Why Are Rwandans Disappearing?

Article
NY Times
Lara Santoro and Susan Thomson
June 17, 204

Virginie Uwamahoro vanished in April. A primary school teacher, she was last seen settling in for the three-hour bus ride from the Rwandan border town of Gisenyi to Kigali, the capital. She called a friend once she got into town: Someone from the government wanted to see her. She would drop by his office before heading home.

Full Story: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/18/opinion/why-are-rwandans-disappearing.html

Female Activist in Haryana Works Within System for Change

Article
NY Times
Betwa Sharma
June 17, 2014

Over a cup of milky tea some months ago in a nondescript hotel in Rohtak, a dusty town of steel and oil mills, colleges and auto repair shops, Santosh Dahiya reflected on the slow-moving pace of change in the mostly rural state of Haryana.

She is the head of the women’s wing of the Sarve Khap, Sarve Jaatiya Mahapanchayat, an umbrella organization of khap panchayats, traditionally all-male unelected councils in north India that exercise a great deal of social control.

Full Story: http://india.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/06/17/female-activist-in-haryana-works-within-system-for-change/?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar

How to Help Myanmar’s Muslim Minority

Article
NY Times
Nicole Sganga
June 17, 2014

It’s a question I’ve heard over and over again from readers who learn about the persecuted Rohingya Muslim minority in Myanmar. For a couple of weeks now, I’ve been asking myself the same thing: “What can we do to help?”

The question is complicated. There is no “perfect solution” to halting ethnic tensions between Buddhists and Muslims in Western Myanmar, nor is there one approach to confronting the government persecution of the Rohingyas.

Full Story: http://kristof.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/06/17/how-to-help-myanmars-muslim-minority/?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar

Finally, an Executive Order on LGBT Workplace Discrimination

Article
NY Times
Dorothy J. Samuels
June 17, 2014

Workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity “needs to stop,” President Obama said last November, “because in the United States of America, who you are and who you love should never be a fireable offense.” But November came and went, as did 2013, and the first quarter of 2014, without the president heeding the rising calls for executive action.

Full Story: http://takingnote.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/06/17/finally-an-executive-order-on-lgbt-workplace-discrimination/

U.S. Professors Call on Colleges to Re-evaluate Confucius Institutes

Article
NY Times
Amy Qin
June 17, 2014

The American Association of University Professors is calling on universities to uphold principles of academic freedom by either terminating or renegotiating the agreements that have brought nearly 100 Chinese government-backed cultural and language programs called Confucius Institutes to campuses across the United States and Canada.

Full Story: http://sinosphere.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/06/17/u-s-professors-call-on-colleges-to-re-evaluate-confucius-institutes/?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar