Nicholas D. Kristof

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There are a few topics that have been particularly important to me in my column writing. One of them has been Darfur. Another has been the sexual enslavement and trafficking of young women. In 2004, I wrote a five-column series, most of it reported from Cambodia, about Srey Mom and Srey Neth, two 21st-century slaves, teenage prostitutes whose freedom from brothel owners came at a price of $353. I'm also a big believer in the new age of multimedia journalism, so you're invited to peruse the full archive of my video coverage.

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Chad with Clooney and CurryCreated about 4 months ago
Middle EastCreated on June 19, 2008 at 2:35pm
 
Nicholas D. Kristof

Nicholas D. Kristof The ethnic rioting by Uighurs in Urumqi, in the Xinjiang region in the west of China, is hugely important. So far 140 people have been killed: http://bit.ly/1iCU9G. But more than that, China already has its hands full with disgruntled Tibetans. There have been problems with Uighurs -- ethnic Turks, who are Muslims -- around Kashgar and elsewhere in southern Xinjiang. But Urumqi had seemed stable and boring. No more.

Source: bit.ly
At least 140 people were killed when rioters clashed with the police amid rising tensions between Muslim Uighurs and Han Chinese, China’s state news agency reported.
Nicholas D. Kristof

Nicholas D. Kristof My abject apologies for having left Roald Dahl off my list of best books ever: http://tinyurl.com/lztjta . Also, I should have included Beverly Cleary and her Ramona the Pest books; Beverly Cleary is from the same little town as me, Yamhill, Oregon, so neglecting her is particularly shameful. But thanks for the wonderful recommendations on great kids' books.

Nicholas D. Kristof

Nicholas D. Kristof My Sunday column is a bit different: it offers my own list of the Best Kids' Books -- Ever! http://tinyurl.com/lztjta I figured it's summer and I should promote reading -- and, more to the point, I just love these books and feel I owe them. So read the list and let me know what I've left out -- or offer ideas for parents who are looking for ideas.

Source: tinyurl.com
Pry your kids away from the keyboard and the television, and give them a book. For ideas, here’s a summer reading list.
Nicholas D. Kristof

Nicholas D. Kristof U.N. Secretary General is in Burma today to push the generals to release Aung San Suu Kyi and other political prisoners. I hope he succeeds in bringing more attention to the oppression there. My own feeling is that ordinary trade sanctions there have failed and should be lifted -- they've only made life worse for ordinary Burmese -- while targeted sanctions should be focused on the leaders. Your thoughts?

Nicholas D. Kristof

Nicholas D. Kristof Just got a letter from my 11-year-old daughter at camp. She's having a great time swimming, playing soccer, climbing and eating smores. Sigh. I want to go to camp.

Nicholas D. Kristof

Nicholas D. Kristof My Thursday column is online: http://tinyurl.com/mqkq4c . I argue that our brains were designed by evolution to confront ancient threats, like snakes and men with clubs. And that's why we're so dismal at confronting 21st century threats, like climate change. Read the column and let me know if you agree -- and what we do about it.

Source: tinyurl.com
We’re brilliantly programmed to act on the risks that confronted us in the Pleistocene Age but less adept with 21st-century challenges like climate change.
Nicholas D. Kristof

Nicholas D. Kristof Hey, Stephen Colbert was a pussycat. I survived the taping unscathed. Topic was my column on endocrine disruptors, which led to a profusion of genital jokes. He's very funny, as you'll see if you tune in to it at 1130 tonight to see the show.

Nicholas D. Kristof

Nicholas D. Kristof Warlords? Piece of cake -- just be polite. Driving on a road that may be mined? No prob, just drive on the shoulder. But tonight journalism takes me into really scary territory: the Colbert show. It'll air at 1130 tonight. Whaddya think? Will I survive?

Nicholas D. Kristof

Nicholas D. Kristof The New York Times Magazine will have a special issue on women of the world on August 23. It's a first, and it'll be built around an excerpt from "Half the Sky," the book that my wife and I have written on the topic. Lots of other stuff in the issue, including a reader contest. Details at www.nytimes.com/ontheground. Any suggestions for online accompaniments to the special issue?

