From the Israeli side of the border, a view of how the whole of the Middle East seems to be maneuvering.
Month: November 2014
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Stairs And Saris
These students’ colorful saris contrasted nicely with the white marble of Ranakpur’s Jain temple, dedicated to Adinatha, the founder of Jainism.
Too small and not productive enough, cocoa plantations can no longer meet global demand. Industrialists are intervening to help the farmers and save an indulgence beloved the world over.
MUNICH — It began nearly a year ago, on the weekend after Christmas. On Saturday night, unidentified individuals broke into a church in the Cologne district of Porz-Urbach. They broke open the safe in the sacristy and got hold of the key to the church. They ended up stealing money from the collection boxes, liturgical […]
Coravin, which allows you to sample the finest bottle without uncorking it, is being hailed as a game-changer for the wine industry. It was greeted with mixed reviews in the city that may still matter most.
Words that made news…
SAO PAULO — During my time in the early 1980s as a correspondent for Folha de S. Paulo in Buenos Aires, I covered more demonstrations of the “Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo” — and then of the “Grandmothers” — than I could count. Brave women, their faces furrowed by time and pain, their heads […]
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Climate Change Clues From The Ice Age
Studying artifacts from 10,000 to 20,000 years ago, scientists now understand more than before about how climate change affected human behavior.
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Napoleon Complex
From the Place d’Austerlitz, the statue of Napoleon watches over Ajaccio, the town in which he was born. Some may see a resemblance with Prague’s Stalin Monument, but the statue of the French emperor is significantly smaller — adding to the myth that Napoleon was short in stature when in fact he was 5 feet […]
HONG KONG — A journalist from mainland China asked me recently whether the current unrest in Hong Kong is perhaps because residents there “are losing their confidence.” The question took me by surprise. I’ve heard people in Hong Kong complain and criticize a lot, particularly with regards to Chinese mainlanders, but I never thought these […]
Thomas Sankara, the Marxist icon of the 1980s, was killed in a coup by now ousted Burkina Faso leader Compaore. Today’s youth movement is still inspired by the African revolutionary.
RADOLFZELL — Biologist Martin Wikelski put sensors on goats living on Italy’s Mount Etna and watched what happened. He found that if you watched their movements, you could predict when there would be volcanic eruptions. So now he wants to do satellite research on how animals roam and escape on a world scale. What happened […]
CAIRO — In February 2014, the Egyptian military announced that it had found a cure for AIDS and hepatitis. This supposed miracle of medical technology was developed by the Armed Forces’ Engineering Authority, which claims to use electromagnetic waves to eradicate the viruses in infected blood. Known as the Complete Cure, or CC for short, […]
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In Search Of Unity On Latin America Trade
With the region still divided into different trading blocs, Chile is leading efforts to bring Latin American nations together for a joint policy to expand global trade.
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My Grandson’s Treasure Hunts
However neatly and methodically organized my 20,000 slides may be, in more than 60 years of travels I am bound to draw some blanks here and there. So whenever I can’t remember where I snapped this windmill or that mosque, my grandson puts his Internet detective hat on and helps me track it down. In […]
The news quantified
The Russian capital has invested in new mobile applications aimed to better aid and involve citizens. The results are mixed: parking app is good, democracy app not so much.
SEOUL — Six South Korean soldiers have been accused of killing one of their fellow conscripts. Yoon Seung-joo, 20, died earlier this year after being force-fed and beaten. Abuse within South Korea’s military ranks has long been a problem. A recent survey of soldiers revealed about 4,000 allegations of violence that went unreported. It’s a time that almost all South Korean men dread. The moment when they begin their mandatory service in their country’s armed forces. Kim Tae-Haw joined the ranks of Korea’s riot police when he began his conscription ten years ago. “I didn’t want to go to the […]
A dozen baboons escaped Sunday from Benghazi’s zoo and roamed around the city amid deadly clashes between the army and anti-government militias that have killed more than 300 people in the past three weeks. All but two were returned to their enclosures by Tuesday — but not before they baffled residents and posed for pictures […]
After hundreds of years of reducing our physical activity with the help of machines, we now find we need to move to remain healthy. A friendly city is one that forces you to walk more.
Especially since the breakthrough on the Higgs Boson particle, running CERN in Geneva may be the most influential job in physics. For the first time it will be filled by a woman.
With its 391 units spread among 46 floors, the glass tower has transformed south Manhattan’s skyline. But it has been an utter business failure.
Germany’s prestigious technical universities have become a magnet for Chinese students. But not all adjust well, while German’s intelligence agency suspect some are spies.
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Sweet Past
At the end of the 19th century, Saint-Leu’s Stella Matutina sugarcane factory employed some 250 Indian, Cafre and Malagasy workers. It closed its doors in 1978 and has now been turned into a museum. The loading platforms are still functional — a token of the French island’s once flourishing sugar economy.
“Our sovereign king is ill, let’s pray for him, tragedy eventually comes knocking on the door of the unknown,” Burkinabe rapper Smarty says in his track “Le Chapeau du Chef” (“The boss’s hat”), which was released back in 2012. The song, which now sounds almost like a prophetic warning to Burkina Faso’s recently ousted President […]
GAZA CITY — It’s easy to imagine his frustration, that of a professional whose fate doesn’t depend on the quality of his work or his willingness to work hard but on political contingencies. Salaheddin Abu Hassira, 50, is an entrepreneur in Gaza’s building sector. It’s a pursuit that, in this Palestinian territory, seems condemned to […]
I’ve already told you about the “women-carrying-things-on-their-heads” recurring theme in my slides. There is no country where I have snapped more such shots than Portugal, including this one near the mysterious Our Lady of Fatima destination for Catholic pilgrims.
Already more than 7,000 beds, Zhengzhou’s ‘Super Hospital’ now has plans to expand to serve 10,000. Is this the best approach to health care in a booming China?
It’s a rare but hardly new question: what should airline staff do when a passenger dies mid-flight? Legend has it that British Airways used to use the ‘vodka tonic’ approach.
After its annexation of Crimea, Moscow is hoping to accelerate a long dormant project to build a bridge connecting Russia across the Kerch Strait. But there is the Sochi lesson to consider.
-OpEd- PARIS — As Germany celebrates the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall on Sunday, we mark the passage of time. Historically speaking, time is a variable. Much can happen in a quarter century, or very little. Twenty-five years was how long military service used to last for peasants in Tsarist Russia. […]
The recent purchase of the Waldorf Astoria by a Chinese company recalls Japanese companies’ buying sprees 30 years ago. And that didn’t end well.
The midterm elections were a stinging defeat for Barack Obama. But it was also a wholesale indictment of U.S. politics, which is both disturbing and confounding when viewed from abroad.
To appease conservatives, Egypt’s government is again targeting the LGBT community, arbitrarily arresting them, conducting anal examinations and jailing them for “debauchery.”
Laughter in hospitals can actually help ease pain for patients, particularly children. Experts in the field, from doctors to red-nosed clowns, gathered in Florence to trade notes … and gags.
It happened in Buenos Aires, and though the Coca-Cola Company denies axing the trees, it has agreed to plant dozens of new ones.
What’s been catching our eyes, and the world goes by…
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The Last Temptation Of Pyongyang
A visit to North Korea reveals fears about the Internet’s pernicious influence on youth, but also a big push in computer science training. The market economy calls, but ‘social control’ is at risk.