Flemming Rose was the man who commissioned caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad for the Jyllands Posten newspaper. He reflects on Islam, free speech and silent fear.
Month: October 2015
Since the gradual reduction of subsidies from Rome to diocese in the Democratic Republic of Congo, vicars have turned to the faithful to ensure survival of parish churches.
Today’s generation of university students are the children of so-called “helicopter parents,” particularly coddled and worried about in the US. And they can’t seem to cope in the face of adulthood.
TEHRAN — Iran’s Islamic Republic has sought to control morals and public conduct for some 40 years now, and the apparent détente with Western powers won’t be changing anything on this front. Take its ongoing antipathy toward Western — or some would say, virtually all — music. For Iran’s clerics, music and related festivities are […]
MOUNT ALFAF — Seven eagles are swirling in the blue sky above Mar Mattai, Iraq’s oldest monastery. Can they see Mosul? The northern Iraqi city that has been occupied by ISIS since last year is only 20 kilometers away. Perched alongside Mount Alfaf, this orthodox Syriac monastery founded in the 4th century by hermit Matthew […]
RUSSIA’S SYRIA AIRSTRIKES TO LAST 3-4 MONTHS The Russian airstrike campaign in Syria could last three to four months, Alexey Pushkov, the head of the lower house of the Russian parliament’s foreign affairs committee, was quoted as saying Friday by the French radio station Europe 1. Pushkov, a close ally of Vladimir Putin, also said […]
The Swiss recently voted for a new national anthem, during the final stage of a public competition organized by the “Société suisse d’utilité publique” (“Swiss Society for the Common Good”) in the northern city of Aarau. Among three final candidates, voters chose a version that kept the melody of the current anthem, the 170-year-old “Swiss […]
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Bahia Bliss
Salvador is nicknamed “Brazil’s capital of happiness.” I wonder why …
-OpEd- BERLIN — German authorities are now trying in every possible way to come up with solutions for sheltering the wave of refugees entering our country. But that has somehow led the state to threaten the suspension basic rights of property and ownership. The federal government does its best to foster optimism. German Chancellor Angela […]
Tomomi Inada may be a more fervent Japanese nationalist than current Prime Minister Abe. She was in Washington this week to meet top officials.
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Uruguay President vs. Big Tobacco
MONTEVIDEO — While other world leaders used their slot at this week’s United Nations General Assembly to argue over Syria or the global economy, Uruguayan President Tabaré Vázquez had smoke on his mind. After winning a second non-consecutive term last November, Vázquez launched a full-scale attack on the global tobacco industry, accusing cigarette companies of […]
AIX-EN-PROVENCE — Over the past two days, Hervé Pighiera has picked up 118 cigarette butts, 60 cigarette packs, 69 plastic bottles and 7.75 kilos of non-classifiable garbage, including a little dollhouse armchair made of wicker and plastic. Pighiera is on a mission to clean roadsides. On July 12, this smiling fellow in a straw hat, […]
Two Syrian refugees who attempted to swim part of the way to Europe recounted why they wound up making such a dangerous journey.
LAUSANNE — After living together for seven years, Guillaumette Sauvé and Pierre Boizot wed on June 30 in a civil ceremony in Lausanne. They are 62 and 59 respectively, and have both been married twice before. The bride didn’t wear white. And only a few friends were invited. “At first, we weren’t too excited by […]
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Discount Communism
In 1995, Chairman Mao was no longer such a hot commodity: If you bought one bust of the communist leader at this Beijing market, you got one free.
U.S. SAYS RUSSIA TARGETING REBELS, NOT ISIS Russia’s intervention in Syria has elicited anger from U.S. officials who are accusing Moscow of aiming at the region’s Western-backed rebels — not ISIS fighters, as the country claims. The New York Times reports that Russia’s participation in the civil war is an effort to help Syrian President […]
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Russian Air Strikes Shake Up Syrian Conflict
Al-Akhbar, Oct. 1, 2015 “Toward a new Middle East,” reads the front page of the Thursday edition of Lebanon’s Arabic-language daily Al-Akhbar, together with a picture of a Russian aircraft ready for take-off, as Moscow hits targets in Syria for a second day. On Wednesday, Moscow launched a series of airstrikes against what it said […]
Jhon Jairo Velasquez Vásquez, known as “Popeye,” was the hitman-of-choice for the legendary drug kingpin. He’s out of jail now, and telling his side of the story.
-Analysis- NEW YORK — In the celebrated sci-fi comedy “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy,” a supercomputer determines that the answer to life, the Universe, and everything is the number 42. The really difficult task, however, is figuring out what the question was in the first place. Sometimes I feel like interest rate hikes are […]