Having built one of the world’s most successful algorithmic trading companies, Israeli entrepreneur Kalkstein now is putting his mathematical wizardry to saving lives.
Month: September 2015
HUNGARY TRIES TO STEM REFUGEE TIDE Hungary may be considering deploying its army to help police stem the daily arrival of thousands of refugees at its southern border with Serbia. A new razor wire is being built along the border, and the Hungarian military was also staging border protection exercises yesterday, the BBC reports. Human […]
The most popular politician in France these days is German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who has been lauded for her leadership on Europe’s migrant crisis. “The Incredible Mrs. Merkel” reads Thursday’s cover of weekly Le Point. “If only she was French…” adds the French magazine. Germany’s response to the latest surge of refugees from Syria and […]
Turkish political leaders and ordinary citizens are blind as ever to why Kurds continue to fight for freedom. It recalls another open chapter in the nation’s troubled history.
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Worth The Climb
To reach the ancient Mayan city of Tikal and its vertigo-inducing temples and pyramids, we first had to take a small plane — in a very precarious state — before hopping on a bus through the Guatemalan rainforest. But the immensity of the site made us quickly forget the journey, and we had no problem […]
CAIRO — In the past two months, at least five people have died in Egyptian police custody after being arrested on politically related charges. Four of the detainees belonged to the conservative Jama’a al-Islamiya group, while another was accused of belonging to the banned Muslim Brotherhood. Three of those Jama’a al-Islamiya members died over just […]
Traditional local populations are facing the brunt of the environmental fallout in the massive lake between Bolivia and Peru.
Queen Elizabeth II is now the longest-serving monarch in British history. And since her crowning in 1952, she’s gotten out of Buckingham Palace quite a bit, including visits (often multiple times) to 128 different countries. That makes her the most widely traveled head of state in history. Have a look at a few of Elizabeth’s […]
Why are they here? Who can stay? How should we treat them? The fate of Middle East and African refugees dominates German debate. They were once our own grandparents.
EU UNVEILS “BOLD” MIGRANT QUOTA PLAN In his first State of the European Union speech, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker unveiled a plan to deal with the ongoing migrant crisis and urged EU member states to take “bold, determined action.” Among his proposals were the emergency relocation of 120,000 migrants now in Italy, Greece and […]
Osservatore Romano, Sept. 9, 2015 In yet another step to loosen long-held practices inside the Catholic Church, Pope Francis has eased the process for how divorced Catholics can remarry and stay inside the Church. Two papal edicts, known as motu proprios, were published Tuesday that open the way to make the process of marriage “annulment” […]
The U.S. is actively trying to block new Russian military aid to the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad. Moscow sees its best alternative is to team up with Tehran.
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Wind To Thunder
The ancient windmills on the entry to the Lasithi highlands, on the Greek island of Crete, look like sentinels, warning passersby: You’re not far from the Dictaeon Andron — the cave where Zeus, the Greek god of thunder, is said to have been born and reared.
Far from rigid Koranic institutes, this new private school in central France is as much about smart boards as religious values. It is also trilingual: French, Arabic and English.
A French philosopher dissects the mix of reactions across society, and within our own individual psyches, when human misery arrives at our door.
Photo: @SusanMartelo via Twitter CARTAGENA — Stray dogs and cats will now be treated a little better in the historic Colombian port of Cartagena, which has begun providing them with food and water dispensers. The UNESCO World Heritage site will thus join a humane trend spreading across dozens of Colombian districts. With lobbying from animal […]
GERMANY CAN TAKE 500,000 REFUGEES A YEAR Photo: Paul Hackett/London News Pictures/ZUMA Germany can cope with at least 500,000 asylum seekers a year for several years, Die Welt quoted German Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel as saying today, as authorities there expect to receive more than 800,000 this year alone (four times the 2014 figure). TURKEY […]
“Trapped in the fog: 16 martyred,” reads Tuesday’s front page of Turkish daily Hürriyet, after PKK fighters reportedly ambushed and killed 16 Turkish soldiers in southeastern Turkey Sunday by taking advantage of the bad weather. According to the Turkish news agency Anadolu, two armored vehicles were targeted with roadside bombs between Daglica and Yuksekova in […]
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At Rest In Palermo
Judging by the abundance of flowers on the two horse-drawn funeral hearses, the departed must have been someone very important in Sicily.
