The toppling of two Christopher Columbus statues in Buenos Aires suggests the president’s sympathies with the continent’s indigenous movements. It’s another of the government’s “confused” reinterpre
Month: June 2015
Rescue efforts continued into Wednesday as a total 14 survivors were rescued from the Eastern Star, the cruise ship carrying 456 that sank Monday night in China’s Yangtze River. So far, 19 bodies have been recovered, leaving more than 420 people unaccounted for, most of whom are by now feared dead. The boat, which departed […]
BANGKOK — Phayao Akahad and Sukanya Prueksakasemsuk have both paid a high price for the political turmoil that has befallen Thailand, which culminated, in a May 2014 military coup led by General Prayuth Chan-ocha. One lost a daughter during the 2010 crackdown on the “Red Shirts” protests that took place against former Prime Minister Thaksin […]
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Pungent Watercolor
The tanning pits at Fes” Chouara tannery look like a giant painter’s palette. But the tanning process requires that hides be first soaked in a mixture of cow urine, quicklime, water, and salt. The stench is such that tour guides will often provide visitors with sprigs of fresh mint to help them face the odor.
-Analysis- ROME — Ireland’s resounding approval of same-sex marriage in last month’s referendum has obviously rankled the Catholic Church. Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin, who acts as “prime minister” to Pope Francis, went so far as to characterize the outcome as “a defeat for humanity.” Dublin Archbishop Diarmuid Martin told La Stampa that […]
Europe’s immigration crisis has also been gathering under a Metro overpass in the French capital. Officials have now acted, but that hardly means there is a solution.
SYDNEY — Recently in this city’s trendy Darling Harbor district, a new high-end housing project of 581 apartments sold out in just five hours. One third of these flats — costing from 800,000 Australian dollars ($611,000) for a one-bedroom unit to more than 10 million ($7.6 million) for a luxury penthouse loft — were sold […]
Though their conclusions have been criticized as racist and fatalistic, a group of researchers argues that civil wars are more likely in countries where there are vast genetic, and therefore aesthetic, differences among populations.
HUNDREDS MISSING AFTER CHINA SHIPWRECK At least 400 people were missing this morning after a Chinese ship carrying 458 passengers and crew was hit by an apparent cyclone and sank in the Yangtze River late yesterday, Chinese news agency Xinhua reports. So far, there are only 15 to 18 survivors, and just five bodies recovered, […]
Ethnos, June 2, 2015 “Dramatic night in Berlin & Athens,” reads the front page of Athens-based newspaper Ethnos“ Tuesday edition, as the heads of IMF and ECB unexpectedly joined late-night talks on the Greek debt crisis in Berlin. French President Francois Hollande and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, who were scheduled to meet German Chancellor […]
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Neolithic Picnic
Traveling by car for more than 50 years, you develop some habits: One of them was that for lunch, we’d wander off the beaten path and picnic somewhere nice. Too bad this stone table we call dolmen, in the South of France, was a little bit too tall for us.
The 12th Shanghai International Tea Culture Festival ended last week in the Chinese megalopolis. Hundreds of thousands of visitors from around the world came to buy, taste and learn more about the ancient and ever-popular beverage. But where does tea come from and how is it produced? Here are five facts tea drinkers can ponder […]
Forty years after the North Vietnamese conquered Saigon, tourists and locals alike shun the colonial hotel that once was a den for the chronicles of war.
The Greek Prime Minister’s ultimatum to Eurozone partners and other negotiators as the debt crisis reaches a critical hour. The full Le Monde editorial in English.
Gangs extort at leisure in the El Salvadoran capital, making a mockery of police and the state. Could this again happen in Colombian cities like MedellÃn?
A U.S. pharmaceutical company testing a drug meant to slow down child dementia refuses to offer the medication to a terminally ill young girl in Germany. Her family is fighting the decision.
NSA’S SPYING POWERS EXPIRE Key parts of the U.S. Patriot Act that allow the National Security Agency to collect citizen data in bulk have expired after the Senate failed to reach a deal before last night’s midnight renewal deadline. Sen. Rand Paul, who strongly opposes the NSA’s carte blanche spying powers, was triumphant, The Hill […]
DEIR EZ-ZOR — As soon as ISIS fighters fully seized Deir ez-Zor, they made a number of draconian changes, one of which was to close schools. After a lengthy period, during which teachers were required to attend training courses in Islamic education, the schools reopened. The city’s schools are no longer housed in public buildings. Residents instead have volunteered their houses as classrooms and supplies, such as desks and boards, have been moved there from the schools. The curriculum has been modified — many subjects were omitted, while others were added — and the number of schools is limited, as […]
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Opening Up
Over the years, we saw Prague transition from austere Soviet Czechoslovakia to the more tourist-friendly Czech Republic. I took this picture of my wife in the Old Town Square — one of Europe’s most beautiful squares — just about eight months before the dissolution of Czechoslovakia into the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
More and more countries are limiting cash transactions and the amount people can carry. Beyond the economic rationale, what are the moral implications?