Asylum Roughly 100 kilometers south of Hanoi, Vietnam, 130 patients at the Refunctional Center for the Mentally Ill live out what's left of their lives. Remote and decaying, the compound is divided into two, with one part reserved for "serious case” patients deemed dangerous. About 30 of the patients are veterans of the French, American, Cambodian or Chinese wars with Vietnam. Some patients are housed 10 at a time in a 10-by-10 foot room with only a hole in the corner of the floor for a toilet; others are kept in solitary confinement. This is a glimpse of their [...]

Armenia: The Story of a People After the unraveling of the Soviet Union, this tiny Caucasus republic struggled to build a healthy democracy and make its own way. It struggled, too, to overcome a history that includes the atrocities of man at the beginning of the 20th century and the wrath of nature near the end. The displacement of socialism left Armenia with virtually no middle class but ushered in all the material desires of the West. It was a country with a 96% literacy rate (now nearly 100%), yet one where the labs of nuclear scientists [...]