Carlo Massimo

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A wilting economy and a bleak future are hardly conducive to hospitality for refugees and immigrants.

Unwelcome: Why is cosmopolitan Italy so anti-immigrant?

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The brutal violence in Brazil’s favelas takes various forms. It’s always a symptom of poverty. Sometimes, it’s a substitute for the state.

What government? In Rio’s slums, drug gangs are the government.

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Throughout the West, the beaming, optimistic forces of Enlightenment liberalism are facing an equal and opposite reaction — even among the Irish born in the age of the “Celtic Tiger.”

Ireland’s young militants and the global rise of fringe politics

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Russians are turning from legal hunting to poaching. Sometimes it’s a luxury sport. Other times, it’s just for survival. 

For most Russians, poaching is a crime. For VIPs, it’s a luxury sport.

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In a rising Russia, patriotism is the order of the day. For some Tatars, Russia’s biggest minority, that’s good news. Others are refusing to buy in.

Do minorities have a place in Putin’s Russia?

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Traditional Namibian law stipulated floggings with a palm-branch whip. To many Namibians, it still makes more sense than prison. 

In Namibia, nostalgia for corporal punishment

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A former revolutionary and a Chinese billionaire have teamed up to build a second Panama Canal, this time in Nicaragua. Like the first one, it’s a colonial venture.

A China-backed Panama Canal… in Nicaragua?

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Amid growing agribusiness in South America, Argentina’s peasants are joining forces.

Peasant farming in the age of Monsanto

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Looks matter in Turkey. From hats to suits to palaces, aesthetics have always played a crucial role in the Turkish ambivalence toward the West.

The palace, the necktie, and the fez: what aesthetics tell us about Turkish politics

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La Santa Muerte, Saint Death, has protected the faithful in Mexico’s violent underworld for decades. But research is revealing her to be less of a criminal’s saint, and more a ghost of NAFTA. 

Behind Mexico’s Cult of the Skeleton Saint

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The economy is growing and lifestyles are modernizing. But Ethiopia's rapid growth has been less than democratic — much like its benefactor, China.

Is Ethiopia the next Dubai?

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Emerald mining is dangerous, dirty, unforgiving work. And it’s going full tilt in the town of Carnaíba.

Brazil’s Green Light

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The United Arab Emirates’ hereditary elites are trying to engineer an Enlightenment. Why?