A European program has been researching how the pharmaceutical industry could use the peptides found in venomous creatures for new therapeutic medicines.
Month: January 2016
-Essay- CAIRO — Every year, on Jan. 25, I have the same thought: I don’t have any memories to share. Every time I’m with friends who nostalgically remember moments of happiness and triumph, I stay silent, because I have no memories to share. During the 18 days of the revolution, I was in Gambia, watching […]
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On This Day – January 31
Vietnam has come a long way since the real estate bubble burst a few years back.
Buyers are scooping up properties since a new law opened the market to foreigners.
Donald Trump’s brand of xenophobic patriotism belies basic values on which America was founded. Given the U.S.’s cultural sway, his election would weign on other countries facing similar issues.
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On This Day – January 30
Japan has become a leader in developing technology to aid not just elderly or otherwise limited people conduct everyday chores but also for the medical, defense and aviation industries in a country with a shrinking work force.
Following the first trip to Italy and France in 16 years by an Iranian president, Hassan Rouhani talks about terrorism, trade, Saudi Arabia and the United States.
In the faraway verdant landscape of Easter Island, isolated in the Pacific Ocean, lives a rare type of bacteria that could be the key to curing a host of debilitating illnesses. Rapamycin, named for what the indigenous call the island it is found on — Rapa Nui — is used to produce an antibiotic named […]
PRESSURE ON MERKEL MOUNTS In stark contrast to the popularity German Chancellor Angela Merkel has enjoyed for most of her 10 years in office, a full 40% of Germans now want her to resign over what they believe is her misguided open-door refugee policy, a poll published today shows. The survey was conducted before yesterday’s […]
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Report: U.S., UK Spied On Israeli Air Force
Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth revealed Friday that American and British intelligence spied on Israeli air force missions in Gaza, Syria and Iran. According to the Tel-Aviv-based paper, the U.S. National Security Agency and its British counterpart GCHQ hacked into the onboard cameras’ live feeds of drones (featured on today’s front page) during operations dating back […]
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Portuguese Postcard
The fine sandy beaches of Nazaré, in western Portugal, are probably as big a tourist draw as the painted boats and the fishermen’s traditional costumes.
The Turkmen minority of Syria have been forced from their homes after Moscow airstrikes. With ethnic links to Turkey, Ankara wants to help, though the border remains sealed shut.
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On This Day – January 29
Auschwitz survivor and University of California professor Ruth Klüger’s address to the German parliament to mark the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz was stirringly relevant to today’s great challenges.
BRUSSELS — With Belgium already on high alert after several of its citizens took part in November’s attacks in Paris, authorities in Brussels are raising new concerns about potential jihadist threats to nuclear safety. The Belgian daily L’Echo reports Thursday that authorities have confirmed that the brother-in-law of a jihadist, who himself had extremist Islamic […]
Donald Trump travels to Las Vegas to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Trump International Casino, a day after calling The Wall Street Journal “garbage propaganda directed by an immigrant named Rupert Murdoch, who at 85 should be in a nursing home.” The man bringing together Trump and Putin is Silvio Berlusconi. That’s how […]
MACEDONIA CLOSES BORDER TO MIGRANTS Some 2,600 people are stranded on the Greek side of the border with Macedonia after the Balkan nation closed its borders to incoming migrants yesterday afternoon, AP reports. Macedonia, which is not an EU member, took similar steps for two days last week. The authorities are, however, allowing in migrants […]
The state, as well as companies, want to know as much as possible about citizens. The battle against the unstoppable digitalization of our world seems hopeless. Germany is particularly sensitive to the downsides.
German daily Hamburg Morgenpost is flipping the blue bird on the front page of its Thursday edition, which features a four-page analysis of “The Hate-Net,” and why more and more “thugs, haters and scatterbrains” go online to vent their anger. In the special edition, the paper focuses on social media users’ inability to tolerate other […]
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Final Picnic
I’ve already told you how my wife and I liked to wander off the beaten path and picnic somewhere nice. This time we’d picked a vast meadow — only to discover that the place was next to a cemetery, which apparently had a little problem with upkeep … Bon appétit!
