A refugee’s odyssey from Syria to Sweden.

Mexicans on social media have their own hashtag for images of naked – and plainly impoverished – women.

Afghans have long visited falbin to have their futures foretold. Fundamentalist Muslim clerics hope to stop that.

How three generations of a Brazilian family evangelized for and fought over the sport of Gracie jiu-jitsu as it moved from the Amazon to Hollywood to the UFC.

How an apartheid-era psychiatrist went from torturing gay soldiers in South Africa to sexually abusing patients in Canada.

On the underground economy of full-service Southern California apartment complexes marketed to Chinese birth-tourists.

The Chinese want to steal our genetically-engineered grain secrets. Why?

How an Italian businessman facing fraud charges and a Brazilian politician turned a billion dollar project to build the high speed Rio-São Paulo rail line into a farce.

The stories of four women whose children joined the Islamic State.

“Whenever news of yet another horrifying murder or massacre somewhere in the country breaks, my friends and I often find ourselves asking if Mexico has 'hit bottom' yet... But some crimes move or frighten us in ways we hadn’t anticipated, and the Colonia Narvarte massacre is one of those.”

In Liberland, a small borderland between Serbia and Croatia, ‘‘government will be banned except for three things: security, legal stuff and diplomacy.’’

A trip to learn about Myanmar’s traditional sport, chinlone, goes awry.

European antitrust regulators just won’t leave Google alone.

The future of India’s “good minority,” the Parsis.

The life of Adolf Tolkachev, Soviet dissident and CIA spy.

On Finland, the country most afraid of Russia.

A Chinese underwear merchant rises in Egypt.

The anti-human trafficking stings conducted by Operation Underground Railroad are flashy, exciting, camera-ready. Whether or not they truly help victims is another question.

A remote nation and a burgeoning humanitarian catastrophe.

What is the sickness that leads inhabitants to sleep for days?

Mistakes were made by the middle-aged Americans who hoped to take over Gambia.

When it comes to sweatshops and child labor, your $7 H&M gym shorts aren’t really the problem (or the solution).

Alberto Nisman accused Iran and Argentina of colluding to bury a terrorist attack. Did it get him killed?

How the world’s most notorious drug lord was captured.

Previously: Patrick Radden Keefe on the Longform Podcast.

Looking after the kodokushi – the elderly who die alone – of Japan.