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Connection or control? On the new Silk Road, two tales of China compete

The Pakistani businessman braved the rugged Karakoram Highway, crossed the freezing Khunjerab Pass, and spent an hour undergoing security at China’s border to reach the city of Kashgar, in the frontier region of Xinjiang. Instead, he ran up against China’s paramilitary surveillance state and its anti-Muslim policies. Mohammad soon learned that, as a Muslim and foreigner, he would be met with intense suspicion and harassment by authorities in Xinjiang.

She went toe to toe with Schwarzenegger. Now Karen Bass is ready to take on Trump

As Democrats prepare to take over the House, the spotlight has been on Speaker-designate Nancy Pelosi of California. One of them is Rep. Karen Bass, from Los Angeles. Back in 2008, as California was facing the Great Recession and a state budget crisis, she became the first female African-American speaker of the California Assembly – or any state legislature. Two years later, she was elected to Congress.

Climate change action goes home

High hopes preceded a two-week gathering of some 14,000 delegates from nearly 200 countries that concluded Dec. 15 in Katowice, Poland. The conference, known as COP24, was expected to reignite worldwide efforts to curb climate change. The conference chair, Poland’s Michał Kurtyka, was so pleased at the conclusion he leapt off the podium to congratulate delegates.

As no-deal Brexit risk rises, so do odds of monster traffic jams

From the concrete overpass, Mike Taylor watches the traffic that trundles through the bucolic countryside, bypassing villages like his own. Nearly all the trucks on this four-lane highway, the M26, are headed to and from the southeastern ports that are Britain’s gateways to Europe and beyond. Just out of sight are the “gates” recently installed in the road’s central barrier so that thousands of trucks can be diverted and held back.

Tanzania granted the largest-ever mass citizenship to refugees. Then what?

Thirty-six years ago, when Mr. Nzila was a young refugee from Burundi, he’d planted two tiny green saplings here as a kind of prayer that he would be in one place long enough to see them grow. At school, they wore sweaters in the colors of the Tanzanian flag, memorized Tanzanian history, belted the Tanzanian national anthem. For Nzila, becoming Tanzanian had been a slow accumulation of experiences.

We know Michael Flynn lied to the FBI. But why?

When former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn stands before a federal judge on Tuesday to receive his sentence after pleading guilty to lying to federal agents about his telephone contacts with the Russian ambassador, one unanswered question will loom over the courtroom. As a retired lieutenant general in the US Army, a decorated military intelligence officer with 33 years of service to his country, and a former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, General Flynn well knew that any telephone contacts with Russia’s ambassador in Washington would likely be recorded – and perhaps monitored – by US intelligence officials. Nearly two weeks earlier, a Washington Post columnist had quoted “a senior government official” as saying that Flynn had had repeated telephone contacts with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak on the same day that then-President Barack Obama announced an escalation of US sanctions against Russia in retaliation for Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election.

How one woman’s citizen diplomacy has strengthened US-Russia ties for decades

There they were in Moscow in early September, having sessions with notables like broadcasting legend Vladimir Pozner and even former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev. Just as important, and probably more so, they traveled around Russia for almost a week and talked with university students, businesspeople, and many other ordinary citizens. Sharon Tennison, an American, who believes that peace is too important a matter to be left to the politicians.

Navigating the giving season, with joy

In his oft-cited book “Democracy in America,” 19th-century Frenchman Alexis de Tocqueville observed, “The health of a democratic society may be measured by the quality of functions performed by private citizens.”

What's made rates of degree attainment for immigrant students spike?

One of them is Nafis Rahman, a high school senior from Bangladesh who arrived in the United States in 2016. After spending his first year in classes specifically for English-language learners, he’s now able to take courses with the mainstream students at CRLS. Greeting him and others are staff from Enroot, a nonprofit that works with immigrant high school students in Cambridge and Somerville, Mass. They pepper the students with questions: Are you coming to the leadership workshop this week?

Readers write: US-Russia exchange, and how to address genocide?

What a pleasant surprise to see Sharon Tennison profiled in the People Making a Difference feature in the Oct. 22 Weekly Print Edition! Our family traveled with her 30 years ago as part of her program Center for Citizen Initiatives, which sets up trips to Russia for Americans and trips to the United States for those from Russia.