Credit: Diego Ibarra Sanchez / The New York Times
When a fire broke out last week at a Mexican detention center for migrants and asylum seekers in Ciudad Juárez, just across the border from El Paso, it seemed like cosmically bad luck, a double tragedy: People forced — by political instability, criminal violence, climate change or economic deprivation — to flee their homes, faced a devastating fire while trying to seek refuge. At least 39 people died. The world took notice. Mexican authorities launched a criminal investigation.
But was it really so random? Or was this double tragedy a portent of what’s to come in a world where seemingly unsolvable conflict and climate change are already creating disasters across the globe?
When I saw the news reports, my mind immediately turned to my recent trip to southern Turkey, where I went to report on the aftermath of the devastating earthquake in February. There are more than 3.5 million Syrians in Turkey […]
My family came to this continent in 1630, long before it was a country called America. They started friendly relations with the Native Americans who already had many, many of their own countries here (called tribes by us). They ate with them and learned from them. They started the first city in 1661 called Eddyville which is now a part of Middleboro Mass..The English had put a line from north to south which was a boundary which the colonists should not pass. The colonists did pass the boundary and moved west. I believe that boundary was the real reason for the war which separated us during the “tea tax” revolution between us and the English..