A number of documentaries have highlighted the gruesome violence against Syrians amid that country's civil war. But "The War Show," a new film that screened at this year's True/False Film Festival, highlights the emotional toll of the conflict on Syrian young people. On this special edition of Global Journalist, Syrian producer Alaa Hassan discusses the film and the internal damage to those who lived through the heady days of protests against the Assad regime to the current dark cycle of

The United Nations says that the world is facing the worst food crisis since World War II. Two of the hardest hit countries are in East Africa. In South Sudan, the UN has made its first formal famine declaration in six years. Meanwhile drought and conflict in nearby Somalia are leading to comparisons with that country's 2011 famine, where 250,000 people died. On this edition of Global Journalist, a look at the challenges to heading off mass starvation in two of the world's poorest countries.

A presidential run-off in the South American nation of Ecuador is shaping up as a referendum on the decade-long rule of leftist President Rafael Correa. Under Correa the government has used oil revenues to slash poverty, but his ruling PAIS Alliance has been criticized for corruption scandals and a drift towards authoritarianism. With term limits forcing Correa from office, polls show his chosen successor Lenin Moreno in a tight race with opposition candidate Guillermo Lasso. On this edition of

Earlier this year, a 51-year-old Mexican man named Isidro Baldenegro López was shot to death in Mexico’s Chihuahua state. Mr. López was a well-known environmental activist and advocate for the indigenous Tarahumara people. For years he had campaigned against the deforestation of old growth pine-oak forests in the Sierra Madre range - even winning the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize in 2005. Unfortunately it’s just one of a large and growing number of cases of environmental activists

Tens of thousands of Rohingya Muslims have fled Myanmar in recent months amidst a campaign by the South Asian nation's military against the religious minority. Refugees have told rights groups and U.N. investigators of burned villages, summary executions and mass rapes of women and girls. About 70,000 refugees have arrived in neighboring Bangladesh since October. On this edition of Global Journalist, a look at a major human rights crisis that is tarnishing the legacy of Nobel prize laureate Aung

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe recently turned 93, making him the oldest non-royal head of state in the world. But in his 37 years in power, he's become a caricature of the corrupt African dictator. Once one of the continent's wealthiest countries, Zimbabwe's economy has halved since 2000. He's sent armed militias to beat and kill political opponents and in 2015 threw a $1 million birthday party for himself, feeding his 20,000 guests dishes like baby elephant even as many of his countrymen

Homosexuality may not be illegal in China, but LGBT people in the world's most populous country often live their lives in the shadows. By one estimate, as many as 80 percent of the country's 20 million gay men marry women due to social pressure. The phenomenon is so common it has its own word in Mandarin, "tongqi," or "gay man's wife." But the views of LGBT people are changing, particularly in China's biggest cities. On this edition of Global Journalist, a look at how Chinese views of gay rights

Might your children or grandchildren someday live in a world without rhinoceroses or African elephants? The chances of that are probably higher than you might guess. There are just 350,000 elephants remaining on African savannas, one-tenth the number in 1900. And the population is estimated to be shrinking by 27,000 a year. The black rhino population has declined 93 percent since 1970. On this edition of Global Journalist, a look at the trade in elephant tusks and rhino horns that fuels the

Most people outside of Central Asia know little about the gas-rich desert nation of Turkmenistan. The former Soviet Republic has virtually no independent media and just a handful of bookstores. Foreign journalists and scholars are rarely granted visas to visit. So it's no surprise that presidential elections this month in a state sometimes compared to North Korea are little more than a show staged to buttress President Gurbanguly Berdymuhammedov. On this edition of Global Journalist, a look at

They survive by hunting and gathering in the forest or by cultivating gardens with handmade tools. In some cases, they don't wear clothing and speak languages that aren't understood by almost anyone else on Earth. In today's hyper-connected world, there are still a few dozen groups of people that live with virtually no contact with the outside world. Nearly all of these tribes live in remote reaches of the Amazon in Brazil and Peru. But these so-called "uncontacted tribes" face increasing