FILM | Three films from China present people lost in the world of new media and yearning for connection.

FILM | Donald Weber’s new film documents the scavengers inside Chernobyl’s Exclusion Zone, with a nod to the prophetic vision of Tarkovsky’s Stalker.

CITIES | Following the call to Istanbul’s Friday prayers, Tyler Stiem takes in some lesser-known mosques.

TOYS | China almost bankrupted Rome through its aesthetic craving for imported silks, and wrenched the British Empire apart with the chemical high of costly teas. Now the West faces a metaphysical addiction to its “toys.”

FILM | A short video by Donald Weber—an insider’s glimpse at red carpet culture and paparazzi during the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival.

TRAVEL | Into Ethiopia’s Ogaden, where ethnic Somalis are fighting a doomed war of secession.

RELIGION | The rise of the ‘Third World Preacher’ and how the increasingly global reach of African Pentecostalism is proving there are many ways of being modern.

The art and architectural designs of Delhi-based Sanjeev Shankar explore India’s everyday acts of innovation.

ART | Russians have for decades fashioned functional objects from such cast-off items as forks, plastic bottles and onion bags. Collector Vladimir Arkhipov sheds light on the artful labours collected in his archive of “post-material folklore”.

FILM | American experimental filmmaker Jim Finn takes on Kim Jong Il, and his theory of Juche literature and cinema.

ARCHEOLOGY | Andrew Gregg interviews Edmundo Edwards, the preeminent Polynesian archeologist. Edwards is also one of the very best raconteurs alive and a first-hand witness to the weird modern history of Easter Island.

POLITICS | Random notes on social media in Iran, its “Blogfather”, and Tehran’s shift from theocracy to dictatorship.

CULTURE | Having spent much of the last 15 years photographing the world’s tattooing cultures, indigenous and otherwise, Chris Rainier long-hauls it to the Indonesian island of Siberut. There he finally meets the Mentawai, one of the planet’s best preserved, most ancient body art cultures.

MUSIC | David Byrne on how his travels in Asia changed the way he thinks about performance.

CULTURE | A night of Boi Bumbá, the more psychedelic, Amazonian version of Carnaval.

MONEY | When Lenny Dykstra is being held up a as a financial genius and no one is questioning it, well, you’re probably in for a bumpy ride. Just one of the more dubious signs on the way to a financial crisis.

FOOD | Reflections on a life spent with the most recession proof meat.