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Month: February 2016
PARIS — One of France’s state institutions is under fire for what critics call a textbook example of “biopiracy,” an issue that is also at the heart of a new bill the French Senate approved just last month. Last year, the country’s Research Development Institute (IRD) earned a patent on a molecule extracted from the […]
— You hate them on your phone and dread them on your computer — now, those pesky software updates are coming to your car. Carmakers led by Tesla are pushing over-the-air Wi-Fi and 3G or 4G wireless downloads to add functions such as self-parking and to upgrade performances of their vehicles. It’s prompting suppliers like NXP Semiconductors, Ericsson and Gemalto to celebrate as car builders fight to keep hackers out. “As soon as you connect anything to the Internet, there’s a hacking risk,” said Jonathan Olsson, a security expert at Ericsson, which sells wireless networks to clients from mobile carriers […]
DESPITE VIOLATIONS, SYRIA TRUCE STANDS Saudi Arabia accused Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime and its ally Russia of “ceasefire violations” yesterday, Al Arabiya reports. “We are discussing this with (the 17-nation) Syria Support Group,” co-chaired by Russia and the United States, said Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir. Despite the accusations of 15 ceasefire breaches of […]
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First New UK Print Daily In 30 Years
Defying doomsday predictions about traditional journalism, the UK on Monday welcomed its first standalone national print newspaper in 30 years. The newspaper will trial at 25p ($0.35) for two weeks before the price is raised to 50p ($0.70). Its publishing company Trinity Mirror, whose flagship paper is the tabloid Daily Mirror, hopes the new title […]
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High Power
I like the juxtaposition between this minaret and the improbable electrical entanglement in the foreground: Clearly, you needed to have faith to believe the whole thing was going to hold up.
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February 29
The village of Sutera was facing demographic doom as young people have been leaving for generations. Then locals started to wonder about those migrants coming to Italy.
Two German lawyers say the Facebook founder and CEO doesn’t do enough to stop hate speech.
LUNEL — Tac trimmed his beard and cut his hair short. He also stopped wearing his long prayer shirt. After the Paris attacks in November, he thought, the police were bound to come looking for him. Even his family had gotten into the habit of calling him “Daesh” (acronym for ISIS) as a joke about […]
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February 28
-Essay- CAIRO — Growing up in the United States in the 1980s through the noughties made most of my generation pretty hard to offend. Not because America itself is offensive, though some might argue that point, or because it is so idealistic about free expression that people there respect individuality too much to be offended, […]
Over-the-top expectations at universities, where researchers are required not just to publish but to generate significant grant revenue, are likely to dissuade young people from pursuing scientific careers.
Audiences have an insatiable desire for new series, with Netflix alone planning to release more than 30 new ones in 2016. But why are more and more going international?
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February 27
PARIS — Generational and gender debates rumbling inside the U.S. Democratic primary are setting off sparks as far away as Mexico and Australia. In an open letter to young women backing Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, the Sydney Morning Herald‘s Julie Szego scolds such millenials for suffering from wide-eyed naïveté. “From the ‘safe spaces’ on […]
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Elderly Couple — Video Quote Of The Day
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Report: The Discos Of Europe Are Dying
Italian daily La Repubblica charts the decline of European discoteques and nightclubs.
While You Slept IRAN VOTES Polls have opened throughout Iran as the country votes for two assemblies in the most important election since the 2013 presidential campaign that ushered in the reformist Hassan Rouhani. Voters will cast ballots for the unicameral “Islamic” parliament (Majles) and the Assembly of Experts (Majles-e khobregan), a body of clerics […]
-Analysis- LA PAZ — As of Sunday, Bolivia is once again divided in two. It had taken President Evo Morales almost a decade to build a consensus around him, a consensus that had enabled him to be re-elected for a third five-year term in 2014 with 61% of the vote. But his failure this week […]
The Finnish vigilante group Soldiers of Odin has been successfully spreading its anti-migrant, anti-Islam across northern Europe over the past few months. But now, Islamists in neighboring Norway have begun mobilizing their own organization to counter the movement. Soldiers of Odin was formed in Finland in November following an influx of Syrian refugees. Members of […]
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Southern Terminus
This is the “world famous conch train,” as it was — and still is — advertised, at the southernmost tip of the Florida Keys.
