Hiking Kurdistan

The Republic of Macedonia reached a deal with Greece on 12 June to change Macedonia’s name: it will now be known as Severna Makedonija, or the Republic of North Macedonia.

The Olguita Marina drink on the menu had a beautiful name, and beauty makes me curious. I didn’t order it since I was informed that in addition to rum it contained three fruit liquors, of which two were strawberry and passionfruit.

West Ham fans tend to think that what happens at their club says something about the state of English football. It’s an illusion born of a summer afternoon 52 years ago...

Hawa, a Hindi word for wind or air, carries a subtler meaning in Indian politics. A politician’s hawa is the tailwind that propels him to victory; it is the superior momentum that comes with being on a roll.

Orbán has named his reign the Regime of National Cooperation. This expression well defines the expectations towards anyone who wishes to survive in this environment: either you collaborate or you are declared an enemy of the state.

On a research trip to the Kamituga gold mine in her home province of South Kivu, in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), activist Marie-Rose Shakalili noticed something that’s often minimised in stories about mining in her country...

I recently returned from a three-month stay in Budapest, where I was a fellow of the Institute for Advanced Study of the Central European University—a splendid graduate school of social sciences and philosophy founded by George Soros...

A few years ago one of my rare bookworm students asked me for a list of suggestions for “adventure” reading. But when I gave it to her, she seemed disappointed...

When historians examine Britain’s departure from the European Union, one of the things that will puzzle them is the behaviour of the Conservative Party.

Just south of where we’re sitting this morning in Banja Luka’s restored Ottoman fortress, the River Vrbas enters a stunning, winding gorge on its way to join the Sava.

If you’re interested in the end of the world, you’re interested in New Zealand. If you’re interested in how our current cultural anxieties...

Chang was awarded a Taiwanese literary prize recognising a lifetime of work. She came to attention in China and Taiwan in the 1940s. She was in her early twenties and had begun publishing the bitter love stories and witty, erudite essays for which she’s now famous.

In Evgenii Zamyatin’s novel We, written in 1921, life unravels within the idyllic metropolis of the One State. The totality of its governance absorbs all within itself, and everything is joyously contributing...

The roar, filled with anger and a hot wrath, changed into a long, sad howl. My horror was quickly replaced by doubt, because that scream had sounded on a sunny summer day in Academgorodok...

In Gaza more than 60 percent of the population is under the age of twenty-five, and it is among the young that the deepest despair often takes root.

In the Twilight Zone episode “The Eye of the Beholder”, a patient, whom viewers have been led to believe is horrendously disfigured, sits surrounded by medical staff.

Life isn’t easy for representatives of Russia’s LGBT community who don’t hide their sexual orientation. A 2013 law on “gay propaganda” has, in effect, legalised LGBT discrimination.