Latin America is the latest battlefield for the billions in the global showdown between smaller generic labels from the developing world and the major U.S. and European firms.
Month: October 2014
Brazil’s future looks bright regardless of who wins the presidential runoff. Why? Because its parties matter more than personalities, argues Argentina’s former ambassador in Brazil.
Sixty years ago this week, on October 16, 1954, a 19-year-old Elvis Presley stepped on stage at the Louisiana Hayride radio show in the town of Shreveport, Louisiana. Backed by his band, the young man from Memphis, Tennessee, played a song he recorded just a few months earlier called “That’s All Right.” The first ever […]
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After Ebola, Cholera?
Not far from the epicenter of the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, a growing number of cases of cholera have spread. If these two contagious diseases overlap, it could be a catastrophe.
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Small Tibetan Boy, Big Tibetan Trumpet
In a Tibetan refugee camp in central Nepal, we came across this little boy having a blast with a dungchen, or Tibetan horn.
Twelve years after the deadly Bali terror bombing, whose suspects were executed, Indonesia struggles with the implications and efficacity of capital punishment.
Using donated same-day bread and soon-to-expire food from supermarkets, this volunteer-run Copenhagen restaurant then turns proceeds over to needy African students.
Diyarbakir, the “Kurdish capital” of Turkey, is living in fear of the ISIS jihadists who have gained ground across the Syrian border in Kobani. But there is also the old enemy: Ankara.
MAROSTICA — An hour southwest of Venice, behind an inconspicuous gate at the end of a long conifer-lined path, stands a rustic hut. It’s fashion entrepreneur Renzo Rosso“s weekend house, which he calls “Diesel Farm.” Rosso sits making a call at a large table in the main room, which is decorated with hunting trophies. On […]
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The Dangers Of Iron Curtain Tourism
In 1962, the Sovietization of Eastern Europe was at its height. It was hard enough to get into Czechoslovakia (we had to wait three hours at the border), but getting out was where things got dicey. From a watchtower, a guard had seen me take pictures of the Iron Curtain, and asked me to open […]
-OpEd- BEIJING — There has been a recent spate of Chinese celebrities, including Jaycee Chan, son of the Hong Kong martial arts film star Jackie Chan, detained on drug charges. Others in the entertainment business have been accused or frequenting prostitutes. Last week, China’s State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT) issued a formal […]
A full 25 years after the fall of Communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, the brutal commandant of a labor camp for political prisoners is finally being tried for alleged atrocities.
U.S.-led airstrikes aimed at ISIS are being met with resistance in Syria. Some ask why it took the death of U.S. journalist James Foley for Washington to intervene.
Chinese and German leaders met last week to further extend economic ties. Yet in the shadow of Hong Kong, issues like espionage, democracy and competition make for a fragile relationship.
A Siberian tiger released into the wild by Russian President Vladimir Putin has attacked a henhouse in northeastern China, raising concerns that farmers may now have to hunt it down, according to Chinese media reports quoted by the AP. The official Xinhua news agency says the animal, known as Kuzya, was believed to have eaten […]
TEL AVIV — An Israeli company says it has developed an easy and accurate new method for detecting breast cancer. The technique, developed by the company Eventus Diagnostics, involves a simple blood test measuring how the body’s immune system reacts to the presence of a cancer tumor. Eventus Diagnostics, located near Jerusalem in Moshav Ora […]
The news in numbers…
Leftist movements in the Arab World are divided and marginalized, even after leading the region’s democracy uprisings. In Tunis, Arab leftists got together to try to reverse course.
Exclusive: A historian has identified Pope Francis’ birthplace in Buenos Aires, after false reports of where he was born circulated following his election last year.
