A wedding ceremony should make for the happiest of memories. But the now infamous closing scene of the latest Game of Thrones episode (referred as the “red wedding”) reminds us in a whole new way how quickly nuptials can turn gnarly. We have tracked down some of the funniest, quirkiest and just plain disastrous wedding […]
Month: June 2013
RABAT – Like Asia did in the second half of the 20th century, Africa can move up to the economic big leagues only if it can manage to industrialize and learn to increase its productivity. The future of the continent as a whole, notes economist François Fadi Farra, will not depend on one single economic […]
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Magazines, Mapped! Week of June 6-13
This week’s selection of magazine covers from around the world.
PARIS – After years at Dior, designer Hedi Slimane was named creative director at Yves Saint Laurent in 2012, where he has embarked on a strategy to revolutionize the legendary French fashion house. He has just opened a new flagship store on Paris’s luxurious Avenue Montaigne and renamed the brand “Saint Laurent.” Black, white and […]
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How Did Erdogan Wind Up So Alone?
Though not its original intention, the demonstrations in Turkey are widening the cracks between Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and President Abdullah Gül.
AMMAN – King Abdullah II of Jordan personally tested one of the hand grenades during the opening ceremony of the brand-new Nashshab factory, built by the Jordan Russian Electronic Systems Co. The factory produces hand-grenades that were specially designed for Jordan by Russian specialists. Although the opening ceremony was held last week, the factory had […]
Take a tour of what the world has been saying this week…
DUBAI – Beer? Of course not! Sayed Kamal looks at his guests with astonishment. Alcohol is only served in the big hotels. This is a youth hostel! It is in fact the only youth hostel in Dubai. “But I can offer you something similar,” says blue-shirted, tie-wearing Kamal as he emerges from behind the counter […]
In Poland, after criticism of the treatment of asylum seekers, the government has responded with some very practical training for those who come face-to-face with immigrants every day.
Jo-Wilfried Tsonga knocked off Roger Federer to advance to the semi-finals of the French Open. Can history repeat itself?
Friday, June 6, 2014 D-DAY COMMEMORATIONS TODAY This morning, French President François Hollande launched commemorations for the 70th anniversary of D-Day, describing the Normandy landings as a day that “began in chaos and fire, would end in blood and tears, tears and pain, tears and joy at the end of 24 hours that changed the […]
ISTANBUL – For days now, people from every social circle are in the streets of cities across Turkey protesting the government’s plans to bulldoze Taksim Gezi Park. Among those I have observed are Kemalist nationalists, conservatives, anti-capitalist Muslims, Peace and Democracy party supporters, the Grey Wolves and other ultra-nationalists, homosexuals, transvestites, elderly people, and leftist […]
-Editorial- SANTIAGO – If we based our knowledge of Latin America on Amnesty International’s latest global human rights report, we would believe that there is no real justice in the region, violence is on the rise, police regular torture citizens, that there are multiple attempts to exterminate indigenous groups, and organized crime is gaining ground. […]
In Germany, efforts are on to increase the number of male teachers. Here’s the tale of a veteran of the war in Afghanistan who wound up on very different terrain.
Underage workers wind up digging for gold, and too often dying in the process. Family traditions are part of why no one is ever held responsible.
Thursday, June 5, 2014 G7 THREATENS MORE RUSSIA SANCTIONS Leaders of the G7 are meeting today in Brussels, and the unrest in Ukraine is expected to be high on the agenda, the BBC reports. Because Russia was kicked out of the G8, Russian President Vladimir Putin is not attending the meeting. He will nevertheless meet […]
SAINT-PAUL-TROIS-CHATEAUX – Three steps in from the side of the path are enough for Cédric Denaux to identify a veritable pantry. Where we only see a field of flowers and weeds exploding in springtime chaos, this botanist-cum-cook spots the pointed flower of the buckhorn plantain, the bubble-shaped one belonging to the bladder campion, a tuft […]
ISTANBUL – “The media have sold out! The media have sold out!” several thousand protesters chanted in front of NTV offices. Their beef with the Turkish news channel was that it had stayed silent too long about what was going on in and around Gezi Park in Istanbul. The protesters feel the press has let […]
Racotumomab, set to be available in several countries, can work with other therapies by activating the immune system to help reverse one of the deadliest forms of cancer.
The invention of “killer robots” could radically change the way wars are fought — and raises a whole array of legal and ethical questions. The UN calls for a moratorium.
