WorldcrunchSPOTLIGHT: WORLD IN PIECES, A LONG WEEKEND The long and awful weekend began late Thursday night, local time here in France. At the end of the Bastille Day national celebrations, the southern coastal city of Nice turned into yet another scene of unspeakable horror. It is the same sad plot, different script for a country […]
Technology is bringing us closer to Artificial Intelligence, which will undeniably wreak havoc with employment for millions worldwide. Smart solutions are needed now.
The Advocate — Baton Rouge, July 18, 2016 Another police shooting is shaking the United States two weeks after five officers were killed in Dallas. This time in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Gavin Long, an honorably discharged marine veteran, killed three police officers and wounded another three near the police station. The station has been one […]
This Arlecchino belonged to a band from Bergamo that had made the trip to my native eastern France. Parading in the streets of Montbéliard, this character from the Commedia dell’arte was participating in the folk singing and dancing festival organized by the choir I used to conduct.
Now that two of the world’s five biggest economies – Germany and Britain – are headed by women, and the biggest one of all, the U.S., has a woman front-runner in its presidential election, the glass ceiling in politics can probably be declared broken, and it’s time to consider what kind of change this brings to the world. The overall statistics of female leadership do not look particularly encouraging. There are fewer women heads of government today than there were last year. Not even 5% of government leaders are women. Yet they are winning where it matters: If there were […]
-OpEd- ISTANBUL — Years ago I told myself: “If there is another coup in this country, I will quit this profession…” Last night reminded me of that promise. My conscience, my sense of self, my education… My faith in democracy… They were all saying the same thing. Once again I realized, democracy is the only […]
PARIS — Arnaud Danjean, member of the European Parliament for the French opposition party Les Républicains, spoke to Les Échos about the aftermath of the Nice attack and France’s ongoing fight against terrorism. Les Échos: Every attack evokes a feeling of powerlessness, especially in the wake of one as “low-cost” as the one in Nice, […]
The government of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is enforcing a crackdown of those believed linked to the failed coup attempt that began Friday night. Turkey officials report that some 265 people were killed in the attempted military overthrow of the Erdogan government. Follow the latest updates in real-time on BBC.
NEW YORK — In October 1980, in his first major interview on network television, Donald Trump sat on a couch in his Fifth Avenue apartment discussing the tough decisions he had made as a builder. (“Rona Barrett Looks at Today’s Super Rich” would air the following year.) Then the 34-year-old Trump abruptly turned the casual interview into something more controversial: a lecture on the lack of leadership in the United States. Gas prices were soaring, and inflation was rampant. More than four dozen Americans who had been kidnapped from the U.S. Embassy in Iran were being held hostage while, according […]
NICE — It was a cool atmosphere, the fireworks were impressive, kids tossing pebbles in the water — and the Promenade des Anglais was packed full. Just like every other Bastille Day. I had chosen to spend the evening on the beach around the High-Club, where the Promenade becomes pedestrian. As soon as the show […]
NICE — After Thursday night’s horror come the questions. Along Nice’s Promenade des Anglais, people gather to tell their stories and understand how such a tragedy could have happened. Franck Sana is a postman in Nice, and he was working on July 14th. His wife and children went to the beach in front of the […]
Following attacks in Paris, Brussels, Istanbul, and now Nice, Europe must unite to combat the Islamist terror campaign.
SPOTLIGHT: TOLL RISES IN NICE ATTACK, AS TERROR HITS FRANCE AGAIN Terror struck the French Riviera last night, as revellers and tourists gathered on Nice’s famous Promenade des Anglais to watch the fireworks display on Bastille Day. Around an hour before midnight, a truck drove through frantic crowds for almost two kilometers, killing more than […]
Boasting astounding collections of artists, both Spanish (Velázquez, Goya) and international, (Rubens, Rembrandt …) the Museo del Prado in Madrid is one of the most visited museums in the world. When I went there more than 50 years ago, there was no queue in sight.