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Child’s Play
Abu Simbel, Amalienborg Castle, the Acropolis of Athens … Many of the famous landmarks I ended up visiting in real life are featured at Legoland Billund, the original Legoland park in central Denmark. Just to give you an idea, it took 1,500,000 Lego bricks to build this 12-meter-tall (40 ft) reproduction of the Mount Rushmore […]
Bangkok is no Hong Kong right now. Once considered an Asian model of democracy, Thailand is under strict military rule since the spring, with free speech squashed and fears deepening.
In the end, it has nothing to do with God. From biblical times to crusades and jihad, self-proclaimed “holy wars” are actually driven by power, territory and economic interests.
Nearly 40 years after the Sex Pistols’ first began transforming music forever, Johnny Rotten is still not ready to calm down: There’s the release of his memoir Anger is an Energy, the upcoming recording of a new album with PIL and a concert at London’s O2 arena in December. In between two book signings across […]
VENICE — The delicate balance between preserving the beauty of a place and allowing a fruitful tourist business is particularly tricky when it comes to the question of cruise ships in Venice. The Italian government has announced that beginning in 2015, large cruise ships (those weighing more than 96,000 tons) will be banned from St. […]
Bolivians have given Evo Morales a clear presidential mandate, a vote of approval for his political skills and the benefits of an oil-driven economy. He now must shape a legacy for the future.
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Long-Lost Cousin
I was not expecting to find my surname in the list of immigrants featured on Ellis Island’s Wall of Honor. But after all, mallards are migratory birds, aren’t they?
BEIJING — While the clouds of the student protests are still casting a shadow over Hong Kong, the impact of the “Occupy Central” movement on the city’s middle- and long-term prospects is particularly concerning. A forecast from the University of Hong Kong predicts a sharp drop in growth from the 3.4% predicted earlier to 2.2% […]
Sumptuous beaches and low-key vibes in Tulum, on Mexico’s Caribbean coast, have attracted those keen to avoid the crowds and bling of the most popular resorts. But will it last?
A steady stream of Syrians are joining the National Defense Force, a loyalist reserve force set up in 2012 by President Bashar al-Assad. For many it’s the only way to make a living.
PARIS — With all due respect to the Cassandras of national decline and lovers of French bashing — the cherished pastime of denigrating all things French at every turn — Patrick Modiano’s Nobel Prize for Literature win is excellent news. Lovers of French literature will be the first to rejoice, but the prize is also […]
German officials confirm that contraband cigarettes laced with Strontium 90, which is used in nuclear weapons, were intercepted at a Warsaw airport in June. Was it a personal attack?
One of Spain’s richest women is up against banks insisting she pay back her debts. How did the heiress to the Koplowitz construction dynasty come to this?
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The Pharaoh’s New Digs
In the 1960s, the Great Temple of Ramesses II in Abu Simbel was relocated 200 meters back from the banks of the Nile — and raised 65 meters — because of the building of the Aswan High Dam and the threat of rising waters. The tiny tourists at the bottom of this slide give you […]
Villagers in the mountain outpost of Melung are among the few in rural Indonesia who can solve daily problems – and sell their products – thanks to an onsite Internet connection.
It shares many of its objectives with the al Qaeda global terror network, but ISIS understands the value of going viral in a whole new way.
New research in Germany shows that something triggers after decades of adulthood controls. And no, it’s not retirement or grandparenthood that explains the changes.
CESAR — Without saying a word, which none would have understood anyway, Guneymaku Chaparro, an Arhuaca Mamo or spiritual leader, and Tenzin Priyadarshi, a monk and disciple of the Dalai Lama, took each other’s hands and lightly put their heads together to say good-bye. It was the end of a meeting that the northern Colombia […]
Barack Obama is governing in a much different world than his predecessors. How will his foreign policy be remembered? Who does he most emulate? Hint: It’s not Jimmy Carter.
The economic slump has slowed the globalization process, but it’s not just cyclical. As alliances crack and problems spread, the interconnected world system may have just maxed out.
Complaints about Ankara’s inaction have come from the West and Kurds. But Turkey’s regional ambitions may very well push it into Syria to crush ISIS. The risk could be huge.