The Global Profile

The life of Varî Vãti Marubo shows how much life has changed for the rainforest’s Indigenous tribes — and how much has stayed the same.

By Jack Nicas and Victor Moriyama

“Revolution is the job of poets and artists,” says Ko Maung Saungkha, leader of a rebel militia fighting the Myanmar dictatorship. He is not the only poet commander in a country with a strong tradition of political verse.

By Hannah Beech and Daniel Berehulak

Boris Akunin, the creator of a hugely popular detective series, hopes that fomenting a vibrant Russian culture abroad might undermine President Vladimir V. Putin’s government at home.

By Neil MacFarquhar

Lina Boussaha joined a team in Saudi Arabia so she could wear her head scarf while playing the sport she calls “a part of my soul.”

By Sarah Hurtes and Iman Al-Dabbagh

Lee Saedol was one of the world’s top Go players, and his shocking loss to an A.I. opponent was a harbinger of a new, unsettling era. “It may not be a happy ending,” he says.

By Daisuke Wakabayashi and Jin Yu Young

Pabllo Vittar has become an A-list pop star and L.G.B.T.Q. activist in Brazil. Can she conquer the world?

By Jack Nicas and Victor Moriyama

Na Kyung Taek’s photos bore witness — and helped bring international attention — to the military junta’s brutal suppression of a pro-democracy uprising in Gwangju, South Korea, in 1980.

By Choe Sang-Hun

Azahriah, who has rapped about the joy of cannabis, has shot to fame in Hungary. That may explain why he has been applauded by the country’s conservative leader, Viktor Orban.

By Andrew Higgins

One Ukrainian researcher and podcaster is a leading voice in efforts to rethink Ukrainian-Russian relations through the prism of colonialism.

By Constant Méheut

Jim McCann was an I.R.A. member who, convicted of attempted murder, spent 18 years in jail. Now, he’s an educator, and his turn away from violence mirrors Northern Ireland’s embrace of peace.

By Megan Specia

Prof. John Curtice, a polling guru with a formidable intellect and an infectious smile, has contributed to Britain’s TV election coverage since 1979.

By Stephen Castle

With a focus on affordability, community, convenience and light, Liu Thai Ker replaced squalid slums with spacious high-rises. A recent spike in some sale prices, however, has saddened him.

By Sui-Lee Wee and Chang W. Lee

Kei Kobayashi, who earned three Michelin stars in France, has come home to build an empire.

By Motoko Rich and Kiuko Notoya

Memory Banda’s battle, which she has been waging since she was a teenager in a village in Malawi, started with a poignant question: “Why should this be happening to girls so young?”

By Rabson Kondowe

Jonathan Yeo, about to unveil a major new painting of King Charles III, also counts Hollywood royalty (Nicole Kidman) and prime ministers (Tony Blair) as past subjects. But George W. Bush eluded him.

By Mark Landler

Jenny Erpenbeck became a writer when her childhood and her country, the German Democratic Republic, disappeared, swallowed by the materialist West.

By Steven Erlanger

Abshir Rageh had to sneak out from home to see bootleg Indian films and “Rambo” at a makeshift cinema. Now, he’s creating dramas that draw millions of online views in a country inching toward stability.

By Abdi Latif Dahir

Karim Bouamrane, the Socialist mayor of St.-Ouen, a Paris suburb that will host the athletes’ village for the 2024 Games, is leading a rapid transformation of the long-struggling city.

By Catherine Porter

Her movies try to explain why Japan is the way it is, showing both the upsides and downsides of the country’s commonplace practices. Her latest film focuses on an elementary school.

By Motoko Rich

Hank Silver, a timber framer based in Massachusetts, is one of a handful of foreigners who are helping to rebuild the Paris cathedral after the devastating fire in 2019.

By Aurelien Breeden

Born to a South Korean mother and a Black American soldier, she rose to a pioneering stardom in a country that has long discriminated against biracial children.

By Choe Sang-Hun

Chuck Searcy has spent decades of his life redressing a deadly legacy of America’s war in Vietnam: unexploded ordnance.

By Seth Mydans

Oksana Semenik’s social media campaign both educates the curious about overlooked Ukrainian artists — and pressures global museums to relabel art long described as Russian.

By Constant Méheut

In gritty tales from China’s northeast, Shuang Xuetao chronicles a traumatic chapter of Chinese history with fresh resonance today: the mass layoffs that afflicted the region in the 1990s.

By Vivian Wang

The new prime minister wants to succeed President Macron. But first he must see off the far right and define himself before a restive public.

By Roger Cohen

Jefa Greenaway is a leading proponent of “Country-centered design,” which calls for collaboration with Indigenous communities and puts sustainability concerns at a project’s core.

By Will Higginbotham

Paolo Benanti advises the Roman Catholic Church and the Italian government on the tricky questions, moral and otherwise, raised by the rapidly advancing technology.

By Jason Horowitz

Bezwada Wilson, born into a caste tasked with manually removing dried human waste, has spent 40 years trying to eradicate the practice and retrain workers.

By Suhasini Raj

Mirza Ramic, a Bosnian who sought refuge in the United States, is bringing his electronic music to Ukraine, “to show my support in these hard times.”

By Carlotta Gall

Tetsuko Kuroyanagi has been one of Japan’s best-known entertainers for seven decades. At 90, she’s still going strong.

By Motoko Rich