NICE — For the third time in 18 months, France has been hit with a major terrorist attack. Scores of people were killed Thursday night in the southern French city of Nice when a 31-year-old Tunisia native drove a truck into crowds of people who had gathered for a July 14 holiday fireworks show. Here […]
BEIJING — China established a policy for increasing university enrollment in 1999 in order to boost the economy and spur employment. By 2002, some 1.45 million students were graduating each year in China. This June, 7.65 million got their college diploma, yet another record high. The growing number of college-educated people is good news for […]
-Analysis- PARIS — Call it the “glorieuse incertitude du sport” — the glorious uncertainty of sports. During the finals of soccer’s just completed 2016 European Championship, Portugal saw its singular star Ronaldo taken out of the game after an injury, but won anyway against a favored host French team that had overcome its eternal nemesis, […]
SPOTLIGHT: Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow It’s been a hairy few days in European politics. In what is being dubbed “CoiffeurGate“, French satirical newspaper Le Canard Enchainé revealed that President Francois Hollande has a full-time hairdresser who earns 9,895 euros a month (over $10,000), about the same salary as a government minister. Bemused French citizens are […]
BUENOS AIRES — An Argentine architect has won his country’s 2016 Sustainable Habitat Prize for his very first project, a self-sustaining country home inspired by Michael Reynolds’s emblematic “earthships.” The winning project, designed by architect Germán Spahr and built near Bariloche, in western Argentina, maximizes insulation, is self-powered, has a vegetable patch and even treats […]
Upon taking this mysterious shot of Yellowstone National Park“s hot springs, my camera’s lens cap fell in the mud. Thankfully it was close enough to retrieve without risking that it might melt into the landscape.
Since the start of Syria’s civil war in 2011, more than 2.7 million Syrians have registered as refugees in neighboring Turkey, making it the largest host country for Syrian asylum seekers. The influx, combined with a rise in terrorist attacks in the country, have become pressing issues in Turkish politics. -OpEd- ISTANBUL — Refugees… They […]
THAME — A small man appears behind us. “Namaste,” he murmurs in a quiet voice. He calls himself “Ang Tshering Sherpa,” before asking, “Do you want some tea?” His house was destroyed by an earthquake last year, and was just renovated, but he still lives with his daughter next door. At 3,820 meters, the gray […]
Dongfang Zaobao, July 13 “The South Sea Islands have been part of China’s territory since ancient times,” Wednesday’s front page of the Chinese daily Dongfang Zaobao reads. “China does not accept the ruling that does not recognize the South China Sea.” The defiant headline comes in response to Tuesday’s decision by a UN tribunal to […]
MOSCOW — Russian long jumper Darya Klishina has publicly thanked the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) for granting her entry into international tournaments, including the upcoming Summer Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro. Following the recent far-reaching doping scandal, which resulted in the disqualificaion of Russia’s entire track and field team, Klishina is the […]
L’Unità, July 13 “Hell amid the olive trees,” reads Wednesday’s front page of Italian daily L’Unità, describing the head-on train crash near the southern city of Bari that killed at least 27 people and injured 50. Two local passenger trains traveling in opposite directions on a single-track railway collided at around 11:30 am Tuesday near […]
I don’t often go for artistic shots, but this lighthouse staircase in the big fishing port of Hvide Sande, in western Denmark, caught my eye.
A road trip and reflections from another New York-based Slovenian on a visit back to the homeland of the once Melanija Knavs, who could be the next American first lady.
SVALBARD — A cave 80 meters under a mountain looks like the entrance to a war bunker. Or a secret weapons factory. It could be the stuff of fiction: We almost expect Darth Vader to emerge from a wall. Or it could be the gate to an underworld that is populated with dwarfs and trolls […]
SPOTLIGHT: WHO RUNS THE WORLD? WOMEN Theresa May is set to take over as Britain’s new Prime Minister to succeed the outgoing David Cameron, bumped from office by the victory of the Brexit referendum. May will become the second woman to lead the UK, following the “Iron Lady” Margaret Thatcher, who controlled British politics during […]
i, July 12 Tuesday’s edition of the British daily the i features new Conservative Party leader Theresa May, with the headline “May Day.” Outgoing Prime Minister David Cameron is expected to present his resignation to the Queen on Wednesday, which will make Theresa May will the UK’s new leader. On Monday, Andrea Leadsom, the final […]
What is rape? The German Bundestag wants to put in place stricter rules. Critics now fear a wave of false reports and problems in court. But the victims’ suffering should not be silenced, again.
ALESSANDRIA — A small portable tool developed in Italy now allows doctors to treat patients with heart conditions in remote areas that don’t have access to medical facilities. A 27-year-old doctor, Alessandro Faragli, and his colleague, Edoardo La Porta, a nephrologist, created the imaging device known as Impedance App. The device measures bio-impedance or how […]
The limestone temples on the island of Malta rank among the world’s oldest religious sites. As with Stonehenge or the Ecuadorian Kalasaya, some of the site’s prehistoric monoliths were astronomically aligned. I aligned this daytime shot with a perfectly blue sky.
From a republic struggling to rid itself from overbearing U.S. influence, then its own political shenanigans, Panama has come of age as a sovereign state.