COLORLINES - Global Affairs

The Legacy of Steve Biko’s Fight Against South African Apartheid

by Hatty Lee on September 14 2011, 9:59AM

We take a look at how his activism inspired a movement.

In a Precarious Revolution, Libya’s Endgame Is Only Beginning

by Michelle Chen on September 13 2011, 9:52AM

The Libyan freedom struggle has been ruptured by infighting and pressure from foreign forces that have their own designs. Yet viewed from a wide angle, the revolution has cracked open a window for a new political vision.

Topics: Global Affairs, Global Justice

New Dutch Game Show Has Immigrants Compete to Reveal Unjust System

by Jorge Rivas on September 7 2011, 1:06PM

Last week’s winner took home a cash prize. The loser got a bullet proof vest.

Topics: Global Affairs, Immigration

The Deadly Labor Behind Our Phones, Laptops and Consumer Gadgets

by Sophia Cheng on September 1 2011, 9:30AM

The world’s largest consumer manufacturer has drawn global outrage for a string of worker suicides in its factories. But the problem is rooted in Western consumer markets, not Chinese sweatshops.

Topics: Economy, Global Affairs, Technology

U.S. Gov. Secretly Infected Thousands of Guatemalans with STDs

by Jorge Rivas on August 30 2011, 12:33PM

Government scientists infected 5,500 Guatemalans with syphilis and gonorrhea between 1946 and 1948 to study the effects of penicillin, according to recent findings of a U.S. presidential panel.

Topics: Global Affairs

Ghana’s Growing Gay Pride Faces Now-Familiar Evangelical Backlash

by Frankie Edozien on August 30 2011, 9:43AM

Throughout sub-Saharan Africa, evangelical Christianity’s growth has prompted political leaders and media to incite fear of increasingly open gay communities. Ghana’s burgeoning community is the latest target.

Topics: Gender & Sexuality, Global Affairs

To Stop Corruption, Fight the Power, Not the People

by Michelle Chen on August 26 2011, 9:09AM

The global discussion of corruption too often confuses the behavioral symptoms with the structural cause: too much power concentrated in one place.

Topics: Global Affairs, Global Justice

After the Riots, “Broken” Britain Grows Still More Fractured

by Michelle Chen on August 18 2011, 10:44AM

Lost amid all the racialized, anti-youth invective is the story of youth on the margins, whose voices go ignored until they explode in collective rebellion. Michelle Chen explores what happens next for London’s fractured neighborhoods.

Topics: Global Affairs, Global Justice, London Riots

Dispatch from London: A Night Bus Ride Through the Riot Corridor

by Sean O'Neill on August 18 2011, 10:02AM

On this bus, you can see the exhaustion that often comes with low-wage labor in the birthplace of capitalism—and with being the cultural scapegoat for the increasing anxieties of the British middle class.

Topics: Dispatches, Global Affairs, London Riots

Quick Retribution in London Threatens Due Process for Thousands

by Bryan Gerhart on August 12 2011, 3:52PM

Prime Minister David Cameron has vowed to ignore “phony concerns about human rights.” The courts appear to be eagerly taking his cue.

Topics: Global Affairs, London Riots

Guatemalan Girl Stuck in Gut-Wrenching Adoption Scandal

by Jorge Rivas on August 12 2011, 12:08PM

A Guatemalan court has ordered a 7-year-old returned from her adoptive U.S. parents after determining she was snatched by local kidnappers five years ago. If U.S. intervenes, it’ll be a first for international adoption.

Topics: Global Affairs

Famine Devastates Somalia in the Shadow of U.S. Domination

by Michelle Chen on August 10 2011, 9:45AM

The now-famished nation has long lived with well-fed wars and an overbearing U.S. presence that has eroded the institutional foundations it purports to rescue.

Topics: Global Affairs, Global Justice

Who’s Grabbing Africa’s Land? U.S. Speculators, Including Universities

by Michelle Chen on July 29 2011, 9:22AM

The financial industry has identified rich soil in poor countries. But watchdogs warn that turning Africa’s land over to the global financial marketplace will deepen an already growing food crisis.

Topics: Environment, Global Affairs, Global Justice

Why We, as Women of Color, Join the Call for Divestment From Israel

by Barbara Ransby on July 13 2011, 9:53AM

On the heels of a controversial new Israeli law challenging boycotts, a group of feminist women of color describe their visit to Palestine and explain their call for divestment.

Topics: Global Affairs

Violence Against Migrant Women Won’t End After DSK Case

by Michelle Chen on July 12 2011, 10:06AM

From Indonesia to the Congo—and back to the U.S.—migrant laboring women are attacked systematically and with impunity.

Topics: DSK Rape Case, Gender & Sexuality, Global Affairs, Global Justice

The Globe’s Not Only Getting Hotter. It’s More Unjust and Unstable, Too

by Michelle Chen on July 6 2011, 9:32AM

Climate change is wreaking havoc on more than the environment. All over the Global South, it’s creating refugees, sparking conflict over resources and justifying repression.

Topics: Environment, Global Affairs, Global Justice