Nicholas D. Kristof

Nicholas D. Kristof Nicholas D. Kristof Why are we pundits so overwhelmingly male? it's always striking that op-ed columnists and contributors, as well as TV and radio hosts, are disproportionately male. The Women's Media Center notes that Sunday morning TV shows are virtually segregated (men outnumber women 4 to 1 on those shows). http://tinyurl.com/nq76pn So what's going on? Discrimination or something else? Your thoughts?

Nicholas D. Kristof

Nicholas D. Kristof Youtube has started a Reporter's Center to train citizen journalists: www.youtube.com/reporterscenter. I contributed a video, as did Bob Woodward, Katie Couric, Arianna Huffington, Scott Simon and others. But none of us explained how the citizen journalists are going to get paid online. And it's striking that as we're explaining to Netizens how to be journalists, we journos are struggling to adapt to the Web.

Source: www.youtube.com
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Nicholas D. Kristof

Nicholas D. Kristof Skeptics on my column today, http://tinyurl.com/nfz3yq , note that the evidence isn't conclusive that the chemicals cause intersex fish, deformed genitals in humans or obesity/diabetes. That's true: the evidence raises strong suspicions, but not proof, and the causal pathway is complex. But why should we wait for absolute proof to begin to protect ourselves, by investigating the threat and trying to reduce the risks?

Nicholas D. Kristof

Nicholas D. Kristof My Sunday column is up -- and it's scary: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/28/opinion/28kristof.html . Scientists are finding increasing evidence that certain chemicals -- endocrine disruptors -- cause deformities in babies. They may also be linked to obesity and diabetes. These chemicals are widely used, and they're even in our drinking water. Please read, pass it on, and comment.

Source: www.nytimes.com
Scientists are beginning to find a connection between bizarre deformities in water animals and humans.
Nicholas D. Kristof

Nicholas D. Kristof Finally a day of sun! Our basement flooded a week ago, and today we could finally take some of our drenched carpets out to dry under the sun. May it never rain again!

Nicholas D. Kristof

Nicholas D. Kristof So if you were a newspaper editor or TV news executive producer, what would be all over the front page or news program today? Michael Jackson? Or Iran/Iraq/health, etc? Did we overplay Jackson? I would vote vote for giving the big play to Jackson, because he was such an icon and that makes this a historical moment. But I can see why some readers lament that real news is being pushed out as a result. Your thoughts?

Nicholas D. Kristof

Nicholas D. Kristof I'm hearing from indignant lawyers after my assertion in today's column, http://tinyurl.com/ndtwcp , that tort reform should be part of health reform. They argue that there is no evidence of defensive medicine (some areas that restrict suits have much testing and high costs) and that the cost of the suits is minimal in the overall context. I obviously disagree. Read the column and comment on this....

Nicholas D. Kristof

Nicholas D. Kristof My Thursday column is online: http://tinyurl.com/ndtwcp . I look at health reform and argue that the A.M.A. abuses the trust that we tend to place in doctors. We need a public insurance option, despite A.M.A. opposition. I talk to Obama's own personal doctor in Chicago, who tells his former patient to ignore the A.M.A. Read the column and leave your thoughts.

Source: tinyurl.com
President Obama should tune out the A.M.A.’s position on the public insurance option as part of health reform and reach out instead to somebody he’s trusted for medical advice.
Nicholas D. Kristof

Nicholas D. Kristof After my posts here about the Bing search engine, Microsoft came back at me and said its policy is not to self-censor outside China. Their engineers could not replicate my results, they said. I showed them, and now they acknowledge the problem and say that the censorship is a bug and that they will fix it so there's no censorship outside China: Full version: www.nytimes.com/ontheground . A bug? You think?

Nicholas D. Kristof

Nicholas D. Kristof So Governor Sanford wasn't off in a writing hideaway. And he wasn't off hiking on the Appalachian Trail. Now he claims to have been off in Argentina. A bit of a let-down. I had thought maybe he was kidnapped by a Chinese submarine (that was the theory when Australian PM Holt disappeared while swimming). Any suggestions for the governor for his next getaway? A Tibetan monastery, perhaps? The South Pole Station?

Nicholas D. Kristof

Nicholas D. Kristof In the newly released White House tapes by Richard Nixon, he comments on the Supreme Court decision permitting abortion. He generally disapproves but says abortion is necessary sometimes: E.g. "suppose you have a black and a white, or a rape." He couldn't have imagined that the tape would be released at a time we have the product of a mixed-race marriage as president. Times change, thank goodness.

