In-Depth Archive

In early April 2016, fishermen in Vietnam began noticing something alarming: Dead fish were washing up on the shores of several provinces. Days turned into weeks, and the dead tuna and mackerel kept coming, joined by clams and even one whale. It turned out to be the largest environmental disaster in Vietnam’s history. Fishermen lost their livelihoods, and some people fell ill after eating fish that had apparently been poisoned. But at first the government kept quiet about the cause of the mass fish kill. Authorities limited coverage of it on state media and arrested hundreds of people who participated […]

MEXICO CITY—For the past three years, protesters have staged a monthly demonstration outside the office of Mexico’s attorney general. The participants, most of them impoverished farmers from the southern coastal state of Guerrero, include the parents and loved ones of the 43 students from the Ayotzinapa Rural Teachers’ College who, in September 2014, were abducted after they hijacked buses for a political protest in the city of Iguala. Mexican authorities have said the abductions were carried out by corrupt municipal police officers who handed the students over to drug traffickers. But the case is still mired in controversy, with families […]

Editor’s note: This article is adapted from Celeste Hicks’ book “The Trial of Hissene Habre: How the People of Chad Brought a Tyrant to Justice,” which was published by Zed Books this month. In July 2015, the unthinkable happened. After having spent more than 20 years living in comfortable exile in a plush suburb of Dakar, Senegal’s capital, Chad’s former president, Hissene Habre, was brought before the Extraordinary African Chambers, or EAC, a special court set up within the Senegalese judiciary. The beginning of his trial came two years after he was arrested in Dakar and charged with war crimes, […]

AMSTERDAM—Every second Saturday in November, according to Dutch folklore, Zwarte Piet, or Black Pete, arrives in the Netherlands, having traveled by steamboat with Sinterklaas, the Dutch version of Santa Claus, from their home in Spain. The duo remain in the Netherlands until Dec. 5, the name day of Saint Nicholas—a major Dutch holiday similar to Christmas elsewhere. The beloved Zwarte Piet character is said to be the Moorish assistant of Sinterklaas, and he is customarily depicted as a black man with curly black hair, clownish attire, red lipstick and hoop earrings. Listen to Tracy Brown Hamilton discuss this article on […]