Drugs themselves are crazy enough, but what they’re called can sometimes make them (or at least make them seem) even more insane. Drug producers, dealers and users are increasingly creative in both the manufacturing and naming of drugs. Die Welt reported last month on the growing concern over the use of crystal methamphetamine, which in […]
GAMCHEON – It has been called the “Lego village,” the “Korean Machu Picchu,” the “Santorini on the South Sea…” Gamcheon, in South Korea’s southern port city of Busan is indeed all of these – a multicolored village that looks like it was made out of candy, with its little green, yellow and blue hillside cubicle […]
BRUSSELS- The European Union-Russia summit taking place in Yekaterinburg has a major sticking point forming over privacy for travelers arriving — or even just passing through — Russian territory. The Russian Ministry of Transportation has decreed that airlines flying in Russian airspace, or taking off or landing in Russia, have to provide authorities in Moscow […]
Wednesday, June 4, 2014 HUNDREDS DEAD AMONG REBELS IN EAST UKRAINE As Kiev’s “anti-terrorist operation” continues in Eastern Ukraine, a spokesman for the operation said that government forces had killed more than 300 rebel fighters and injured some 500 in the past 24 hours in Sloviansk, Reuters reports. Russia’s Foreign Ministry Commissioner for Human Rights […]
BEIJING – Who are the happiest people in China? In a survey conducted by Xiaokang (meaning basically well-off) magazine last year, in the eyes of the public, civil servant comes top of the list as a profession. However, the newly published 2012 China Workplace Mental Health Research Report has shown that officials’ own sense of […]
ISTANBUL – This does not look like the semi-official demonstrations that preceded the May 27, 1960 Coup d’état where chants of “the military and the people walk hand-in-hand” were heard. This does not look like those political rallies intolerant to the lifestyle of religious people, where the demand of “We do not want a headscarved […]
Eat that octopus before it slithers away, call the maggots to your turning cheese, and other moving selections from the living menu.
MUNICH – People notice you when you’re with a baby – and not only when it’s screaming its lungs out in the supermarket. Just being pregnant earns a woman kudos for having a special kind of radiance. Once the child is born of course parental beauty is not usually the thing others remark on – […]
Tuesday, June 3, 2014 HEAVY FIGHTING IN SLOVIANSK At least one Ukrainian soldier was killed and 13 more were injured in the eastern city of Sloviansk overnight in what the country’s interim Interior Minister described as an “active offensive phase of the anti-terror operation,” The Guardian reports. There were also victims among the insurgency. This […]
BUENOS AIRES – When she was young, Rita would browse through books in her house and not understand a thing. Why did Sleeping Beauty wake up? Why did Little Red Riding Hood open the door for the wolf? Rita would stare at the illustrations but her mother and father didn’t know how to tell the […]
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Sweden Pays The Price Of Segregation
Even if the urban riots in Sweden last week took many by surprise, the signs were all around.
For the past six months, the Chinese media has been reporting that rice grown in the south-central Hunan Province contains unacceptable levels of cadmium, a carcinogenic heavy metal. Last month, an inspection of samples in Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, revealed that more than half the batches of cadmium-tainted rice came from three rice mills in the […]
Monday, June 2, 2014 BATTLE AROUND LUHANSKAt least five separatists were killed after hundreds attacked a border post with automatic weapons in the eastern Ukrainian city of Luhansk near the Russian border. According to the AP, seven Ukrainian troops were also injured in the early morning attack. The news agency also quotes the spokesman for […]
BERLIN – The shock came in his first year of training. His employer – the BMW motorcycle factory in Berlin-Spandau – asked Johann Gundel to don a strange suit: the “age suit,” with weights in it. Gundel could hardly move in the suit. His joints stiffened, and every step was an effort. Gundel, blond, slim […]
MUMBAI – Shilpa Dhar is wearing fake eyelashes, jingling bracelets, and cherry-red nail polish. She tilts her head as she speaks, which makes her jet-black hair twirl around her neck. She smiles because her friends have told her she has a nice smile – so she smiles all the time now. “I have a Kareena […]
MOSCOW – The Volga River, the longest in Europe and one of Russia’s natural jewels, has not so much flowed for decades. When it’s not covered with ice, it fills with fish-killing microorganisms, and emits a putrid stench. Environmental organizations describe the situation in the Volga region in alarming terms, noting that the region is […]