Americans have been riveted to the tales of tragedy and human suffering caused by the devastation of Hurricane Harvey in Texas and Louisiana. Half a world away, monsoon season flooding at even more epic levels has resulted in great loss of life, property damage and health challenges for communities in India, Nepal and Bangladesh. The economics and cultural dimensions of the two cases are profoundly different, but the acute policy and governance demands related to climate and resilience are not that dissimilar. Monsoons in South Asia often produce heart-wrenching images of water-engulfed villages and desperate families seeking shelter and food. [...]
BERLIN—When Adam Bahar fled Sudan in 2008, he had no plans to head to Germany. Bahar’s family is originally from the historically neglected Darfur region in Sudan’s west. When fighters from the region rebelled against the Khartoum-based government in 2003, they were met with sweeping violence. The government backed a genocidal response aimed not just at the rebels, but also their perceived civilian sympathizers. Nearly 15 years later, spasmodic attacks continue. Listen to Andrew Green discuss this article on WPR’s Trend Lines Podcast. His audio begins at 21:10: Bahar, living in Khartoum when the fighting began, was horrified both by [...]
Lately, it seems that every week Germany’s ties with Turkey hit another low point, and there are few signs of this trend reversing any time soon. The latest escalation came with the arrest last week of Dogan Akhanli, a Turkish-born German writer on vacation in Spain, following a warrant issued by Turkey. German officials decried the move as politically motivated and warned that the Turkish government may be using the multinational police organization Interpol to pursue political opponents abroad. Akhanli’s detention is the most recent in a string of arrests of German citizens both in Turkey and abroad. Since the [...]