SAO PAULO — João Batista, a 45-year-old builder, has been unemployed since December. Jailson de Lima, 46, is luckier: He still manages to find construction work from time to time but doesn’t earn enough to pay rent, which has been on a relentless rise. Cristiane dos Santos, 27, lived in a hostel for some time […]
Wareef Kaseem Hamdeo, a chef from Aleppo who found refuge from the Syrian civil war in Gaza, became a local celebrity after opening a Syrian restaurant there.
Offering new economic opportunities is at the top of the agenda, though questions about human rights still must be addressed.
Arcangelo Ricciardi’s rise in the world of chess seemed too sudden. And it was. Caught using hidden mini webcams to defeat international chess masters, his board is tipped.
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Extra! “What Now” For Austria’s Refugees?
Kurier, Sept. 7, 2015 “They reached safety — what now?,” Vienna-based daily Kurier asks on its front page Monday, as at least 15,000 refugees crossed the border from Hungary over the weekend into Austria. After days of confrontation between refugees — mostly fleeing violence in Syria and Iraq — and authorities in Budapest stopping them […]
THE LATEST ON EUROPE’S REFUGEE CRISIS Photo: Ray Tang/Rex Shutterstock/ZUMA The Austrian government has warned it could close its border to undocumented refugees after some 15,000 crossed the border from Hungary to Austria this weekend alone, Wiener Zeitung reports. But in neighboring Germany, the government has dedicated an extra 6 billion euros ($6.7 billion) to […]
Germany’s welcoming of refugees is sending out a strong signal to the rest of Europe and the world. But there’s hard work ahead in a country that knows the weight of history.
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Decorative Canal
Being only 70 ft-wide (21 meters) at its base, the canal that cuts through the Isthmus of Corinth is far too narrow for today’s large cargo freighters. It’s now mostly used by cruise liners, on the deck of which tourists can admire its high limestone walls.
Ordinary citizens, the media and politicians make so much noise about ideology and petty politics, but quietly carry on in the face of massive mining pollution.
An agreement reached last month between India and Bangladesh has given citizenship to 50,000 previously stateless people who lived in disputed territory.
It is not just the economics of the media that is putting traditional news photographers out of business. It is our troubled relationship with images themselves.
The MIT-educated activist and scientist travels the world to condemn the effects of multinationals on the environment. Her recent project in Bern was the 3D modeling of oceans.
Even as anger rises about the gap between rich and poor, looking hard at the numbers shows global poverty is decreasing. And government aid is not the reason.
Urged by her friends out of retirement, the 71-year-old retired judge surprised all by winning the mayor’s race on the wave of Spain’s rising protest movement. What will she do with her newfound power?
REFUGEES SQUARE OFF WITH HUNGARIAN POLICE A standoff between refugees, many of them from war-torn Syria, and Hungarian police in the town of Bickse has entered its second day, with Die Welt reporting that some 500 people spent the night in the train station and were refusing to eat or drink until being allowed to […]
Guatemala’s parliament voted to sack President Otto Pérez Molina Thursday, forcing his resignation and immediate arrest for his suspected participation in an extensive corruption ring. Like an ordinary felon, he will have to “answer to justice,” the daily Publinews wrote on its front page. Publinews Guatemala and other Guatemalan dailies also showed the former president […]
-Essay- PARIS — There are times when it is necessary to compare things that are not comparable. There’s a chance at least that it will wake up some anesthetized minds. Between 1933 and 1940, several million refugees who had escaped from Germany, Poland, the Baltic countries and elsewhere, fleeing Nazism, were met with closed borders. […]
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Double Bass
The fishermen of Henningsvær in Norway“s Lofoten islands have either horrible taste in decoration or a good sense of humor … and love of opera!
Italian energy giant ENI has reported an unprecedented discovery of gas reserves off the coast of Egypt. It’s no quick fix for the troubled Egyptian economy.
The unlikely tale of how a young Colombian’s communist convictions led him to leave his family in Spain to fight with Ukraine’s Putin-backed separatist rebels.
NSA-style monitoring of our ever-more digital lives is beyond even George Orwell’s disturbing vision. It’s also less effective in tracking the true enemies of the state.