In The News

The Guardian: Egypt to Fine People Who Pester Tourists

Ruth Michaelson May 7, 2018
The Egyptian parliament has approved a law ahead of the summer tourism season seeking to clamp down on alleged harassers. As Ruth Michaelson observes for the Guardian, the law allows “authorities to fine up to EGP 10,000 (about £405) anyone found to be pestering tourists ‘with the intention of begging or promoting, offering or selling a good or service.’” Ultimately, this measure intends to...

Harper’s: Buddhism Meets the Chinese Economy

Will Ford April 17, 2018
China’s fast-growing economy brings cultural changes and heightens tensions in Tibet. “As in many regions in China’s interior, the government was trying to kick-start development via tourism, promoting Tibetan culture, horse trekking, and hiking,” writes Will Ford for Harper’s. He describes Lhamo, a lopsided community with a main street that straddles two provinces, Gansu and Sichuan. The former...

Wall Street Journal: Myanmar Court Holds Journalists Investigating Rohingya

Jon Emont April 11, 2018
Government leaders who engage in shameful behavior strive to limit press freedoms. A Myanmar court is holding two Reuter journalists for reporting on the Rohingya crisis. The minority Muslim group has no citizen rights in the Buddhist nation and the military burned villages and forced as many as 700,000 people to relocate to Bangladesh. “Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo had been investigating alleged...

Guardian: Indigenous Women Confront Ecuador's President

Dan Collyns March 28, 2018
Amazon indigenous women are protesting oil drilling and mining in their territories, urging Ecuador’s President Lenin Moreno to combat not only environmental exploitation but also the sexual and psychic violence “they claim accompany the industries.” A delegation of indigenous women met with Moreno after 100 protested by camping in Quito’s plaza near the Carondelet government palace for five days...

60 Minutes: The NBA’s Giannis Antetokounmpo

Steve Kroft March 26, 2018
The parents of Giannis Antetokounmpo, from Nigeria, landed in Greece as undocumented immigrants, living in poverty and teaching their children to embrace integration. The father gave his children Greek names and encouraged them to play basketball to fit in. At times, the brothers shared one pair of sneakers to play basketball. “They subsisted in the shadows of the economy, peddling goods on the...

Financial Times: Voice of China for the Globe

Emily Feng March 22, 2018
China is consolidating its state-run media including television broadcaster CCTV, China Radio International and China National Radio. The media giant will be known as Voice of China and will continue to target a global audience, presenting “Communist party theories, guidelines and policies” and a Chinese model of governance as an alternative to Western democracy and media reports. “China’s state...

ChinaFile: A Clash of Cyber Civilizations

Geoffrey Hoffman March 21, 2018
Various cultures are emerging on the internet, and “as the international system slips away from American unipolarity, a competing model of cyber sovereignty has emerged in China that seeks to bind cyber borders to online censorship and surveillance,” writes Geoffrey Hoffman for ChinaFile. Distrust also emerges, and he questions if the two models can coexist. China enforces cyber borders and that...