Deforestation is one of the primary causes of global warming, and much of it has happened across vast areas of the Amazon rain forest. Will pledges at the climate change conference in Paris really count?
Month: January 2016
Chinese President Xi Jinping’s glamorous singer wife Peng Liyuan used to perform with them. But so too did less reputable women, including several who became the center of public scandals. Now, after more than six decades of service, the Chinese People’s Liberation Song and Dance Troupe has been disbanded, reports Taiwanese newspaper China Times. Founded […]
A tiny African tribe, the Hadza continue hunter-gatherer lives on the edge of the sedentary world. They recognize no official leaders, but vote in national elections for the most practical reasons.
AT LEAST 10 DIE IN ISTANBUL BLAST Photo: Zeynep Cermen/Xinhua via ZUMA An explosion in Istanbul’s historic Sultanahmet tourist district killed at least 10 people and wounded 15 others today, CNN Türk reports. Local authorities have said they believe an ISIS suicide bomber caused the blast, Turkish daily Hürriyet reports. UN CALLS FOR EVACUATING 400 […]
No need for Twitter if you are a media baron. Australian media mogul Rupert Murdoch placed an announcement in the Births, Marriages and Deaths page of The Times, the storied London-based newspaper he owns, to share the news of his engagement to American actress and former supermodel Jerry Hall. Murdoch, 84, is the executive chairman […]
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Too Hot For The Gators
No wonder this alligator looked so thirsty: The lush swamps of Avery Island are next to Louisiana“s Tabasco hot sauce factory.
Japanese artist Megumi Igarashi has been arrested for her provocative work. With a new exhibition in Hong Kong, Asia’s battle for free speech and open sexuality comes together.
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On This Day – January 12
Local organizations have been working day and night over the past two months to prepare Syrians for the winter cold. Nearly a dozen people died there last January due to a fatal combination of inadequate shelter and freezing weather.
In 10 languages, the world bids farewell to the British rock legend, who died at the age of 69.
UN TO RELIEVE STARVING SYRIAN CITY The United Nations is expected to send an aid convoy to the Syrian town of Madaya, where at least 23 people have recently starved to death. About 42,000 people in Madaya have had little to no access to food for the past two weeks, after government forces sealed off […]
La Prensa, Jan. 11, 2015 “Horrified!” Monday’s front page of Mexican daily La Prensa reads, quoting White House reaction to the Rolling Stone”s interview — by actor Sean Penn — with the world’s most prominent drug trafficker, Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman. Mexican authorities started U.S. extradition proceedings late Sunday against the Mexican drug kingpin, who […]
It has been considered not politically correct to talk about challenges of integrating Muslim immigrants in German society. That has changed forever after the New Year’s attacks on women in Cologne.
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The Improbable Pet Seller
In the foothills of the Atlas Mountains, this Moroccan boy was selling lizards by the roadside. I wasn’t the only one who thought this improbable scene would make for a good photograph.
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On This Day – January 11
The boom of platforms for freelance workers, on the Uber model, presages a world where the wage system will no longer dominate. This will require new social protections for the good of workers — and the economy.
TIANJIN — A stone’s throw from the highly polluted Bohai Gulf, the Tianjin eco-city is like a mirage. Its buildings, surrounded by trees, offer a rare green and airy setting in the surrounding industrial development zone, which is choked, for much of the year, in a blanket of smog. Public lighting is charged through solar […]
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On This Day – January 10
-OpEd- ROME — The year begins with the absurd destiny of two children, both tiny victims of a war that we’d rather not see. On the left is a screen-grab image of a shockingly young boy who is featured in the first propoganda video of 2016 by the butchers of ISIS. Like adults members of […]
No doubt the rebels cherish their history of armed struggle against the Colombian state, but if they’re serious about entering politics, an image makeover is very much in order.
