September 17, 2015 Painter Adel El-Siwi leads me through his workspace on the fourth floor of a downtown Cairo apartment building. His hands, cargo shorts, pink T-shirt, and Crocs are splattered with paint. Shelves of art, literature, and philosophy books reach the high ceiling. Across the corridor, massive canvases face the wall like unopened presents. Tubes of […]
No paved roads, no power lines, no fresh water. As we set the main sail and aim north, we travel into one of the most remote areas in North America. From above, this coast looks void of human influence. A typical US coastal square kilometer contains 200 people. On average, only two souls inhabit each […]
PBS Newshour – Over the past month Russia has been increasing its military involvement in the war in Syria by providing supplies and equipment, including attack aircraft, to the Assad regime. Judy Woodruff of PBS Newshour interviewed Past Fellow Andrew Tabler, now of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, and Nikolas Gvosdev of the U.S. Naval War […]
OZY – In a new piece, Shannon Sims explains how the recent economic downturn in Brazil is causing many expats to pack up and leave the country. Brazil has entered a recession and foreign investments and job opportunities for foreigners, which were once plentiful, have decreased dramatically. Read the full article here for more of […]
The Daily Beast – Past ICWA Fellow Andrew Tabler is quoted in Kristina Jovanovski’s recent piece on the Syiran refugee crisis in Europe. Javanovski describes how the mounting efforts to draft young Syrian men into Bashar al-Assad’s military are driving increasing numbers Syrians to leave the country. According to Tabler, “The pressure [al-Assad] has put on everyday Syrians is one of […]
OZY – Some of Brazil’s national parks are coming under new management – that of private companies. In her latest piece, Shannon Sims investigates this trend, which has been brought on in part by the lack of resources of local governments. In the privately managed parks, infrastructure and maintenance have improved, but these changes have […]
We are still in Puerto Escondido, or more accurately Nopolo. We have been taken in by a couple I met when I drove from La Paz to San Diego to meet Josh and sail the coast. She and her husband retired here and they have been a literal port in the storm for us. Hurricane […]
OZY – In her latest piece, Pooja Bhatia interivews actor Rainn Wilson about Lide, his nonprofit organization based in Haiti. Wilson is best known for playing the wacky but hilarious Dwight Schrute on The Office, but has taken on the role of philanthropist in support of arts education for girls in the Haitian countryside. Bhatia engages Wilson […]
Until the summer of 2014, La Paz had lived up to its name, which means ‘the peace.’ The coastal city on the Baja peninsula seemed immune from the drug trafficking violence of the mainland, which is estimated to have claimed 120,000 lives since 2006. But on July 31st, that bloodless exemption vanished. On the side […]
August 30, 2015 Under the banner “Picture stories from here and there,” the Beirut collective Samandal publishes local and international comix. For the uninitiated, comix imply countercultural, illustrated tales for adult audiences. Personal, quirky, and rebellious, comix have no boundaries. The underground art spans from word-heavy narratives in ink to wordless sequential illustrations, reminiscent of […]