A rash of state subsidies in China has helped multiply electric car sales, but it has also warped industrial policy and undercut the market.
Month: February 2016
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February 24
The consequences can be catastrophic when cyber criminals blackmail hospitals. Experts are warning hospitals that they’re not doing enough to protect their patients’ data.
BEIJING — It may be facing a major economic slowdown, a demographic crisis and widespread government corruption, but China has nevertheless found time to launch what we might call a “toilet revolution.” “Toilet civilization has a long way to go in China,” Li Shihong, deputy chief of the China National Tourism Administration (NTA), tells state […]
SUEZ CANAL — In Port Said, Egypt, at the mouth of the Suez Canal, three private guards, one from Romania and two from Ukraine, board the Monte Rosa, a 20,000-ton Swiss tanker captained by Viacheslav Gavrilov. Their destination is Sri Lanka by way of the Gulf of Aden, a 12-day journey. The captain, a 44-year-old […]
A SYRIAN TRUCE, ISIS EXCLUDED The Syrian government and the umbrella group for the main opposition agreed this morning to the terms of a ceasefire that was negotiated yesterday between the United States and Russia, the BBC reports. But the truce, set to begin midday Saturday, excludes ISIS, al-Qaeda and affiliated groups, Al Jazeera reports. […]
Libération, Feb. 23, 2016 “Calais: An Endless Jungle,” writes French daily Libération on the front page of its Tuesday edition, as hundreds of migrants living in the so-called “Calais jungle” in northern France are facing an 8 p.m. deadline to move out. The left-wing Paris daily describes the evacuation and scheduled dismantling of the southern […]
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The President’s City
When we went to eastern Tunisia in the 1970s, Monastir-born Habib Bourguiba was then serving as the country’s first president, having replaced King Muhammad VIII when the monarchy was abolished in 1957.
BOGOTA — The U.S. presidential elections have left the two main parties stunned. Amid acrid debates filled with harsh words and the insolence of one billionaire candidate, raw emotions have turned out to be more potent than any substantial solutions proposed by the candidates for their country. Faced with the populism of the tycoon Donald […]
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February 23
BUENOS AIRES — Every crisis is an opportunity, they say. In several neighborhoods in the Argentine capital, moves to curb the spread of the mosquito-borne Zika virus or dengue fever in several South American countries, have provided a perfect ruse for thieves to enter properties posing as municipal fumigators, Clarín reports. Authorities have warned residents […]
-Analysis- PARIS — Could the trap of the Syrian crisis break up NATO? This question, which carries potentially grave implications for the security of the West, might sound overblown. After all, NATO’s unfailing cohesion eventually brought down one of the most formidable war machines of all time, the Soviet Union. Still, the spreading corrosive capacities […]
ROME — Italian soldiers and antiquity experts alike will help lead a new dedicated UN peacekeeping force designed to protect and restore the world’s cultural monuments exposed to war and other conflicts. Italian daily Corriere della Sera reports that the taskforce, the first of its kind, will be composed of 30 Italian paramilitary troops and […]
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Fighting Elephants — Video Quote Of The Day
ISIS TARGETS SYRIA’S MUSLIM MINORITIES Despite losing ground across much of Syria, ISIS remains a dangerous threat in the western part of the country under the Syrian government’s control. A series of explosions in the cities of Homs and in the capital Damascus yesterday killed at least 140 people and wounded dozens more. ISIS claimed […]
BRAZZAVILLE — In the area around the Congolese capital of Brazzaville, it’s common practice to burn vegetation in fields before planting crops. But this slash-and-burn approach inflicts severe damage to the forests and the soil, not to mention to the health of women, who are the primary farmers in this area. “The placement of these […]
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Cameron Rocked As Boris Backs Brexit From EU
The Sun, Feb 22, 2016 After obtaining concessions from Brussels in order to stay in the European Union, British Prime Minister David Cameron faces major internal blowback as popular London Mayor and Tory party ally Boris Johnson announced he would campaign in favor of the so-called “Brexit.” A day after Cameron called the June 23 […]
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Panoramic Dancing
These gaunt, alien-like musicians overlook Reykjavik, near the iconic Perlan observatory, giving an eerie feel to an already otherwordly landscape.
In the multiethnic French city of Marseille, the La Rouvière complex has its own unwritten bylaws.
