Author: Mr. Lakhaney

TOK Teacher

The Dream of Open Borders Is Real—in the High Arctic

December 31, 2019

The Norwegian territory of Svalbard has been open to citizens of the world since 1920. But don’t call it a utopia.

When you land in Longyearbyen, the largest settlement in the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard, you can step off the plane and just walk away. There’s no passport control, no armed guard retracing your steps, no biometric machine scanning your fingers. Svalbard is as close as you can get to a place with open borders: As long as you can support yourself, you can live there visa-free.

That doesn’t make Svalbard an egalitarian place—far from it.

https://www.thenation.com/article/svalbard-arctic-open-borders/

Life Along Pakistan’s Mountain Highway Where China Is Investing Billions Of Dollars

December 31, 2019

Great summary of a specific place affected by new infrastructure, the hopes and realities.

Locals are making money from tourism and are buying more yaks, Abbas says. This year, he began with 500 and sold all but 32. “People like it because they don’t eat anything other than grass,” he says, sounding more like a hipster butcher than a grime-streaked 23-year-old shepherd. Before the road was fixed, he was selling barely 15 a year, and was surviving on chai and bread.

The bustle is apparent in the nearby border town of Sost, where cargo trucks come from across Pakistan to collect Chinese imports processed at the local dry port. Dozens of men sit outside, waiting for dollar-a-day jobs unloading boxes. Mohammad Iqbal, a 29-year-old customs official, says that when he was growing up, “there was only one shop, only one hotel.”

https://www.npr.org/2019/12/14/787220664/life-along-pakistans-mountain-highway-where-china-is-investing-billions-of-dolla

When Does Activism Become Powerful?

December 16, 2019

It’s about much more than amassing money or people.

From Hong Kong to Chile to the United States, people around the world are angry. They don’t have a say in things that matter in their lives. So they protest, sign petitions, call their lawmakers and organize sit-ins. Despite this enormous energy, their actions can often feel futile. How can we make them add up to something more, so people have power over the things they care about?