Latest News – Page 111 – The Seattle Globalist

The author with a baby elephant on a recent trip to India. (Photo courtesy Sudha Nandagopal)

A people-centered approach to Earth Day

by Sudha Nandagopal

As a kid growing up in Spokane, I was the one in my family who claimed the mantle of environmentalist. I was the animal enthusiast, the nature lover, the one who saved a robin chick and attempted to raise it. I grew up with a peaceful, serene and relatively tame view of nature. But my […]

One of the "pods" at the Northwest Detention Center, where groups of up to 250 detainees are held. (Photo by Alex Stonehill)

Hey, what ever happened with that hunger strike at the Northwest Detention Center?

by Lael Henterly

It’s not easy organizing a hunger strike inside a secure detention facility. But with nothing but time on their hands, people get resourceful. Jose Moreno, a former detainee who participated in the strike until his release March 12, broke down some of the techniques the detainees used to organize: informal sign language, messages placed between the […]

A portrait of President Bashar al-Assad looms behind a young Syrian at a Damascus intersection in 2010. (Photo by Alex Stonehill)

Lessons of fear and freedom in Syrian schools

“Let’s talk about the holocaust,” my Syrian Civic Education teacher said one morning back in 2010 — to an unusually full and hushed classroom. “The Holocaust,” he said, “IF it in fact occurred, was greatly exaggerated in numbers.” Complete silence.

A mural of Angela Davis at the Abode of Chaos Museum in France. (Photo by Thierry Ehrmann)

Featured Event: Angela Davis talks mass incarceration at Evergreen

by Reagan Jackson

This Saturday, April 19, at Evergreen State College in Olympia, the Rachel Corrie Foundation for Peace and Justice is hosting Peace Works 2014, a daylong conference leading up to a keynote conversation titled Yet Again as Captives: Mass Incarceration in the U.S. & Palestine. Angela Davis and Noura Erakat will be this year’s keynote speakers.

Still from "Purgatorio: A Journey Into the Heart of the Border"

The pulse of Latin American film comes to Seattle

by Erick Iniguez

“Latin America is the region of open veins. Everything from the discovery until our times has always been transmuted into European — or later, United States — capital, and as such has accumulated on distant centers of power.” — Eduardo Galeano, Open Veins of Latin America. This week the Northwest Film Forum is featuring “Pulsos Latinos: […]

Mailarie Muñoz, age 16 (center) and Jennifer Bravo, age 16 (right), during the intermediate Mariachi class program at Wenatchee High School. (Photo by Alex Stonehill)

Wenatchee’s Mariachi youth keep the beat of success

by Sarah Stuteville

A high-school program called Mariachi Huenachi in Wenatchee is not only producing fine music, it’s helping students do better in school.

Breakfast in Beijing

by A. V. Crofts

Fewer countries offer a better buffet for the traveling chowhound than China, and Beijing is one of the best eating cities in the world.

Protected African elephants at Samburu National Reserve in Kenya. (Photo by Alex Stonehill)

From poop to ivory, how science can stop poaching

by Mónica Feliú-Mójer

Every year as many as 50,000 elephants are killed in Africa for the illegal ivory trade. If this trend continues, African elephants could be extinct within a decade. An increasing demand for ivory in emerging markets like China — where ivory is considered a sign of wealth — has led to the killing of more […]

Laura Wachs with her brother.Laura Wachs with her brother.

Local poet elevates the voices of Korean adoption

by Laura Wachs

“I am a walking anomaly trying to find out what makes me ignite”. My name is Laura Wachs. I’m a spoken word poet from Seattle. I was adopted from Seoul, South Korea when I was six months old. This June I will be taking my first trip back to Korea. Returning is something I’ve always […]

An unidentified detainee at the Northwest Detention Center in 2008. (Photo by Alex Stonehill)

National Poetry Month: Send us your poem about immigration

by Reagan Jackson

April is National Poetry Month, and while there are many ways to celebrate, one I enjoy is participating in the 30/30. Writing 30 poems in 30 days, one a day, like a vitamin to stimulate the creative juices in your soul… or to taunt and frustrate you mercilessly, depending on the day. Sometimes you need a […]

Former SPD Police Chief Norm Stamper, who resigned following the 1999 WTO protests in Seattle. (Photo by Mike Siegel / The Seattle Times)

Former SPD chief sees global solutions for police problems

by Sarah Stuteville

Calling the war on drugs a failure, former Seattle Police Chief Norm Stamper says law enforcement in the U.S. could take a few lessons from other countries.

Let’s talk about female circumcision

by Anna Goren

Northwest immigrants and their doctors grapple with female circumcision.

Students Mandela, Emanuel, Vladamir, Maxim and Jacky playing the Villagers in Making Peace in Old Village, August 2012. (Photo by Lea Wulferth)

Bringing the drama to heal Rwanda

by Patrick Crowley

“First time you can sit, but second time you gotta spit.”

Members of the Camara Women's Collective at work farming rice before the flooding in February. (Photo courtesy Susan Partnow)

Flooding disaster in Burundi hits close to home

by Jessie Kwak

Here in the Pacific Northwest, we’re still reeling from the mudslide that leveled homes and took lives in Oso. But one local organization is also in mourning for the deadly results of erratic weather in Burundi, halfway around the world. On February 9th, torrential rains triggered massive flooding that destroyed 4,500 homes in Bujumbura, Burundi’s […]

(Photo by Keith Allison via Flickr)

Top 10 international Mariners of all time

by Joe Veyera

Impress your friends with your worldly baseball knowledge: the official Seattle Globalist top-ten international Mariners of all time.

The family of detainee hold signs outside Northwest Detention Center during a demonstration on Saturday. (Photo by Lael Henterly)

Hundreds stand in solidarity with detainee hunger strikers

by Lael Henterly

Over 200 activists, family members of former and current immigration detainees and concerned citizens braved the elements Saturday afternoon to stand in solidarity with those being held inside the Northwest Detention Center, and at similar facilities around the nation. Organized by the activist group #Not1More Deportation, the march and rally in Tacoma coincided with events around […]

A porter in Maguina, Cusco, Peru. (Photo from Flickr by Filipe Fortes)

The road to Machu Picchu, traveled on the backs of its builders

by Gustav Cappaert

A tourist trek on the Inca Trail reveals a centuries old system of bondage.

Activists in New York City take part in Global Day of Rage Against an Indian Supreme Court Judgment that reinstated Section 377 and re-criminalized homosexuality. (Photo by Sarah Bennett / IGLHRC)

Is Seattle’s global health sector ready to embrace gay rights?

by Sarah Stuteville

“I didn’t want to hide or live in fear anymore,” says Jacque Larrainzar. “And the place I kept coming back to was Seattle.” In 1997 Larrainzar, became the first Mexican to receive political asylum in the U.S. based on sexual orientation. After traveling the country looking for a new home Larrainzar says that Seattle, and the LGBT community […]

Cost of Gender: Transgender Americans seek healthcare in Thailand

by Sara McCaslin

The Cost of Gender shares the stories of transgender Americans faced with health care discrimination at home, who look to Thailand for better options.

"American Dresser," 2014 by Thuy-Van Vu. Image courtesy of G. Gibson Gallery.

Thuy-Van Vu paints the extraordinary lives behind ordinary objects

by Minh Nguyen

While some artists seek to capture the extraordinary, Thuy-Van Vu is more concerned with the mundane — but just as revealing — objects of our lives. The paintings in her newest show at G. Gibson Gallery showcases domestic, archaic items like stools, clunky dressers and typewriters. These objects, usually found amidst the other clutter in […]