Nicholas D. Kristof

Nicholas D. Kristof From the comments to my note below, I think some people don't understand the distinction between what google did and what Microsoft has done with bing. Results at google.cn are censored, but a Chinese language search in google.com is not. So google does offer an uncensored version in Chinese (altho often China blocks it within its borders). Bing -- and this began this month -- offers no uncensored Chinese version.

Nicholas D. Kristof

Nicholas D. Kristof As far as I can tell, Bing -- the new Microsoft search engine -- does something interesting in its Chinese version. It censors results to please the Chinese government wherever the search is conducted. You search for "Tiananmen" in Chinese in the US, or Taiwan, or Hong Kong, and you find no clue of any massacre. Doesn't that feel a bit like kowtowing to the emperor? Should an American company do that in Chinese?

Nicholas D. Kristof

Nicholas D. Kristof Farnaz Fassihi in the WS Journal reports something quite amazing: a family of a kid killed in Tehran was billed $3,000 for a "bullet fee" to recover the body. In effect, the government was charging parents for the cost of killing their kids. China used to do that in the 1980's for people it executed, but it only charged a few cents for the bullet. The Iranian authorities are grasping as well as shameless.

Nicholas D. Kristof
Nicholas D. Kristof

Nicholas D. Kristof Here's the extraordinary story of David Rohde's escape: hiding a rope, keeping kidnappers up to exhaust them, slipping down a 20 foot drop, approaching Pakistani troops who thought they were suicide bombers. http://tinyurl.com/mcxeax . Rohde and his Afghan colleague, Tahir Ludin, were unbelievably brave and resourceful. Three cheers for their escape!

Source: tinyurl.com
An Afghan journalist who was held by the Taliban along with a Times reporter revealed the details of their escape.
Nicholas D. Kristof

Nicholas D. Kristof I'm feeling terrible for the family of Neda, the 16-year-old girl who was shot dead in Tehran yesterday: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neda_(Iranian_protester) . Her death seems to have had a galvanizing effect on others, but that is no consolation to her loved ones. Neda, Rest in Peace.

Nicholas D. Kristof

Nicholas D. Kristof Some farmers are upset about my column today on food, http://tinyurl.com/l3s2bp . But I'm a farm boy myself, and the problem with food isn't farmers, it's the network of agribusiness interests and farm subsidies and unconcern with public health. Family farmers and rural communities have been badly hit, in part because subsidies encourage consolidation of farming into fewer hands. Time for a rethink!

Nicholas D. Kristof

Nicholas D. Kristof You know what's in your hamburger? Or your cookie? My Sunday column is up: http://tinyurl.com/l3s2bp . It comments on the excellent new documentary, Food, Inc., which offers a scary look at what agribusiness giants have wrought. For example, Americans like chicken breasts, so chickens have been redesigned with enormous breasts that leave them lopsided. Read the column, and offer your comments.

Source: tinyurl.com
One reason for the myriad health problems in America is our industrialized agriculture system, and it should be under scrutiny by the government as well as consumers.
Nicholas D. Kristof

Nicholas D. Kristof Late last fall, a terrible thing happened to the NY Times extended family: one of our best reporters, David Rohde, was kidnapped outside Kabul. The kidnappers warned that the news should not be publicized, and so the Times was in the terrible position of suppressing news rather than publishing it. But today is a grand day: David escaped from his kidnappers last night: http://tinyurl.com/n3m7hz . Congrats, David!

Source: tinyurl.com
A New York Times reporter who was kidnapped by the Taliban has escaped and made his way to freedom after more than seven months of captivity in the mountains of Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Nicholas D. Kristof

Nicholas D. Kristof My son is coming back from the national high school debate championships in Alabama tomorrow. My advice to any parents out there -- encourage your kids to try tennis, art, frisbee, journalism, whatever. But debate? Teenagers are already pretty aggressive at litigating every issue around the house. Do you really want to arm your antagonist with advanced skills? You'll never get your way again. (But I am proud....)

Nicholas D. Kristof

Nicholas D. Kristof I have a very bad instinct about where Iran is headed. Ayatollah Khamenei's speech just now was very tough -- you get the sense that he's running out of patience. I think he would prefer not to massacre students but is willing to if that's the only way he sees to end the protests. Likewise, the Basij's willingness to gather openly is very ominous. Sadly, this reminds me of Tiananmen a few days before the gunfire.