Evidence is so overwhelming that even Russians can no longer deny the truth that their country is fighting in Ukraine. But Putin offers something better than the truth.
Month: May 2015
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NEW MOON IN TAURUS – May 18-24
The New Moon suggests that life could flow much better for you if you learn a new way of communicating and become more open to dialogue, as well as listen to others. Those born under your sign tend to be natural leaders, but right now it is essential for you to listen to advice from […]
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Eurovision 2015 Contestants: Slovenia
“What’s with the headphones?” you might ask, as the video almost seems to be a Beats by Dre commercial. Apparently, Marjetka and Raay — known as Maraaya — chose this accessory as their trademark because, you know, they’re cool with the younger generation. Though the headphones have nothing to do with the song , “Here […]
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End O’ The Road
With its somber beauty, the Scottish village of John o” Groats, is the end of the road when traveling to the extreme northeast of Great Britain. It is the start or finish of the UK’s longest “coast-to-coast,” with Land’s End in southwestern England exactly 876 miles (1,410 kilometers) away.
An economist and daughter of one of the leading opponents of Portugal’s former dictatorship, Mariana Mortagua is challenging the status quo. Is this a new Syriza?
BEIJING — Since being sworn in as India’s prime minister last year, Narendra Modi’s ambitious reform agenda has made him one of Asia’s most-talked about leaders. The economic program that Modi has put forward is changing the world’s impression of India, confirmed by his just-completed three-day visit to China. At last month’s Hanover Fair, Modi […]
MINKEBE — Seen from the helicopter, the canopy of Minkébé National Park, in northern Gabon, looks like a green carpet that stretches to the horizon. The immobile uniformity is only broken up here and there by the veins of muddy rivers or a flock of birds flying. There’s no road or village here near the […]
“We were exposed to hunger, electrocution, beating and insults. We got sick, we got lice and scabies, and were often strip searched, which was the worst part.”
Every year, he watches 1,800 films and rejects 1,750. Inside the life of the Cannes Film Festival’s almighty power broker.
MOSCOW — Russia placed 45th in the world on the most recent Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Index, a ranking of 141 countries compiled twice a year by the World Economic Forum and Strategy Partners Group. This represents a significant improvement over the previous year, when it ranked 63rd. Industry analysts agree that the driving factor […]
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Look Again
This monkey, which looks like it was scrawled on a cave wall, is actually a 300-foot-long geoglyph of unknown origin, seen from a plane in Peru’s Nazca Desert.
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Eurovision 2015 Contestants: Serbia
When it first participated in the Eurovision Song Contest as an independent country — and not part of Yugoslavia or with Montenegro as it used to — in 2007, Serbia actually won, for the first time. Fairly promising for the future. But since then, the country has unfortunately not managed to repeat the performance, finishing […]
MIGRANT CRISIS WORSENS IN SE ASIA “Out at sea with nowhere to go,” reads today’s front-page headline in Malaysian daily The Star, alongside a photo of Rohingya migrants, a persecuted minority, waiting on a boat adrift off the coast of Thailand. According to the UN, about 6,000 refugees fleeing Myanmar (also known as Burma) and […]
“Out at sea with nowhere to go,” reads the Friday front-page headline in Malaysian daily The Star, alongside a photo of Rohingya migrants waiting on a boat adrift off the coast of Thailand. According to the UN, about 6,000 refugees fleeing Myanmar (also known as Burma) and Bangladesh are stranded at sea, a budding humanitarian […]
Jerusalem and Berlin have strong ties in no small part because German officials virtually never criticize Israel. But that may be the seed of creeping estrangement.
Here is a preview of our exclusive newsletter to keep up-to-date and stay inspired by Smart City innovations from around the world.
And apps could kill it forever …
Led by new Saudi King Salman, an alliance of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey is aiding rebels, including jihadists, in new victories against Syrian President Assad’s regime.
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Eurovision 2015 Contestants: San Marino
The Most Serene Republic of San Marino, as its official name goes, is not exactly the most serene Eurovision contestant there is. Having failed to qualify in its first four attempts, the landlocked microstate reached the Eurovision final for the first time in 2014, where it finished 24th — out of 26 contestants. This year’s […]
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The Last Seven Jews Of Egypt
CAIRO — Egyptian Jews are having to face the ugly truth that their community appears bound to vanish. As recently as 1947, Egypt’s Jewish community numbered up to 80,000. Today, by most accounts, there are just seven Egyptian Jews left, most of whom are elderly women in need of daily medical care. The last time […]
Boundaries of personal space can depend on geography and wealth. City planners and interior designers should keep it all in mind when drawing up blueprints for the future.
