Hidden in the alleyways behind Jakarta’s fancy malls and in between the high-rise apartment buildings is what Ronny Poluan, a former film maker, calls the "real Jakarta." It is not far from the glitz and glam that dominates the capital’s skyline, yet it is a side of the city that few foreigners ever see. “I want them to (have an) authentic view,” Poluan, who runs “Jakarta Hidden Tours,” said as he took a group of Australians through the winding maze of a central Jakarta slum.
Tag Archives: poverty
A Brief History of the Minimum Wage
With the U.S. trillions of dollars in the hole, 70 cents an hour sounds like chump change.
Frank McCourt, author of Angela’s Ashes, Dies
For most of his life, until he was well into his 60s, Frank McCourt wasn’t a writer, he was a teacher. But it is as a writer, the author of the wildly successful memoir Angela’s Ashes, that he will be remembered. He died on Sunday in New York of meningitis.
Charles Taylor testifies at his war crimes trial
Former Liberian President Charles Taylor took the stand Tuesday as the first defense witness at his trial on war crimes charges at The Hague in the Netherlands. Taylor, 61, is accused of fueling a bloody civil war in neighboring Sierra Leone that led to widespread murder, rape, and mutilation
Indonesia Elections: A Win For Democracy
At first glance, it hardly looked like a vision of democratic perfection.
Ban Ki Moon Leaves Burma Disappointed
Before it began, United Nations officials had described UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon’s visit to Burma as a diplomatically risky mission that could end in failure.
White supremacist accused in Holocaust Museum shooting
The suspect in Wednesday’s fatal shooting at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum is James von Brunn, an 88-year-old white supremacist from Maryland, two law enforcement officials told CNN
Why India’s Communists Are Losing Ground
For decades, they have been a familiar sight in the sun-kissed Indian state of Kerala or the country’s crumbling eastern metropolis of Kolkata. The somber portraits of dead white men — a bearded Marx, a bespectacled Lenin, and Stalin, his moustache bristling — peer down at passers-by from banners strung up over palm trees or street-corner billboards, accompanied by the less-hallowed visages of local comrades. India’s Communists have been key players in the hurly burly of the world’s largest democracy, dominating the ballot box in states like West Bengal, where Kolkata is the capital, and where a Communist government has ruled for over thirty years.
Why College Seniors Without Jobs Are Better Off than Most
This weekend was the peak of the college graduation season.
Street kids in Afghanistan: A CNN reporter revisits child beggars
As a journalist, as a human being, the stories of the people around you stick with you. Whether it is in passing memory or in daily wonderment, they are in your mind and many in your heart, engrained forever