Recently, many of us learned that the US has troops stationed in Niger and in other African nations. The news came as a surprise
Category: International
A review of “October: The Story of the Russian Revolution”, by China Mieville
Centennials don’t have much objective relevance, but they are marked nonetheless. It shouldn’t surprise, then, that everyone from The New York Times to Alex
A German supermarket’s clever object lesson in diversity
Last week the German supermarket chain Edeka cooked up an unannounced demonstration of the diversity in the German food-supply chain by removing all products
Review of: A Beggar’s Epic: Jerusalem, by Alan Moore
Bear with me: I know that Occasional Planet is a journal of current events, but Jerusalem is timeless. It is a Big Novel, in
Trump’s Mexico call: The Art of the Desperate Appeal
As transcripts of Donald Trump’s conversations and interviews continue to roll out [authorized or not], we are getting a behind-the-scenes look at how he
Where the border walls are: Spoiler alert — everywhere
The U.S-Mexico border wall may or may not be under construction, but it’s not the only contemporary attempt at a barrier between countries. According
Do African countries want your second-hand clothes? Yes and No
In 2016, the six-nation East African Community—whose members are Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Tanzania and South Sudan—agreed to a ban on imported second-hand clothes
The battle within between dispassion and empathy
I had been planning on writing yet another article decrying the afflictive double standard and dog whistle politics of the term “terrorism.” Saturday, thousands
Bombing His Way to Re-Election: The Trump Doctrine
“We are going to stop the policy of regime change overseas” “[Hillary Clinton] wants to start a shooting war in Syria in conflict with
Apps for refugees: merging technology and humanitarianism
These days, there’s an app for just about everything—even for being a refugee. According to the United Nations High Command on Refugees [UNHCR], apps