CONFUSION AND FIGHTING IN BURUNDI Violent broke out this morning in the Burundi capital of Bujumbura between soldiers loyal to President Pierre Nkurunziza and forces who claimed to have staged a coup. The situation is very uncertain in the capital, as reports suggest the attempted coup is still ongoing, RFI reports. EXTRA! PRINCE CHARLES’ MEMOS […]
The Times, May 14, 2015 After a 10-year legal battle, the contents of 27 secret letters written by Prince Charles to British ministers were published Tuesday, revealing the extent of the prince’s attempts to influence the government. On the front page of its Thursday edition, The Times ran a picture of the Prince of Wales […]
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The Potter’s Portrait
I took maybe one my favorite series of photos in the villages of western India’s Rajasthan. The colors and contrasts of everyday life in this poor but lively area made for some strong human portraits.
Over the past two years, so-called “Female Virtues classes” have become popular across China, particularly among the less-educated. The classes mainly promote antiquated ideas about how women should be submissive. It’s obviously a shrewd businessmen’s way of cashing in — but the fact that flocks of women attend them also demonstrates a certain deep-seated ethical […]
In the capital of Tunis, Hedia is the caretaker of a sanctuary dedicated to Sufism, a mystical form of Islam that worships saints. Radical Muslims slit the throat of a colleague.
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Eurovision Contestants 2015: Russia
Despite having a Facebook page against its participation in Eurovision, and also having been copiously booed during last year’s event, Russia still went on and decided to participate in this year’s edition. Our guess is the audience really didn’t like the song, we don’t see any other reason. But still, how impolite and mean, even […]
Certain buildings in Mariánské Lázne still retain some of their Bohemian grandeur, from when the spa town then known as Marienbad was a favorite destination among the European elite early in the 20th century. But by the time we got there at century’s end, a few years after the birth the Czech Republic, that golden […]
ANURADHAPURA — More than 20,000 farmers in Sri Lanka, mostly rice farmers in the north, have lost their lives in recent years because of an unexplained surge in kidney disease. It has now reached epidemic proportions, and patients are descending on overwhelmed clinics, lining up for the few dialysis machines available. Karnu Jemanta and his brother, who are working their rice field outside the village of Rambewa, are worried. “We’re not sick yet, but we may be soon,” Jemanta says. “People from the Health Ministry came and said it could be chemicals, or that we should drink more water when […]
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Nepal Toll, Philly Train Crash, Cannes Opens
RESCUE OPS RESUME AFTER SECOND NEPAL QUAKE EPISODE Rescue teams have resumed their quest to find survivors in devastated Nepal, after yesterday’s 7.3-magnitude earthquake. It came less than three weeks after an even more violent one that destroyed part of the impoverished country and killed more than 8,000 people, AFP reports. Reports say at least […]
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Extra! Let The Cannes Of Coen Begin
Libération, May 13, 2015 “Let the party begin!” The 68th Cannes Film Festival kicks off today and it looks like it’s going to be a hard one to choose from for jury co-presidents, American filmmaker brothers Joel and Ethan Coen. In its cover story, French daily Libération notes with a splash of irony that there […]
-OpEd- BOGOTA — When I hear about people now selling marijuana legally in the United States, I think of all our fellow Colombians who have died over the years fighting America’s absurd war on drugs. I think of Luis Carlos Galán and Rodrigo Lara Bonilla, two politicians gunned down by drug traffickers, and I imagine […]
Transportable and cheap, a made-in-Italy DNA kit prototype promises to allow molecular analysis directly in the field, sending collected data instantly across the world.
The Swiss photographer gets inside an often impenetrable community and emerges with a portrait that both shines and confounds.
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Eurovision Contestants 2015: Romania
Romania chose none other than its biggest pop-rock band, Voltaj, to represent the country at this year’s Eurovision Song Contest. The group has been one of the most popular acts in Romania for the past 20 years and their fans all across Europe will undoubtedly vote for them on the big night. Well played, Romania. […]
ANOTHER EARTHQUAKE HITS NEPAL A 7.3-magnitude earthquake struck eastern Nepal, near Mount Everest, today, two weeks after the devastating quake killed at least 8,000 in the Himalayan nation. EXTRA! French President François Hollande became the first top Western leader to visit Cuba since the island nation moved to reestablish relations with the United States late […]
Latin America is starting to measure happiness or “well-being” levels to gauge social trends and set public policy. Surprising results in Cali, Colombia.
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Parked Nearer, My God, To Thee
Back in 1965, you could still leave your car in the holiest of all parking lots, next to Bernini’s fountain on St. Peter’s Square.
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Extra! Francois Hollande Meets Fidel Castro
Granma, May 12, 2015 French President François Hollande became the first top Western leader to visit Cuba since the island nation moved to reestablish relations with the United States late last year. Hollande spent Monday in Cuba, conducting talks with President Raúl Castro, as well as meeting his older brother and leader of the revolution, […]
Morocco was among the first Arab and Muslim countries to approve the birth-control pill. Now women activists are fighting for the right to choose to have an abortion.