OLD HARBOUR — Jerry and his brother Steve, both in their thirties, thin and gnarled, are farmers without land. They live in Old Harbour, a dusty village in Saint Catherine Parish, an hour west of the capital Kingston, and rent small plots from area landlords and grow fruits and vegetables that they sell on the […]
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February 26
Trade in goods and even services may be slowing for now, but globalization retains its momentum with migration and an unstoppable flow of ideas. Blame human nature.
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People Walking — Video Quote Of The Day
On the dusty, deserted plains of Colorado, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) works with researchers and the world’s top companies to create the consumer economy of the future, which will be much more environmentally conscious.
MEXICO CITY — Will the mask come off? A Mexican judge has ruled that sedition and terrorism charges have expired against 13 rebels of the Zapatista Liberation Army (EZLN), including those filed against the group’s masked enigmatic former leader, Subcomandante Marcos, La Jornada and other media reported. The EZLN rose in revolt in 1994 to […]
U.S., CHINA AGREE ON N. KOREA RESOLUTION The United States and China agreed yesterday on a United Nations draft resolution containing “very tough measures” against North Korea over its nuclear “provocations,” AFP reports. Both countries have bristled at the hubris of North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un. The draft resolution will now be presented to the […]
A South American writer rethinks the soundtrack of his teenage revolution, concluding that his aversion to culturally significant genres was a youthful indiscretion that deprived him of musical riches.
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Troublesome Visitors
The Alhambra palace, in southern Spain’s Andalusia region, is a jewel of Islamic architecture, a testament to Moorish culture in the country. There would have been even more beauty to admire had my fellow Frenchmen from Napoleon’s armies not destroyed several towers 150 years before we arrived.
Many locals in Lebanon’s capital are firm Hezbollah and Assad loyalists, seeing the Islamist militia that supports the Syrian regime and fights ISIS on the ground as their ultimate protector against the civil war raging across the border.
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February 25
BERLIN — Forty percent of economics professors surveyed in Germany say they expect severe drawbacks to the country’s open-door refugee policy, and only 23% see immigration as a source of opportunities, a new survey shows. The joint research by Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and the Munich-based Ifo Institute for Economic Research of 220 economists professors also […]
Iran is holding elections for two assemblies on Friday, the unicameral “Islamic” parliament (Majles) and the Assembly of Experts (Majles-e khobregan), a body of clerics and “experts” deemed versed enough in public affairs and laws to merit choosing, in time, the next supreme leader. It is the most important election in Iran since the 2013 […]
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Simply Fashion — Video Quote Of The Day
TRUMP WINS NEVADA CAUCUS Donald Trump has won the Nevada caucus with a comfortable margin (45.9% of the votes) over his nearest Republican rivals Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, according to results reported this morning by The Washington Post. This third consecutive win by the American billionaire, after victories in New Hampshire and South Carolina, […]
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Bolivia Referendum Blocks Morales
Wednesday’s front page of Bolivian daily El Deber shows festivities in Santa Cruz after a constitutional reform was defeated, the first ever national setback for popular President Evo Morales. “The “No” wins and blocks Evo’s quest to govern until 2025,” reads the headline. The vote took place Sunday, with final results tallied on Tuesday showing […]
PARIS — Pinpointed strikes, carried out covertly: This is France’s strategy to face down the threat of ISIS in Libya. A senior French official has confirmed to Le Monde that “the last thing that should be done is to intervene in Libya. Avoiding any open military engagement, we must act discreetly.” In Libya where France […]
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Dragon Art
Traveling in group tours as my wife and I usually did, you’re bound to visit some local craft workshops along the way. It’s always been a great opportunity to snap some nice pictures — here’s one I took in a pottery shop near Shanghai.