Berfrois

Port-au-Prince’s Territories

Port-au-Prince’s Territories

In effect the state is missing in action, as the people suffer overlapping crises...

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Postcards by Laurie Stone

Postcards by Laurie Stone

I am sitting beside a fountain off Broadway, designed like a waterfall. The sound of rushing water softens the heat. The buttery smell of pastries floats up from a nearby bakery.

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Abandon Brexit!

Abandon Brexit!

The Brexiteers have always argued that the outcome of the June 2016 referendum represented the unshakable will of the people. But that is in doubt.

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Visions of a Happier Alternative to Zero-Sum Ethnonationalism

Visions of a Happier Alternative to Zero-Sum Ethnonationalism

Catalonia is an extremely wealthy community with many exceedingly wealthy individuals (many of them current and former Catalan government officials, and many of them suspected of or charged with corruption of fraud).

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Homage to Democracy

Homage to Democracy

Carles Puigdemont, President of the Generalitat of Catalonia, in 2016. Photograph by Generalitat de Catalunya. From EUROPP: The secessionist parties’ reaction has been to use their small majority in the Catalan parliament to pass a law that makes the constitution null and void. This is not an exaggeration; it is there...

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Lital Khaikin: To Justify Land #3

Lital Khaikin: To Justify Land #3

In Southern Siberia, where the Sayan Mountains rise over the heavy chest of confluence of Central Asia, the Buryat peoples have told legends about the ancient lake Baikal and his beautiful daughter Angara.

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Of Locomotives and Old Wood

Of Locomotives and Old Wood

In the Fifties as today, there is nothing to be done in Mürren but listen to silence, broken only by the habitual click-clack and whirr of the brown electric train.

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After 1989

After 1989

I imagine a cosy dining room somewhere in eastern Europe, in Bucharest or perhaps Zagreb. But it could be Timișoara or Bratislava as well.

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Keith Doubt at Bosnia’s March of Peace

Keith Doubt at Bosnia’s March of Peace

Marš Mira is a commemorative march, like others elsewhere throughout the world, that retraces the long, treacherous route that survivors of the Srebrenica genocide followed to escape the Serbian army.

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Morning on the Wissahiccon

Morning on the Wissahiccon

The natural scenery of America has often been contrasted, in its general features as well as in detail, with the landscape of the Old World

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‘May’s humiliation was delicious’

‘May’s humiliation was delicious’

May’s humiliation was delicious, and the Tories’ fear that Corbyn, branded ‘unelectable’ by Labour ‘moderates’ for the last two years, would become Prime Minister if (or when) their now-minority government collapsed was palpable.

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Lital Khaikin: To Justify Land #2

Lital Khaikin: To Justify Land #2

Lebreton and Chaudière from Parliament Hill, 1889. Collections Canada, PA-008351. by Lital Khaikin 2 — A gathering place where the remarkable occurs For the price of temporary, contractual benefits for private companies, the Asinabka islands are being transformed into another capitalist “Mecca”, from the congregational and spiritual centre they...

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Missing Nostalgia in Alexandria

Missing Nostalgia in Alexandria

Cavafy’s apartment, my first stop, has been converted into a museum and contains some of his furniture. His office of employment is part of the majestic Metropole Hotel on the Alexandrian waterfront, or corniche.

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Denise Goh Hui Jun: Hospitality and the Rohingya Refugee

Denise Goh Hui Jun: Hospitality and the Rohingya Refugee

by Denise Goh Hui Jun May 2015. A smuggler boat of Rohingya passengers dared to entertain the first inklings of hope, as the Malaysian coast guard spotted them and began fixing a tow to their boat. It had been months of unimaginable stresses, living in highly cramped quarters and...

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It was traditional to gulp down the entire glass with each toast…

It was traditional to gulp down the entire glass with each toast…

I met Irakli on the flight from Munich to Tbilisi. Being used to the indifference of fellow passengers on American flights, I did not expect more than a perfunctory greeting upon taking my seat.

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