It took her seven years, but Kalpana (name changed) felt she was finally close to her dream of getting an undergraduate degree and working for the Indian government. She had given up college in the past due to family problems, but a few years ago re-enrolled in an undergraduate program. Her studies were going well… more
The coronavirus has profoundly affected protest movements by simultaneously empowering governments and activists. In doing so, it has set up a race between protestors and governments to win the social media war—a drama that is playing out in different ways across the world. Although messy and nonuniform, social movements under COVID-19 fall into two broad… more
When Singapore became the country with the highest number of COVID-19 infections outside China in February, the small city-state quickly earned praise from Harvard epidemiologists and the WHO as the “gold standard” for its “near-perfection detection” of the virus, and it seemed that all was achieved without going into extreme lockdown. By late March, as… more
On April 11, Geumsun Oh put on a face mask and plastic gloves, and left her home for the first time in two months. The 92-year-old Seoul resident had reason to be cautious. She was diabetic, suffered from high blood pressure, and, at that point, the coronavirus had already claimed 211 lives in South Korea.… more
At Columbia Global Reports, we are looking for writers who can do firsthand reporting in faraway places, make original arguments about major issues, and write prose that is a pleasure to read. That combination of skills is very, very difficult to find; anybody who has all three, or even two out of three, is a rare talent, for whose time and energy we always find ourselves competing against others who also want them.
Those who recall Mark Zuckerberg’s controversial $100 million philanthropic experiment to transform Newark public schools might be surprised to learn that Zuckerberg, the Gates Foundation, eBay founder Pierre Omidyar and other Silicon Valley visionaries have been quietly investing in another educational experiment an ocean away. Bridge International Academies was conceived in 2007 to be the… more
Marine Le Pen flunked the final debate. Over the course of three hours, she tried to portray her opponent, Emmanuel Macron, as President Hollande Mark 2, as a candidate promising five more years of failure. Voters would prefer her populist confection of anti-elitism, anti-globalism and anti-immigration. It was a flawed tactic. After the debate, her… more
My last visit to Maiduguri and Chibok was eight months ago, on Easter Sunday. Since then a lot has happened, including the negotiated release of 21 Chibok schoolgirls in October. Before then, one Chibok girl, Amina Ali Nkeki, was discovered wandering in Sambisa Forest with her child on May 17. Amina was the first to… more
