At 27, Verena Bahlsen entered the leadership of the family company that had produced biscuits for generations. Two years later, she was gone. The departure marked the end of an unusually public
When a loved one is taken hostage, the violence extends far beyond the moment of capture. In their Issue Brief published by The Soufan Center, Media and Communications Considerations in Contemporary Hostage-Taking:
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The UN Special Rapporteur on torture, Alice Jill Edwards, has issued a stark warning to Pakistan, urging immediate action after receiving reports that former Prime Minister Imran Khan is being held in
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The long American century is over. Across the world, affiliations and institutions staked in blood and soil, faith-based (as opposed to empirically based) ways of knowing, and personalized, autocratic power are all
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On 1 November 2025, the south-western Indian state of Kerala – home to 34 million people – was declared free from extreme poverty by Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan. Kerala is one of the few
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The perennial endeavor to distinguish prose from poetry has occupied poets, philosophers, and scholars through the centuries, each attempting to hold in place two forms of expression that appear, at once, kindred
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Electoral rolls are essential to democracy and help ensure every citizen can participate. In late 2025, the Election Commission of India (ECI) started the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) in 12 states and
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Food prices are climbing across nearly every region of the world, and while climate extremes and weather-driven production disruptions are part of the story, a deeper structural issue is emerging. According to
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Editor’s Note: This article originally appeared in the latest issue of Finance & Development (F&D) magazine, published by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Ninth-century Baghdad, the seat of the Abbasid Caliphate, was
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Israel has sent a consignment of emergency humanitarian assistance to Sri Lanka in the wake of Cyclone Ditwah, which left a trail of destruction and caused significant loss of life across the
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A sweeping legal battle in London has exposed what authorities describe as one of the most audacious people-smuggling operations to infiltrate Britain in decades — allegedly masterminded by two Iraqi-Kurdish men who
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The Disaster Management Center (DMC) has released its latest nationwide assessment, reporting that the death toll from the recent disaster has climbed to 611, with 213 people still missing. As rescue and
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Editorial There comes a point in a nation’s decay when words like “failure” or “mismanagement” are no longer sufficient, because they imply that people tried and merely fell short. What we witness
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Land and environmental defenders—Indigenous leaders, farmers, conservationists, and community activists—risk their lives opposing the destructive exploitation of natural resources. Global Witness defines them as people who “take a stand… against the unjust,
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During the closing plenaries of the 30th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP30) in Belém do Pará in the Brazilian Amazon, United Nations Climate Change
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Sri Lanka was struck by severe flooding and landslides caused by Cyclone Ditwah, leading to road blockages, destruction of homes and loss of life. Immediately following the disaster, Chinese companies operating in
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