The return of military rule has wreaked havoc in Myanmar in recent years. Now the junta is growing increasingly brutal as a rebel uprising has gained ground in the countryside. It has put new effort into imprisoning dissidents and the men and […]
Read More
At New York University, the spring semester began with a poetry reading. Students and faculty gathered in the atrium of Bobst Library. At that time, about 26,000 Palestinians had already been killed in Israel’s horrific war on Gaza; the reading was a collective act of bearing witness. The last poem read aloud was titled “If […]
Read More
As the clock struck noon on Thursday, the doors to dozens of polling stations across Kuwait opened and voters rushed in to elect one of the Middle East’s most robust parliaments. Candidates set up makeshift headquarters in tents, and coffee shops pledged discounts to voters. Swarms of people waited to cast their ballots — even […]
Read More
Uganda’s Constitutional Court on Wednesday largely upheld a sweeping anti-gay law that President Yoweri Museveni signed last year, undermining the efforts of activists and rights groups to abolish legislation that drew worldwide condemnation and strained the East African nation’s relationship with the West. The legislation, which was signed into law by Mr. Museveni in May, […]
Read More
After 176 days, Israel’s assault on Gaza has not stopped, and has expanded into what Human Rights Watch has declared to be a policy of starvation as a weapon of war. More than 32,000 Palestinians have been killed, and the international community has reverted to a deeply familiar call for a two-state solution, where Palestinians […]
Read More