The Colombian writer who once was part of the Norte del Valle cartel had a chance to interview the Mexican drug lord, but unlike Sean Penn, “refused to be a mouthpiece.”
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On This Day – January 28
NEW YORK — James Knight recently made an unorthodox career move for a 27-year-old coder: quitting a well-paid job writing software for Google to go freelance. No more catered lunches, gold-plated benefits or million-dollar views from the search giant’s Manhattan office. Knight is willing to sacrifice those perks because, he says, as an independent he’s pulling down about twice as much as he did at Google — and with more freedom. In March, Knight and his wife plan to hopscotch across Europe while writing code for a dating app and a self-portrait app, among others. “I’d rather control my own […]
Italian museum officials covered up prized ancient statues for the visit of Iranian President Rouhani. But what do we lose with such overly eager attention to Muslim sensibilities? And what about our own?
China risks losing a growing number of so-called “environmental migrants.”
OREGON MILITIA MEMBER KILLED AMID ARRESTS Photo: Mike Albright/ZUMA Robert “LaVoy” Finicum, an Arizona rancher and one of the leaders of the armed militia that had been occupying a federal wildlife reserve in eastern Oregon since Jan. 2, was killed in a shootout with federal officers Tuesday, The New York Times reports. The militia leader […]
L’Osservatore Romano, Jan. 27, 2016 The meeting of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani with Pope Francis was featured on Wednesday’s Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano, with the front-page headline: “A Political Solution For The Middle East.” At the 40-minute meeting at the Vatican, the first visit between a pope and Iranian president since 1999, Francis and Rouhani […]
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Taj Mahal, Italy
Italian craftsmen shared their know-how with Indian lapidarists who were then able to execute the exquisite inlaid marble of the Taj Mahal. And the more I look I at it, the more the iconic Indian mausoleum reminds me of the Florence Cathedral.
Six month later, a reporter is reconnected to a family who’d fled war in Deir ez-Zor, Syria. They wound up in a small village, where they are building a new life. Integration is not easy.
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On This Day – January 27
With six European Union countries instituting new border controls, the end of three decades of free movement comes with a heavy price.
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Bullfighting Dad Causes Uproar In Spain
El País, Jan. 26, 2016 Spain is waving a red flag at famous bullfighter Francisco Rivera Ordóñez after he posted a picture of himself taunting a bloody calf while holding his five-month-old daughter. Ordóñez posted the photograph, featured Tuesday on the front page of Spain’s leading daily El País, on his official Instagram account a […]
Car-sharing in France has gotten complicated. Though Uber was forced to shut down its amateur driver service UberPop, another app is antagonizing competitors by continuing to operate, and working with “suggested” prices.
COLLEAGUE KILLS 10 AFGHAN POLICE A rogue Afghan police officer drugged and shot dead 10 of his colleagues early today at a checkpoint in Afghanistan’s central province of Uruzgan, Al Jazeera reports. The man collaborated with Taliban insurgents, who joined him in shooting the officers. Weapons and ammunition were missing from the checkpoint after the […]
-Analysis- ISTANBUL — The Geneva process for the Syrian crisis was launched with a stated commitment from Russia and the United States to find a political solution. But it will go nowhere if it can’t overcome the clashing desires of the various fighting interests. Certain international actors penned a temporary road map in Vienna back […]
The cliché tells us that women forge a more sensitive and socially responsible working environment. A new study has proven that the opposite is the case.
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The Diving God
Parts of the Mayan city of Tulum, along the east coast of Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula, were dedicated to the worship of the Diving God. He has since given way to more humble beach-going mortals enjoying the blue waters of the Caribbean Sea.
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On This Day – January 26
ADDIS ABABA — The black-and-white robot stopped and its eyes, two small red lights, suddenly lit up. Rotating about 90 degrees, it recognized the blue plastic ball a few centimeters away, came forward and kicked it. “The robot is Chinese, but the processor is made in Ethiopia,” Getnet Aseffa explains. “A student developed it, and […]