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On This Day – January 9
LÜBECK — The scourge of plastic litter in the oceans is measured in billions of floating tons of pollution, estimated to affect some 40% of the world’s waterways. But a solution to this massive environmental problem may be coming from a small shipyard in Northern Germany, where an ingeniously designed catamaran is being built to […]
-Analysis- ISTANBUL — Saudi Arabia silenced Ayatollah al-Nimr by executing him. He was an open critic of the Saudi royal dynasty and the cruelty against the Shia, while a longtime advocate for democratic elections. The Saudis lumped Nimr in with 46 al-Qaeda members who were charged with terrorism in order to ruin his reputation. You […]
POLICE FIND PRINTS OF PARIS ATTACKS FUGITIVE Belgian police have found a fingerprint of Salah Abdeslam, the fugitive jihadist who participated in the Nov. 13 Paris attacks, in a Brussels apartment, where the suicide belts worn by some of the terrorists were made, Le Soir reports. The discoveries were made almost a month ago, but […]
A wave of violence rocked Cologne on New Year’s Eve, when more than 100 women reported that men of Arab and North African appearance robbed, groped and raped them. Though shocking in Germany, such attacks are all too common in Arab countries, wher
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High Income
Gstaad is home to one of the largest ski areas in the Alps. The breathtaking mountainous views — not to mention Switzerland“s advantageous fiscal regime — draw in the rich and famous from around the world.
VATICAN CITY — For Pope Francis, “a work of art is the strongest evidence that incarnation is possible.” It is an idea expressed in his book “La Mia Idea Di Arte” (My Idea of Art), co-written with Italian journalist Tiziana Lupi as part of the Church’s latest attempt to recover bonds with its traditional allies […]
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On This Day – January 8
Czech President Milos Zeman, Donald Trump and other over-the-top personalities may not offer any practical solutions to society’s problems, but they do have a function in an increasingly uniform political arena.
BEIJING — News of North Korea’s most recent atomic test, which Pyongyang is claiming was its first detonation of a hydrogen bomb, has sparked new fears about the future. But there is a more immediate concern: Neighboring South Korea and China are increasingly worried that the underground nuclear tests could set off the dormant volcano […]
LIBYA POLICE SCHOOL BOMBED At least 65 people were killed this morning after a truck bomb exploded at a police training center in Zliten, Libya, the BBC reports. Reuters reports that hundreds of recruits were gathered at the center when the explosion occurred. Martin Kobler, the UN’s special representative to Libya, characterized the blast as […]
LOIKAW — Myanmar“s so-called “giraffe women,” famous for the traditional neck coils they wear, appear destined to disappear. Young Burmese have rejected this tradition of wearing the heavy brass rings, saying they are painful and uncomfortable. And for those who do, carrying on the custom has become less about tradition and more about earning a living from tourists. San Bon village is one place where Burma’s long-necked women call home. It’s about 30 minutes by car from Loikaw, the capital of Kayah state. Residents say that at one time all the women here wore the neck coils as a symbol […]
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Busking In The Shade
It was so hot on the shores of the Baltic sea that August that we had to look for shade everywhere we could, just like this street piper in Riga, Latvia.
Since the Jan. 7, 2015 killings, many humorists have been struggling to tackle the question of Islamic terrorism, security and freedom of speech. Most are undeterred.
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One Year After Attack, ‘Always Charlie’
L’Humanité, Jan. 7, 2016 “Always Charlie!” reads the Thursday front page of far-left French daily L’Humanité, as France marks the one-year anniversary of the terrorist attack on the Paris offices of the satirical weekly newspaper Charlie Hebdo that left 12 dead. Eight staff members were killed by two gunmen who’d pledged allegiance to Al-Qaeda’s branch […]
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On This Day – January 7
Five centuries after Spanish conquistadors took over Mexico, Mexican billionaires are busy buying up chunks of Spain. After four years of recession, it was the perfect match between cash-rich customers and a needy economy.
On Jan. 7, 2015, Chérif and Saïd Kouachi gunned down most of the Charlie Hebdo staff. It should have been a wakeup call that the number of radicalized Muslims in France is increasing at an alarming rate.
NORTH KOREA CLAIMS FIRST H-BOMB TEST Photo: Yonhap News/ImageCollect/Newscom/ZUMA North Korea claimed Wednesday it had successfully conducted its first hydrogen-bomb test, with the regime’s official television network hailing the move as “a world-startling event to be specially recorded in the national history.” VERBATIM “We know we can’t stop every act of violence, every act of […]
Die Tageszeitung, Jan. 6 “The Outcry” is the front-page headline for German daily Die Tageszeitung on Wednesday, alongside a blurry picture of a group of men next to the Cologne Cathedral on New Year’s Eve, as a spate of alleged sexual assaults and robberies is fueling renewed debate over immigration in Germany. Hundreds of people, […]