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February 22
-Essay- NEW YORK — A short news flash in early October 2014 made me shoot out of my comfortable chair. For no particular reason, I felt that the news of a Chinese insurer buying the Waldorf Astoria, the world’s most prestigious hotel, was important. For me, it was as big as when the Chinese bought […]
On foot in the cold or crammed into run-down train cars, migrants face a long journey of long waits, endless security checks, and uncertain prospects. Up close along the Serbo-Macedonian Border.
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February 21
PASADENA — The drone intruder was roaming around the Rose Bowl Stadium as 94,000 fans cheered, oblivious to the threat. But scientists testing a new security device at the game knew: they detected its radio signals and seized control of the gatecrasher. This was only a simulation, but if the unmanned drone had been a security risk they could have forced it down — even though the airwaves were choked by thousands of smartphones and Wi-Fi hotspots. “It’s like being at a rock concert and trying to listen to someone at the other end of the stadium,” said Randy Villahermosa, […]
Moroccan-born Osama Khallouf is a 20-year-old student with plans to become a full-time imam. As French mosques struggle to tamp out radicals, the likes of Khallouf are being nurtured and given on-the-job training.
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February 20
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Oil Spill In Peru Pollutes Amazon
CHIRIACO — A devastating oil spill in the Peruvian Amazon is spreading weeks after it began on January 25th. Lima-based daily El Comercio reports that the spill has affected two Peruvian provinces in the Amazon region, polluting farmland, rivers and forests. Some 3,000 barrels of oil burst from a pipeline began running through protection barriers […]
As Republicans mercilessly attack the sitting president, Democratic hopefuls Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton should remember that ambivalence never wins elections.
U.S. AIRSTRIKES TARGET ISIS IN LIBYA A predawn U.S. airstrike targeted an ISIS camp in Libya, killing at least 30 members of the terrorist outfit, The New York Times reports. The operation, about 50 miles west of Tripoli, targeted senior Tunisian operative Noureddine Chouchane who is linked to two major terrorist attacks in Tunisia last […]
MONTCHEVREL — Hidden in the hills of the Orne department, in Normandy, is the village of Montchevrel, population 230, with its church, garage and, surprisingly enough, nightclub. On this Saturday night, the parking lot of the Tempo Club is full and the bouncer is welcoming: even the the people in T-shirts and sneakers, and the […]
While most people around the world consume news and information from TV, radio and the Internet, a centuries-old tradition that has mostly died out is still being practiced in one Afghan province where literacy rates are poor. Meet Bamyan’s town c
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Pouring Wine — Video Quote Of The Day
It is not the first time Lech Walesa, Poland’s revered first president of the post-Communist era, has been accused of being a spy for the old regime, having been cleared by a court in 2000. But new accusations yesterday that the now 72-year-old was a paid informant for the Communist authorities in the 1970s, before […]
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Seven Skirts
The fishermen“s wives of yore used to wear seven colorful petticoats; some say to represent the seven waves in a set, others say to keep warm while awaiting their husbands’ return. In the late 1950s, these women working at Nazaré“s seafood market already considered it folklore, as they found it doubtlessly easier to carry their […]
From the Middle East to Europe and the United States to Asia, from geopolitics to economics, the world has fallen into widespread chaos. But there is cause for hope.
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February 19
The public is welcome at Germany’s “Big Cat Sanctuary,” a place of last resort for animals once in the grips of illegal circuses and mob traffickers.
Spanish newspapers are digging into a spiraling investigation of alleged money laundering in Spain by a state-run Chinese bank that is world’s largest financial institutional. “The Chinese Bank Is A Tool For Extracting Millions From Spain,” reads Thursday’s front page of Spanish daily ABC. More than 100 Spanish police officers raided the Industrial and Commercial […]
-OpEd- NOTTINGHAM — After recently studying a survey about the shocking number of Chinese students who are moving abroad every year, I couldn’t sleep. In 2015, 30% of the graduates from the five most prestigious Chinese universities —Peking University, Tsinghua University, the University of Science and Technology of China, Fudan University and the University of […]
It’s never been easy to categorize people according to their origins, despite the hand-wringing of nationalist political parties. An American raised in France and married to an Italian explores how and why modern notions of nationality are troubli