While other independent bookstores have closed their doors in recent years, and even as big chain stores have gone under (i.e., Borders) and continue to downsize (i.e., Barnes & Noble), City Lights has remained (not without some difficulties – at times the bookstore has borrowed from the publishing company, and vice versa, to ensure sustainability and the company bounced back from near financial ruin in 1984) and has even expanded several times over the years. 

Watkins said that gun violence has been a problem his whole life. He estimates that between 200 and 300 people were killed by guns in his Northeast neighborhood off of North Capital Street and Rhode Island Avenue when he was growing up. Watkins said one of the hardest things about being a gun violence survivor is the stereotypes people attach to him. People automatically think that he is a thug or involved with the drug world.

Ro Khanna, formerly a high-ranking trade official in the Obama administration, announced this week his bid for California’s 17th District congressional seat, which is currently being held by the venerable Mike Honda. Khanna and Honda are both Democrats likely to be pitted against each other in 2014, due to new state mandates which allow two opponents from the same party to run against each other in the general election.  

Ni hao, Chinese for “hello,” or ting bu dong, meaning “I hear you, but I don’t understand,” are two expressions one often overhears today in Zimbabwe’s capital. It is one of the results of tenacious efforts by governments, private companies and individuals across Africa, but in Zimbabwe particularly, to learn the Chinese language and understand China’s culture. Learning Chinese as a second or third language has been a global trend in the last few years. In Africa, the rapid increase of Chinese investments and trade (China is currently the continent’s biggest trading partner) has spurred the trend.

To save Syria’s sovereignty and avert wider regional instability, rebel forces should be urged to negotiate with the ruling regime of President Bashar al Assad. Serious political reform cannot be achieved on the battlefield of an escalating, sectarian civil war. Washington’s siding with the rebels as it passively promotes the forceful removal of Assad has not worked out. By the time Assad is deposed, the Syrian state as we know it might well disappear.

A group of female engineering students in India has unveiled a new electrified bra to protect women from getting raped. The bra, according to reports, not only shocks the attacker the moment its pressure sensors get activated; its built-in GPS also alerts police and the victim’s parents to the location where the attack is taking place. The designers of the bra, which is called Society Harnessing Equipment, or SHE for short, eventually hope to connect it with smart phones via Bluetooth and infrared technology.

Billionaire venture capitalist Vinod Khosla was the target of a lawsuit filed March 12 by a national organization that aims to gain access to Martin’s Beach, near Half Moon Bay in Northern California. Mike Wallace, a spokesman for the Surfrider Foundation, told India-West the national organization has been working on this issue for three years and learned while researching the case that Khosla was the owner of the 89-acre property above the crescent-shaped beach. 

Xi Jinping was elected president of China in mid-March and his speech was titled: “The Chinese Dream of National Rejuvenation.” "The Chinese Dream, after all, is the dream of the people. We must realize it by depending on the people. We must constantly bring benefits to the people," Xi said. Pigs in rivers and smog that shrouds the Forbidden City went unmentioned. Prosperity remained the key theme, much as it has been since Deng Xiaoping led China out of the Cold War by declaring: “To get rich quick is glorious.”

Sudan’s rich contemporary arts history is seldom acknowledged amidst all the headlines about war, poverty, and famine that make it to the global media. After World War II, when graduates of Khartoum’s Gordon Memorial College School of Design formed the movement known as the Khartoum School, artists like the father of Sudanese modernism, Ibrahim Elsalahi, calligrapher Osman Wagialla, and Ahmed Shibrain pioneered a unique fine arts movement that reflected a confluence of African, Arab, and Islamic influences. 

The forces of antagonism don't create culture, they kindle creativity. Machiavelli suffered under the House of Medici and wrote The Prince. The Harlem Renaissance responded to racism, segregation and classism with art, poetry and music. Philip K. Dick uses his religious mania to create some of the most intriguing passages in literature. To quote Orson Welles: "In Italy for 30 years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance..."